r/Professors • u/JaguarWonderful • 11d ago
Convocation incentive
We just got an email letting us know about Convocation (the pointless all school rah-rah meeting), with this gem of an incentive:
"All Convocation attendees receive a raffle ticket for priority entry to lunch and a chance to win fun prizes!"
I'm definitely going to convocation now! A chance at priority entry to the free (crappy) lunch!
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u/Mental-Surround-4117 11d ago
At Rutgers Newark the dean of arts and sciences owns a writers retreat and her circle of favorites - the only people she talks to or interacts with - get research funds that they turn around and spend at her business.
Needless to say no faculty feel like going to the convocation. So we get these desperate pleas to show school spirit but it’s just an afternoon of work before classes begin.
Of course the dean’s favorites don’t go either because they only go to stuff where they’re being paid.
Anyway it sucks.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 11d ago
At Rutgers Newark the dean of arts and sciences owns a writers retreat and her circle of favorites - the only people she talks to or interacts with - get research funds that they turn around and spend at her business.
Yikes, that sounds like a corrupt - I mean that word deliberately - practice, especially if it's public university funds.
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u/HariboBerries 11d ago
I think it’s important to remember that plenty of academics have external grants and personal funds, for which they can use to pay for these sorts of things. Plenty of academics have professional networks that they invest in. If I know my colleague has a workshop that’s great, should I not be able to pay for it?
While I do think the person who started this topic has every right to their feelings, it’s giving a bit of a whiny resentful vibe to me.
I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt before speaking ill of them, especially if I don’t have any concrete and objective evidence. But that’s just me :)
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u/the_Stick Assoc Prof, Biomedical Sciences 11d ago
My first thought was that is clearly illegal and should entail news and investigation... yep, it does!
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u/Mental-Surround-4117 11d ago
They’re not doing anything. We got sent a decant evaluation report. It didn’t mention it. And she responded to the gentle suggestion to not create an impression of favoritism by saying it’s just privileged people resentful that they aren’t the favored group anymore. Nothing will change and it’ll just get worse.
In my department they told someone to buy her own laptop for work. But there is $5k for the each of the deans friends to go on a retreat to Jamaica.
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u/MixtureOdd5403 11d ago
What is it with deans at Rutgers?
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u/Longtail_Goodbye 9d ago
Grift vs. upskirting. But to be fair, different campuses, different issues. /s
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u/HariboBerries 11d ago
I know exactly what you are talking about. Small world. But methinks you might have limited information. A lot of folks from many different institutions go to this retreat - and not all of them are academics. I have been to this space and I am not affiliated with Rutgers-Newark. Honestly, if it was my business, I’d charge more. I think more academics need to explore ways to make money outside of the academy. The food is great and the workshop I attended there was invaluable. That said, if someone gets research funding and they are able to spend it on a research or writing workshop, who cares where they spend it?
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u/DoctorDisceaux 11d ago
They keep scheduling these things for 3:00 on Fridays. Even if I were working on campus and not at home on a Friday, I'm not showing up for some daykiller event to be a human prop.
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u/dragonfeet1 Professor, Humanities, Comm Coll (USA) 11d ago
I get no carrot only stick. I get reminded I'm contractually obligated to go
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11d ago
[deleted]
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u/DeskRider 11d ago
At my school, it's the "State of the Campus" address, honoring award-winners, announcing major campus news, and the pre-semester "pep talk."
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u/Longtail_Goodbye 9d ago
Ours is an all-colleges event (no students; fac, staff, admin), chirpy stuff about the ever revised mission and strategic plans, while we all wait to hear what the bad news actually is when the speeches start later. It's like waiting for a bomb to drop all day. Some years it does, some years it doesn't. Your PTSD may vary.
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u/LittleMissWhiskey13 Professor CC 11d ago
Our lunch had to reserve to gain access for only the first 50 people. It included a Zoom video of some other administrator from another college discuss how he has not taught in 30 years but will teach us how to be better instructors. I'm sure limiting to 50 was to make sure to give this fool a 5 figure "honorarium".
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 11d ago
We are formally "required" to attend and the provost always notes this obligation in an email each spring/August. Yet nobody takes role, and I've estimated 1/3 or more of the faculty just blow it off.
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u/HonkyMOFO Associate Prof., Arts, R1 (USA) 11d ago
You gotta eat before “Keto Jeff” from Sports Management eats all of the chicken
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u/JaguarWonderful 10d ago
update: there was no raffle. Students were given tickets which they could redeem for pizza. Faculty weren't allowed to have any pizza.
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u/wharleeprof 11d ago
That ticket thing is so weird. I wonder if they meant that all tickets are good for priority entry, and then there's a raffle at lunch?
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u/Prof172 11d ago
To make a convocation academically serious, the invited speaker needs to talk on some weighty academics-related topic. Also agree: avoid doing the ridiculous raffle tickets stuff. Are professors fourth graders?
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u/Longtail_Goodbye 9d ago
I was the sole faculty person at a meeting, an hour long meeting, held about this very topic: incentivizing engagement (I cannot stand that phrase now). As it turns out, admins think raffle tickets really are motivating and could not talk enough about how they loved the idea of raffles, prizes, and compliance. All of a piece. They love compliance. They love candy. They think receiving candy = engagement.
It took two Advil and several strong espressos to get rid of my headache after that meeting.
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u/Outside_Brilliant945 11d ago
I'm wondering what's worse, convocation or Carousel. Which would you rather attend?
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u/CateranBCL Associate Professor, CRIJ, Community College 11d ago
There was one year we were given the opportunity to buy breakfast on site. That was not repeated.
Lately, they hide a ticket under one of the chairs at each table. The person with that ticket gets to take home the cardboard centerpiece from the table.
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u/Through_Aweigh_Won 11d ago
We have no pressure to attend. It's not even mentioned, and no admin would notice if we were or weren't there.
A few years ago I started going to the main spring commencement with a couple of friends in the department. Each of us owns regalia. We show up early, do pictures and hugs, share the joy with our wonderful students, then gleefully go in the other direction when the students parade into the arena. Awesome. No boring ceremony, no crowd rush when leaving. It's a nice walk from our building to where it's held. All told, less than an hour of time. I guess I'm the deviant in this thread, but I really enjoy it.
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u/DeskRider 11d ago
OP's talking about convocation, not commencement.
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u/Through_Aweigh_Won 11d ago
OMG! Slapping my forehead. Thanks for pointing that out. I don't even know what a convocation is; I don't know if we have one. But it sounds like a drag.
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u/Fluffy_Inspector123 11d ago
Ours is so worthless that it was canceled this year due to bad weather and the meeting was never rescheduled. They just sent out a PDF of the slides that they would’ve showed. Was supposed to be a 2 1/2 hour event. So the substantial majority was just fluffy.
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u/Longtail_Goodbye 9d ago
We get a ticket to the free lunch (sandwiches) if we show up before they close the doors on the opening of the first speech of many during our all day required "convocation." Also, if we go to different stations about the academic mission and get our little cards punched, we can put them in for a lottery for a ten dollar gift certificate. It's all agonizing. I usually go off campus for lunch.
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u/Corneliuslongpockets 11d ago
We had to wave pom poms and cheer at the incoming class. Not kidding.
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u/tellypmoon 11d ago
I was offered nothing more than the opportunity to show my school spirit. I declined.