on administrative reports

As mentioned here before, I seem to be one of the only people who loves writing administrative reports. I actually look forward to my Annual Faculty Report each January, because it seems like such a great way to take stock of the past year and all the things that have happened. In fact, I love it so much that mine always end up being huge, and I’m sure I get cursed by several administrators along the way for submitting such a mammoth report.

And not only are they always huge– I also usually submit them within about 48 hours of the report forms becoming available, partly to get it out of the way, but more just because I really like writing it. In fact, I impatiently await the posting of the form each year, and become annoyed whenever it is delayed. This must sound like a joke, but it’s not.

The same goes for grant proposals and the grant reports after the money is spent. I love those too, and for the same reasons.

The reason this is on my mind is because the next couple of days will be spent finishing off a report for the Provost on the current state and future prospects of research at this university, and I find that I’m having another good time with it. This would be a fun exercise even if it were just being written as a school assignment, but there is also the strong possibility that the recommendations of the report will in fact be implemented. I also have fun at the end by toying with some futuristic scenarios. It might not be quite as interesting to write as Circus Philosophicus was, but I’d be perfectly happy to do this once per semester if asked.

What’s fun about it? Well, oftentimes it doesn’t take much more than a small amount of focus and organization to see what the problems are with a situation and how to fix them. On top of that, we have an unusually smart and approachable Provost, a very comfortable person for whom to write such a document.

This is just the Interim Report; my full report isn’t due until May. This one should be around 50 pages, though it’s going to need some trimming to get it down to that length. Any longer would be a bit of an imposition on all the busy Deans and Associate Provosts who will be reading it.

Too bad it’s an internal document only; otherwise, I’d be happy to post it, because I think it’s a fun read too.