The magic commons fairies

This year, I volunteered to be the faculty member who handles food for our weekly CS Extras series [1]. That means that I am supposed to pick it up at the grocery store [4], set it out in the CS Commons before CS Extras, and clean up after the talk is over.

This semester, each time I’ve gone to clean up after the talk, the food has been picked up and put away.

So, Thank you magic commons fairies!

[1] The CS department has a weekly seminar series that we call Thursday Extras [2] or CS Extras [3]. The seminar series includes a mix of student research talks, external speakers, professional development topics (e.g., thinking about graduate school), and faculty talks (e.g., a draft of a talk we’re giving at a conference, or just a talk about something we’ve been thinking about lately).

[2] Because it usually meets on Thursdays.

[3] Because it doesnt’ always meet on Thursdays.

[4] Dear former empress of the forum basement: Picking up food is one instance in which faculty have very little power. The Dean won’t give us enough to use College Catering. College policy says that we can ask neither staff nor students to pick up food. Hence, if we want food at the CS extras, we have to pick it up [5].

[5] But yes, we are still fortunate to get free food. It is mostly for the students; most of them benefit from a snack after a long day of school.

Version 1.0 of 2018-02-01.