Friday = Meeting day

There seems to be something universal about Fridays and the academe. Meetings inadvertently happen on Fridays. While as seen in the picture many people have negative opinions, I have a very positive relationship with Fridays, because my Friday meeting tradition started in a wonderful way at Portland State University. PSU was my first employer when I came to the US. I taught and at some points was in charge of 2nd year German. The person in charge of 1st year I had very different ideas than I did. But rather than complain about each other and get into big arguments, he suggested a civil way of conflict resolution: Friday lunches. A very wise recommendation. So, every Friday we had lunch together and came prepared with articles and data to support our opinion and convince the other person of the ultimate wrongness of their opinions. Of course we were both a little right and a little wrong and mostly just very different. Over the course of our three years together, we compromised and came out more informed. I blame Friday lunches for getting into SLA and for getting into CALL (I used to be the one opposed to technology and my colleague first pushed me over the edge and then pulled me closer). I am very grateful for all that he has done and all that he has taught me over the years. So Friday meetings still has a somewhat good flavor to me.
Today Friday meetings consists of two meetings with students, one committee meeting, and one briefing meeting. The committee I am on is charged with rethinking or revisiting our German undergraduate curriculum. I actually enjoy this kind of process. It is so hard to figure out what students should know and be able to do at the end of being a major or a minor in German or just someone who took up to 400 level courses. And what are the steps in between and how do you get there? What assignments and what structure best support the process of learning the content and developing the skills we identified as program goals? Big questions… I’ll keep you posted.

Two colleagues just walked by and one said to the other: It must be Friday. It's only 11:30 and this is my third meeting. Very fitting to the theme of this entry.