Outcomes assessment is my new specialty. Whatever is the chore needs doing as per usual. This one is both huge, what with our accrediatation in the balance and all, and it also seems particularly ironic. Assessing outcomes, what the hell do I know of that except to be flabberghasted? My outcomes. Ha. Whatever they've been were not exactly my intention in almost every instance, I can tell you that much. Maybe they were better or worse. I am probably not reliable to both intend and assess. That's got to be a conflict of interest.

Example of my new job: I stop having due dates for assignments at all. (I can just do whatever in the name of assessing it.) Some students turn things in on time. Some students say they will turn things in later and they don't. Some students turn things in when they get around to it. It has always been that way, those three basic categories. So, I take the due dates off, I try that. Nothing changes. Students entirely new to me turn things in every week or not at all or whenever they please. Just like they always did. All those years I wrote down due dates because I was required to do so. Outcomes assessment: I wasted my time on that for two decades. I tell everyone, You might be wasting your time entirely on any number of things. They stare at me, 100+ people with ash Wednesdays on their foreheads. The nun is leaving, they're very nervous already, they recoil from anxious to devout (I understand). Now this. Now even order itself might be nothing within our control to impose much. Students, being humans, might be free to learn or not and fail or not at their discretion more than ours.

Aaron is not here and Jasper sleeps on Aaron's side of the bed....I did intend that but