06-FEB-B-3
RE-ENTRY
FROM
AS I WAS IN
THE AIR;
REFUSED
PERMISSION TO TAKE WRITTEN COMPS
AND RE-SCHEDULING ALL ELSE,
AN APPEAL IS
MADE TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL DEAN AND I AM BACK ON PLAN,
WITH A
PRESSURIZED MAKE-UP AND WORK-FORWARD SCHEDULE FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS
February 16, 2006
It was not
easy. But nothing ever seems to be as
straight forward as it should be. I
returned in a welter of activities from the ELDP which had submitted the
requests for Comps at 9:00AM as I was in the air on return from
I had made an appointment to see Andrea Casey who was the one instructor who had given me the surprise Incompletes on two courses, one from summer of last year on a Pre-Dissertation writing course that was simply “Pass/No Pass” non-credit and the second being Organizational Learning, for which my paper was said to be unresponsive to the assignment since it leaned on experience and did not have every phrase within it taken from a literature source that was cited. I was planning on working on the Comps Team reviews and also getting the past due assignments done and the next Months’ “deliverables” in before the next week, since I will be gone in the March session as I am in Rwanda.
The “Incs” had been sent to the gwu.edu
account I never look at, and so they surprised me as I was heading out to
Mindanao and there was no revision possible in them since it was not just a revision
but a new paper using the library resources instead of my life-world as the
basis of the papers not only this one but the one forthcoming as a
pre-dissertation proposal. So, there was
no way I could do any revising from Mindanao, and then I was off to the pre-planned
meeting in
I got an email upon my return which announced from the ELDP secretary, Nancy McGuire, that I was knocked out of Written Comps on April 8, which would be a day after the Oral Comps which I could still take, and a week after the in-residence cram course my Comp Team and I will be having all the first week of April in Ashburn. This would mean I could take the Written Comps in July (when they would conflict with other scheduled events) or in December (when it will be so far away from the week-long cram session that I would have to do it all over again) or that I might be able to plead for a special session if I could show extenuating circumstances (which are unlikely) for a special written exam period as soon as I could erase the Incs. I had a meeting earlier on Wednesday afternoon than planned since Andrea Casey’s other meeting had been canceled, and she had discussed with David Schwandt the Founder and Head of the ELDP Program, and they had come up with a plan: If I simply received a grade of “C” on the Org Learning, I could tolerate that well, since I have all “A’s” otherwise and that will not dip my GPA below “B” average, and I could get a “No Pass” on the non-credit course which I could make up later to receive a pass if I re-did the paper.
I immediately accepted this arrangement and
Andrea called Nancy McGuire the ELDP secretary who had carried the applications
over to Nancy Gilmore the
Andrea suggested she would talk with Dave Schwandt the following day, and then appeal to Nancy Gilmore directly. We then talked about what aspects of the thesis should be focused on and what literature should be cited generously to pretend that all of this was based in some one else’s work and that I never had an original idea in my life, but every thought is derived from some “literature.”
I have
spent a full day at home in Derwood, in the melting snow as the temperature
made it through 65* in a balmy return to the non-winter expanse of snow fields
with crocus shoots coming up through the crusty slush. I had to meet Dr. Kenneth Fisher at Bank of
America to sign over the International Society for Panetics accounts, and as I
was already at Redland, I looked up my special pre-paid package of oil change
benefits and realized one was due, and would expire when I was in
I returned and got the oil change and servicing of the Audi and then came home to neglected Derwood and picked up all the branches that had been pulled down by the heavy snow. I had also tried to update the trophy collection since I have heard that the Tur hide and head are now available from the taxidermist (only eight months late) and I put up the plaques on the trophies already here at Derwood, realizing that I will have three “Gold Medal” SCI award animals to add to the one already supplied with the special trophy plaque of being in the top ten registered trophies in specimens SCI knows well. The wolverine has its Gold Medal Plaque and the Byk Maral is already registered as a Gold Medal but without the plaque as yet, and the Snow Sheep is well up in the record books and then the Tur will be—once I can get it out of the hostaged situation in which it is being held for the collection of still further fees from an already pre-paid hunt which was supposed to be completed in July of last year. So, I had started looking that over with the idea of trying to get a few friends together for the post-Comps celebration at Annapolis May 27 in which I might try to get to the Chesapeake Chapter of the SCI annual fund-raising dinner.
Craig Schaefer will be coming over on Sunday afternoon and I will talk with him about such a plan. He is going to visit his daughter Cindy who had a new baby boy Matthew (like my grandson’s name) at about the time of my birthday in the Philippines, and then will come over after that to show off digital photos—what a great innovation for bragging grandparents!
My neighbors, Fanta
and Tenney Asfaw’s Ethiopian family, have also invited me over
for lunch on Saturday because they would like me to meet a Professor from Addis
Ababa University who is having a sabbatical leave of study here, and perhaps in
the future I might meet up with him in Ethiopia. I had written of this plan when I had
contacted Rick Hodes in getting the information of him for the March program of
the MMHOF in
I have also contacted Joe Aukward
who is probably getting ready for the Sons of St Patrick affairs next month as
well as the Croskery clan men who are rendezvousing for that event in
IMPASSE RESOLUTION!
I HAVE CRANKED THROUGH ONE PAPER’S
REVISION,
AND THE “DEAL” IS ACCEPTED BY THE GRAD
SCHOOL DEAN,
TO KEEP ME ON TRACK FOR BOTH ORAL AND
WRITTEN COMPS—
AND THEN ON TO DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Just now on my voice mail, I received the message from Andrea Casey that she had spoken with Nancy Gilmore, the Graduate School Dean, and had got approval for the “penance” moves she had suggested—that I take a grade of “C” rather than trying to make up the INC in Org Learning and then work hard on the rescue of the new grade of “No Pass” in the HRD 390 Part A from last summer since it will lead into the literature review which is due for the next month’s class. I have just concluded the revision of that paper coerced by tight timelines. This would mean that I might be able to take the written comps along with my Comp Team study groups on April 8 and not have to wait or change summer plans or go through a repeat study plan before the next phase of data gathering for the dissertation proposal beginning with the next several medical missions with students.
So, at a last second reprieve, I am working on a tight timetable, and must meet on Monday with the Phenomenology instructor, Jae Hoon Lim, since my qualitative research method for investigating the effect of an international medical mission will most likely be a phenomenological study. I then meet with Sharon Confessore regarding Mezirow as my theoretic construct, then must do all assignments for March’s absence, and further penance papers for being absent, especially just before the vital Comp’s week. But this is the best resolution if I can stay awake through much of the readings still to be done, and I will get fortified with caffeine to pull it off. If grit is what it will take to make a stables and horse training school a success, then that same difficult process and further groveling will be necessary---and I hope sufficient—to keep this “terminal degree” program on track!