Personal injury

[Dennis Johnson]

        I believe that generally there really is a significantly more
difficult problem managing time at schools with a graduate program. At
undergraduate schools, like mine, it has not been too difficult to evolve a
policy of tuning for weekend events on Friday. There has to be an
important, prominant piano role for me to come in on Sunday, and the
department has made a policy of no Student or Faculty recitals on Saturday
(presumably a study day- not). The coincidence which made this arrangement
work out for me I do not necessarialy recommend though, because I credit it
to my living 50 miles away and car pooling each day. Ultimately of course,
at curtain time the piano preparation is my responsibility, but I can judge
on Friday how solid I feel about the piano and so far we have had no
problems in 8 years. I probably average about 4-6 Sundays/term.

        I can see that regular weekend graduate recitals would create a
difficult problem. What I recommend is pursuing a policy which must be
drafted by the personnel office limiting hours/week just as they do for all
other staff. The personnel office is there to deal with problems like this,
and the first step is to inform and work with that director. It is much
easier said then done, but if you work extra than take comp time to
compensate. Every other staff member does this. When I tried to make the
case here for more help they made it clear that this was impossible, but
they also did not want me to burn out. I was told to put in 40 hours and go
home. Of course that doesn't solve the real problem, but neither does
burning yourself out for nothing in the end.



Dennis Johnson
St. Olaf College