some holiday doggerel
with apologies to the many gifted poets on our faculty and staff
who must endure…

•••••••••••••••••••••

An Ode to Joyous Labor

To the staff members who make teaching and learning possible
and care as deeply about it as our faculty

To the associate faculty who transcend the injustices
of California’s college employment system
to inform, inspire, and facilitate in learning spaces of every form

To the full-time faculty who love their work
so much they will skip over this “poem”
to frolic joyfully in their own
passion for teaching and learning
on this “holiday” weekend

To the campus administrators who —
despite their feigned (we hope)
reverence for Program Review —
share the passion for teaching and learning
even as they press for us to try hard
to be the vanguard

And, above all, to our students,
many of whom labor at that which they do not love
to feed that which they do love:
their families, their minds, their futures.