You be the teacher...

My first grade son does a weekly exercise called "You be the teacher", where they're asked to correct spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors.

I wish my students had some practice. Here is an actual e-mail sent by a student to the entire campus today:

Hello school my name is madeup name and i am sending this email out to
tell u about the kwaanza program presented by The black studies institute
it is an event where we do a tribute to kwaanza its Thursday
December 3 at 8pm everyone is welcome to come its a great event it should
be fun. Hope to se you there!!!

No location. No punctuation, the wrong its is used, and see is spelled wrong!

And students wonder why they can't get a job...

Department chair meeting

I don't drink. I bake instead.

Today's department chair meeting resulted in me making two sweet potato pecan pies, fudgy oatmeal bars, and butterscotch haystacks.

Anyone need a snack?

What students experience...

While many of these things are not true at my institution (there are no classes with over 100 students), it does reflect the student experience. So how do we respond?

I'm now named

Today I officially became a "named" professorship. While the Dean read a very nice commendation, I felt like a fake. The donor specifically designated the position as "the XXX specialist in the YYY department," which essentially makes me the *only* qualified recipient. My research is so in the weeds it's not even funny, and I have neither the desire nor time to get it back on track.

So now I'm named AND department chair. How exactly did this happen?