Working Party

[stoutfellow]

Today we had a departmental pot luck, in (slightly premature) celebration of the end of the semester. It also served as a retirement party; two of our faculty - one in math ed, one in statistics - are retiring, as is the department secretary. (This is not the one who has been such a noodge to me; she's the chairman's secretary.) We'd known that the math ed person was retiring for quite a while, but the statistician was a surprise; he announced that he'd be taking early retirement just a few weeks ago. We wished them all well; there were tacos, and brownies, and cheesecake, and a sheet cake.

Our Chair is stepping down, after nine years on the job. He's been a superb Chair, perhaps the best I can remember. W was the only person interested in the job, and so he'll be stepping up as of this summer.

Meanwhile, word has come down about the move to the new Science Building. It won't be ready until, probably, late in 2014 or early in 2015, but apparently we're going to have to vacate our current offices next January. Our new quarters - offices and, perhaps, classrooms as well - will be in a bunch of double-wide trailers.... (The outgoing Chair commented dryly that he's glad he'll be on sabbatical in Spring 2013.)

:grump:

Comments

[mmegaera]

I have to ask. Define "noodge" in this context.

It sounds like a nice party. My sympathies about the trailers.

[stoutfellow]

A noodge (verb or noun) is a little friendlier than a nag. She keeps after me to {clean my office/buy new clothes/get a haircut/hand in forms....}