Too Much Damn Trouble

Once upon a time at my college the campus bookstore would alert faculty that texts they had ordered for an upcoming semester were either out of print or in a new edition, but that got to be too much damn trouble, so now the faculty have to contact the publisher of each text ordered to confirm that the text will indeed be available for the semester requested.

Once upon a time at my college the media office would take orders for films to be shown and air them over closed circuit television at the appropriate time on the appropriate date, but that got to be too much damn trouble, so now the faculty have to pick up the films from the library, locate and reserve video equipment, and show the films themselves.

Once upon a time at my college, the Registrars Office would send notification of student withdrawals from class to the relevant instructor via campus mail, but that got to be too much damn trouble, so now the faculty have to look up the classes on-line every few days to see who, if anyone, has dropped the class.

Once upon a time at my college, the department secretary would take gradebooks at the end of the semester, Xerox them for the instructors, and turn the originals into the Evening Programs office, but that got to be too much damn trouble, and now the faculty turn the gradebooks into Evening Programs themselves, and are not given Xeroxes for their records.

Once upon a time at my college at the end of each semester the Registrars Office received grade assignments from faculty and eventually sent letters to each student reporting the grades that he or she had earned, but that got to be too much damn trouble, so now faculty post grades on-line, and students are supposed to find out their final averages by logging onto their student accounts. Now, students often don't know what their grades are because they don't know how to log onto a computer, or because they still think that a hard copy printout will be sent to them.

Once upon a time at my college faculty were evaluated by students (anonymously) and administrators were evaluated by faculty (non-anonymously) at least once a year, but that got to be too much damn trouble, so now faculty are still evaluated by students annually, but administrators have not been evaluated by faculty in years.

Once upon a time at my college, a new semester began with class rolls issued at the beginning of the semester and updated once a week for the first three or four weeks, but that got to be too much damn trouble, so now faculty are expected to print class rolls daily off the Internet the first several weeks of class.

Once upon a time at my college the Distance Learning office took care of all the needs of the Distance Learning faculty, but that got to be too much damn trouble so now the local division offices and even non-Distance learning faculty are expected to do thing that Distance Learning did in the past.

Once upon a time at my college students who had been dropped from enrollment were certified to return to class with formal written documentation, but that got to be too much damn trouble, so now faculty either have to intuit that a student has been re-enrolled in the course being taught, or check the on-line class rolls every day for every class.

It's nice that things have gotten so simplified.