• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

She signals me to continue.

"We have made major progress. Teaching how to substantially better manage projects is of tremendous value to any industry."

"Any organization," she agrees.

Encouraged, I charge on. "This know-how is so valuable that I think I will be able to convince companies to send managers to learn it."

I definitely have piqued her interest. "Tell me more," she says.

So I tell her. I tell her about the dilemma of early start and late start, the dilemma that jeopardizes the ability to focus. I tell her about the progress measurement that jeopardizes real progress. Then I tell her about the safety we so generously insert into each step and then so carelessly waste. I talk for almost an hour. She listens. She even asks questions. I'm impressed with her ability to grasp these concepts so quickly.

Then she says, "You talked about the problems. Do you have solutions?"

When she hears my response, her interest takes a nose dive. I'm about to lose it all. Desperately, I say, "I think I can find the answers. And I can bring ten more people to the executive MBA program." It doesn't seem to work.

I try to apply to her business sense. "Their tuition will more than cover my salary," I say as convincingly as I can.

"Professor Silver," she softly says, "ten additional students will not be enough. Tenure is forever, and there is no guarantee that you will be able to pull off such a miracle a second time. That is, if you can pull it off at all."

I try to object. She cuts me off. "What you told me is interesting. We must provide valuable knowledge. I believe that otherwise there is no long-term future for an MBA program. In my opinion, in the business school we don't currently teach much of value. I keep hearing about the first year shock, the shock our graduates get when they leave school and start work, and then find out that almost everything we have taught them simply doesn't apply.

"So you don't have to persuade me that it's important to teach a better way to manage projects. The question is, are you the person to do it?"

"Try me. I'll deliver."

Where I got this confidence from, I don't know. Maybe it came out of my desperation. B.J. probably thinks so as well, because she says, "Such things take much longer. And I have a policy to follow."

"I can do it."

She gives me a long evaluating look. "Are you practical enough? Because if not, how can you develop practical solutions to such problems?"

I'm trying to find something to answer, when she says, "Tell you what. Words are nice, but I need proof. Prove that you are practical by bringing ten more students to the executive MBA program, and I'll extend you another year."

I tried to argue, but it was like talking to the wall. I went out disgusted with the university and with myself. In academia one is supposed to be judged by his ability to teach and his ability to research, not his ability to sell the university to students. I deserve to get tenure. That was the verdict of the professional committees, and now I've become a salesman, and for what?

Chapter 15

We are gathered in a small classroom; Jim, Johnny, Charlene and myself.

It's gray outside, and cold. Not just outside, inside as well. My mind is not on this meeting. It's not anywhere else, either. For the past few days I haven't seen any point in pulling myself together. I just go through the motions. I show up every morning, I teach, I stare at some academic journals, and I go home. I don't even have the heart to break the devastating news to Judith. It's not right, but what's the rush? What can she do about it? Having the satisfaction that she was right all along is small consolation. I know I don't have the right to hide it from her. We'll have to return the Blazer. We'll have to sell the house. Probably we'll have to move. Where to? Doesn't matter. It's gray outside, and cold.

"In my systems layout course," Jim says, explaining the purpose of the meeting, "I started hearing very insightful