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Then I took advantage of being appointed chairperson to systematize our departmental system, which I understood to coexist with other departmental systems, themselves mini-systems wvithin a larger system which embraces all of them, and which is administered by administrators, who in turn, hierarchically and thus systematically, clasp tightly a system called the institution. An institution, however, competes with other institutions, most of them downtown, their systems ordained in the sky, but financed by the legislature. Yes, on this occasion I wielded power widely, and widely distributed tasks and schedules, turn and turn about. Therein I sensed a problem which I first solved in the following way. I had say forty-eight (48) classes to assign among eleven (11) instructors, seven (7) of whom were specialists, they said, and four (4) of whom were generalists, or so they said. I caused fifty-seven (57) of a possible forty-eight (48) classes to be named on choice cards, in triplicate; yet none of them was said, by an average of nine (9) instructors, to be worth anybody's time. Then, the day being blustery, I donned my great coat, the one with thirty-seven (37) pockets, and my trousers, which have four (4) pockets, two (2) lateral and two (2) aft. I labelled eight (8) pockets with instructors' names, thirty (30) with course titles, a system which left three (3) pockets unlabelled and three (3) instructors unmentioned, on labels. But this solution did not satisfy me fully. For it did not escape me that, by an extraordinary hazard, three (3) instructors might not teach next term, and eighteen (18) courses might go untaught. In which case, far from wielding power, I was merely, though systematically, matching eight (8) instructors with thirty-four (34) courses they did not want to teach. This seemed, then, a makeshift, which could not long content someone like me. So I began to look for something else, and started sucking labels, those inscribed with course titles, and those inscribed with instructors' names, in my mouth, one after the other, whether they were on pockets or off. Yes, it seemed to me at first that by so doing I would arrive at a better result. But on further reflection, I had to

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