Walking back to the reception area and passing the still smiling receptionist busy on the phone, Marvin led Dan to the double swinging doors marked “To Classrooms” directly ahead of them. He opened the door to the right as a few students still poured through the one on the left, and held it open for Dan to follow. He then moved to his left down a corridor to what appeared to be a corner office to the left of the hallway and opened the door to a conference room. It was not what he had expected. In addition to needing of a new coat of paint, the room, while large, was quite unattractive and sported a collection of folding chairs around a long, worn wooden table. Sitting around the table were a dozen people chatting, scribbling on papers or reading paperback books while eating their lunch mostly out of brown paper bags or plastic containers.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” Marvin intoned cheerfully. “I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to your new Academic Dean, Dr. Dan Amor. He is starting with us today and will be back next Tuesday or Wednesday after visiting our flagship school for an orientation.”
“Hello everyone,” Dan said, looking around the room and smiling. Most of the faculty members smiled or nodded back at him, with a tentative “hi”, “hello” or “good afternoon.” Some simply looked at him blankly, neither smiling nor scowling—seemingly wary, weary or just uninterested.
Marvin then told the group a bit about Dan’s background and how pleased he was to have him on board, and proceeded to go around the room introducing each teacher by name and telling Dan in general the subject areas they taught.
When Marvin had introduced everyone, including Jaime, the lab tech who Marvin said would be able to assist Dan with anything he needed, Dan very briefly addressed the group.
“First, I apologize for interrupting your lunch break, but I am very pleased for the opportunity to meet with all of you. I want to get to know you and learn how I can best help you to help our students. When I’m settled in next week, I will do my best to meet with each of you as your schedules allow. Meantime, enjoy your lunch and have a good weekend.”
Marvin then said “Yes, have a good weekend. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know one another in the coming weeks.” He then escorted Dan out of the room as the hum of conversation once again began to rise in the room behind them.
“Now let’s go look at your office and then we’ll get you over to Bob to fill out the paperwork” Marvin said, walking Dan through the now nearly empty corridor. They passed through closed and locked labs as well as a few classrooms that remained open, some of which had students at their desks eating lunch or writing in their notebooks during the lunch break.
“Mr. Chang, our janitor, complains that students sometimes don’t clean up after themselves when they eat lunch at their desks, but we need to have some flexibility as there is no other place for students who don’t want to go out for lunch to eat. There’s a small café downstairs you may have noticed, but they have no seating available so many students bring their own lunch or run down and grab a sandwich or a snack and come to the empty classrooms on both floors.” Marvin noted as they passed some students eating at their desks and chatting.
“It sounds fine as long as they make a reasonable effort to tidy up. I’ll look into the issue.” Dan offered. One of the young women sitting at her desk and nibbling at a sandwich looked at him intently as they passed by. She was a remarkably beautiful, petite blonde with shoulder length hair and eyes the color of the sky at midday. She wore a dark blue dress with a design of tiny pink flowers and high heels looking more like a model than a student. She followed Dan with her eyes, regaling him with a broad smile as he passed by the classroom with the usual fishbowl window all along its wall. For some reason, he blushed and looked ahead, but kept her in his peripheral vision. She was simply stunning—almost painfully beautiful--and seemed completely out of place. Next to her sat another young woman, also in her early twenties, with black wavy hair below her shoulders wearing a black and white business suit with a skirt above her knees, a white silk shirt, and a jacket that flared out slightly at her hips accentuating her figure. The second woman was also petite, but shorter than the first, and wearing three-inch high heel shoes. She also momentarily glanced at Dan as he walked by, stopping her conversation with her blonde companion to see what had caught her attention. If Marvin noticed, he said nothing and shepherded Dan to his office one door away from that classroom, fishing in his pocket for a key to open it.
The first thing Dan noticed is that his office, like every classroom and lab, had the same waist high picture window along its entire wall facing the hallway. That made him frown. The second thing he noticed is that the office was small and had no window to the outside. Marvin opened the door and motioned for Dan to enter ahead of him. The room was perhaps ten feet wide by twelve feet long—just big enough for two desks, one slightly more than three feet from the wall to the left, leaving whoever sat there a good view of the corridor to their right through the long window, and the other much smaller, desk immediately across from the door, facing the wall. Three of the four walls had shelving for two tiers of books and there was a four-drawer file cabinet immediately to the left of the main desk. There were two small chairs in front of the main desk and a high-back leather chair behind it and a small secretary’s chair for the smaller desk that faced the wall across from the main desk. The window, Dan noticed, did not have blinds of any kind for privacy. That would have to change.
Marvin pointed to the shelves and said, “You will find on those large folders the lesson plans for the last three years. We need to keep them on file in case of an audit. The file cabinets contain information about your teachers and their credentials to assist you in making up their schedules. We have a new class beginning a week from Monday for which you’ll need to assign coverage from your staff. That will be your first task for next week, but it should not be too difficult as faculty tend to teach the same classes. State Ed. Requires teachers to have certain degrees and coursework in order to teach specific courses. Two of your teachers have business education degrees which are perfect since they can teach almost every course we offer other than the nursing or electronics courses. But most of the traditional courses in math, English, and the like can be taught by any of them. You’ll get a handle on that quickly—it really is not very complicated. And with no tenure, union or seniority issues to worry about, you can assign classes as you like—as long as the State Ed. Requirements for credentialing are met in the relevant courses that require specialized degrees or coursework. You’ll get a handle on that quickly—it really is not very complicated. And with no tenure, union or seniority issues to worry about, you can assign classes as you like—as long as the State Ed. Requirements for credentialing are met in the relevant courses that require specialized degrees or coursework.”
“Will I have access to secretarial support?” Dan asked.
“We don’t have money in the budget for you to have a full-time secretary at this time, but I’ll assign a part-time secretary for you from our secretarial pool, and you can borrow the receptionist any time you need her if you need work done when your secretary is unavailable. She is fully qualified, types at 80 words per minute and knows shorthand if you need to dictate correspondence or reports. We have a couple of student workers who can fill in for the receptionist and also give you additional support as needed too if you need help with filing, typing and the like when your secretary is not available. Just let me know your preference. That’s what the second desk is for” he finished, pointing at the smaller of the two desks. “I can have a Selectric typewriter brought in if you’d like.”
“I will likely do most of my own correspondence. But it would be helpful to have a computer and printer instead of a typewriter on the small desk if possible as I have gotten used to doing my writing on WordStar or WordPerfect and also would like to be able to use spreadsheets and database management programs for record keeping and reports.”
“I have a transportable Compaq computer that I will assign to you. You can use it here or take it home if you like. And I’ll get Jaime to connect a dot matrix printer from our classroom surplus.” Marvin said.
“Thank you, Marvin. That would be great.”
“Fine, now let’s get you over to Bob for that paperwork.” With that, Marvin turned around to head back to Bob’s office, smiling pleasantly with Dan following close behind through the double doors, past the still smiling receptionist on the phone, and past the second door to Bob’s office—the first on the right in the administration wing of the floor.
As soon as Bob noticed Marvin standing at the door or his open office with Dan at his side, he looked up from the pile of papers on his desk and smiled at them, chuckling lightly. “Well, so they caught you, huh? Welcome aboard, Dan!” Dan had liked Bob even from his brief first meeting. He seemed a grounded, genuine straight-shooter with a good sense of humor, and he sensed he would get along very well with the HR Director/Placement Counselor.
“I’ll leave you two to fill out the paperwork,” Marvin said, still smiling. “No need to go back to my office when you’re done here, Dan. Bob will give you the particulars as to your meeting Monday at the Manhattan school and I’ll see you probably Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Check in with me then. Meantime, here’s the key to your office and I’ll have Jaime, your lab technician, set up the Compaq and printer so you’ll be set to go next week. Take care, and have a good weekend.” With that, he offered Dan his hand and walked out, leaving him with Bob, who once again chuckled softly and good naturedly.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡACBYFe0RD8
and then Add to home screen.