What They Say Isn't What They Really Mean

Today is the last real day of my vacation; I am expected to make an appearance on campus for the rest of the week, although classes do not begin until next Monday. So that I wouldn't find any nasty surprises in my inbox first thing tomorrow, I checked school email from home today. I found this note from the provost's office:

To: All campus faculty and staff
From: Your provost
Date: August 15, 2005 12:03 PM
Subject: Cafeteria

The campus cafeteria will be closed through Monday, August 29, so that workers can complete renovations to the floor. The library cafe will be open. We apologize for this inconvenience, but you will love the wonderful improvements!

This email might sound straightforward, but it is really administrator-speak with an entirely different meaning. You see, every major vacation the cafeteria closes for this very same "renovation." When the grease pit finally reopens, we find the original terra cotta tiles and dirty grout under our feet. I am convinced that the "renovation" is a desperate attempt by the food service company that runs the place to get the cafeteria up to food safety standards and fire codes. The cafeteria must not have passed the reinspection scheduled this past week. So now, on the first day of classes, the only sustenance other than junk food at the bookstore or in vending machines will be the crappy pre-made sandwiches the cafe sells. Welcome back!

I have worked here long enough that I can easily recognize administrator-speak. Let me share another example. My campus is off a busy street lined with apartment complexes. One consequence of the constant ebb and flow of tenants is people dumping unwanted animals. As a result, we have a terrible feral cat problem. All of the soft-hearted faculty feed the potentially rabid felines, attracting even more animals. One day three or four years ago, all of the cats disappeared. Our provost at the time sent out a campus-wide email to explain that the felines had been humanely trapped and driven to a "farm in Apopka" whose owner agreed to "adopt" them all. Some folks who cannot translate administrator-speak might have bought this explanation. Many of us, however, knew that the cats had either been poisoned or shot over the long holiday weekend. This way, the landscape crew could dispose of the bodies when no one was around to see the carnage. New cats arrived, of course. So every now and then the college contacts the generous "farm owner" to "adopt" some more.

Provosts and the like use administrator-speak because faculty can be a complaining bunch. Typically, faculty are willing to invest considerable chunks of time bitching about a problem rather than using that energy to solve the problem.

Case in point, our campus once "got green" and wanted to begin a recycling program. The administration told the tree huggers that recycling wasn't cost effective [while in reality no one wanted the work involved]. When faculty continued to moan and groan about how much the campus needed to reduce waste, an economics professor in cooperation with student volunteers did the research, contacted a waste management company, got recycling bins for glass, plastic, and paper, and then educated the campus about how and where to part with its reusable trash. He made money in the process, which he turned over to the college. After successfully running the program for two years, he got tired of all the work with no glory and stepped down as the program's coordinator. No one else took the reins and the program ended. Because the provost at the time didn't want to hear faculty complaining again about the need to recycle, he sent out a campus-wide email explaining that the campus' current garbage collection service had agreed to "sort the trash" to remove all of the recyclable items. Since the gripers have official notification that recycling occurs, they can't complain. But most of us have never seen the "recycle fairies" plucking out the plastic and glass, wiping them clean of ketchup and Pepsi, from the tons of garbage the campus produces. We know that no "sorting" happens.

On the one hand, I hate that my higher-up colleagues believe I am gullibly swallowing "floor renovations," "the farm in Apopka," and "trash sorting." On the other hand, I know that my fellow faculty feel that they are in battle with the administration and must win what they believe they deserve. Since they feel entitled to clean consciences with no actual work in the animal welfare or recycling arenas, they readily suck up the sugar-coated explanations the administration serves.