Saving the college some money

There's not MUCH we can do about the $3 million deficit (and I'm sure you were as charmed as I was to receive the fundraiser form in your campus e-mail), but here's one idea I'll use:

I'm going to stop handing out a printed syllabus and try to minimize other printing. Just for starters, I usually give out a six-page "rules and regulations" at the start of the semester, plus a two-page assignment sheet for every essay. That's at least fourteen pages of copying that the students immediately throw away (usually without looking at it). Multiply that by fifty students and we get 700 pages!

I intend to continue handing out a printed schedule of readings and assignments and put the rest online. Problem solved. For the few who can actually use the Internet for something beyond Facebook, the rules and extended assignment tips are still available. The rest never cared in the first place.

Bonus tip: The college recently changed the homepage setup. Your old homepage was

http://www.ashland.edu/~yourname

Students could never figure out that ~ thing (usually tried to type an "n" or if I said "tilde" they would type the word). The system still accepts that address, but converts it into

http://personal.ashland.edu/yourname/

Maybe a few more will be able to find it now.