A Department Meeting

Sarah walked to work, just like she did every day. The Women's Studies department was in a beautiful building, a converted Victorian mansion that had been built on the edge of campus nearly a century before.

She walked in through the grand front door. To her left she could see some workmen. They had spread plastic sheeting over the floor and were hard at work, building something. She ignored it and walked upstairs to her office.

Her office was cramped, like most of the offices in the building, but had a window that looked out over the campus. The walls were covered with shelves holding hundreds of books. Papers were piled on her desk.

She sat down and read papers for an hour, then went to the classroom downstairs to teach her class. It was the freshmen intro class, but was still small enough to be held in the department's building.

After lunch in her office, grading papers while she ate, she went downstairs to the meeting room for the department meeting.

The meeting room had a lush carpet and a long, polished wooden table. Sarah chose a seat toward one end and waited as the other faculty and grad students filed in and found their seats. She greeted a few of them, the ones she worked with most closely.

Professor Birnbaum entered the room and walked to the head of the table. She smiled. "Let's get started," she said, and everyone in the room stopped talking and turned their attention to her.

Professor Natalie Birnbaum was the head of the department. She was petite, with flowing, shiny brown hair that she clearly attended to. She was known in the department as someone with a short fuse and a sharp tongue -- the sort of person who usually got her way, and as a result few people were willing to cross her.

"To begin with, I'd like to present the results from the most recent faculty meeting," she began. Decisions in the department were made by the tenured faculty in a separate meeting.

"As some of you know, the Board of Regents recently requested that each college set up a glory hole, and staff it properly. Our department lobbied the College of Liberal Arts to let us handle it, and Ed" -- he was the Dean of the college -- "agreed. You probably saw the workmen building it on your way in this morning. This is a big development and it will lead to better funding and enrollment for us, so it's important we do a good job. Accordingly, everyone on faculty, including graduate students, will be required to sign up for one slot a week. The department secretary will send out a link to the form."

There were a few titters in the room. Sarah looked around, and to her surprise, nobody else was shocked -- whereas, she was livid.

"No!" she said, a bit louder than she meant to. It was almost a shout. Everyone around the table turned and looked at her. "I mean, this can't be right. This isn't ok for a women's studies program! I can't believe we're considering this!"

Natalie spoke coolly. "We're more than considering it, Sarah. We're implementing it now. I'd like to ask that you meet me privately after this meeting. I don't think we should discuss this here."

Sarah slumped back in her seat. Of course, she knew, she shouldn't have said anything in public -- Natalie hated that kind of public dissent. She just couldn't help herself.

She sat in shock while the meeting proceeded. She didn't hear any of the other business of the day.