During one of our new-faculty orientation sessions it was stressed that our three primary duties here are Teaching, Research, and Service.  At the moment (and for the foreseeable future) my research prospects are rather grim.  I suppose not much can be expected on the faculty end when, over one month into the semester, the student lab facilities have only been barely cobbled together, though I admit I expected more.  Teaching is keeping me plenty busy, but I decided I ought to start to doing more to account for my time and presence here.  So a couple of weeks ago I joined the Bus Transportation Advisory Committee.  Since I am a daily rider, the bus service is something of concern to me, as it is to many of my colleagues and most of my students.  This experience is serving well as my painful introduction to bureaucracy in action, and I am beginning to understand why Che left the comforts of post-revolution Cuba for the Congo.  It is harder to make the trains run on time!

With the move to the new campus, the university had to figure out some way to transport all the students, faculty, and staff out to the middle of the desert.  This is no simple feat, and one that still requires much refinement.  Of course the whole thing was handed off to some private contractor.  The most disturbing thing I have learned is that the drivers, the people we are entrusting with our lives twice daily, are paid less than the custodians on campus.  Rate of pay is outside the scope of our committee, and indeed it seems outside the scope of anyone in the university now, thanks to contractual provisions previously agreed upon.  One accomplishment that I am proud of has been the removal of all jump seats (which fold down into the aisle) from the buses.  These were a huge safety issue, especially on the smaller transports.  They only added a maximum of 5 additional riders, but ultimately packed people in like sardines and eliminated anything resembling an exit on the bus.  Anyway, we addressed and fixed that problem.

In related news, I was in the student newspaper today:

A concern of Brandon Canfield, a member of the newly established bus transportation advisory committee in charge of addressing rising concerns such as passenger safety, route adjustments and schedules, is that AUC plays no role in hiring bus drivers.

‘Currently, the committee is drafting a revised procedural requirement that all drivers must abide by,’ he said. ‘However, it is unclear how this will be enforced and what, if any, penalties drivers may face for failing to comply.’

The committee has fielded a number of complaints about bus drivers speeding and making dangerous passes on the road.

This is what I make the papers for now?  I am getting too old.