anybody else hate bureaucracy?

today i am reminded of the reasons i do not miss being a part of university life. the politics, the competition, and the bureaucratic hoops students (and faculty) jump through in order to survive there are too stressful to take for long. yesterday i received a letter from the university of iowa graduate college reminding me that "a considerable amount of time" has passed since i completed my comprehensive exams, and "reminding me" that the graduate college stipulates a maximum of five years from the completion of comps until a student must finish and defend their PhD. this was surprising to me, as i remembered it being 8 years. i looked through the graduate college manual on academic policies, and cannot find any writing about this 5 year maximum rule. nevertheless, i'll work with it. i email the grad college and point out that i was on an *approved* leave of absence for the entire year of 2006 (broken arm, NICU stay, maternity leave), and questioning whether this year of leave qualifies me to extend my 5 year maximum by one year; thus, giving me the same amount of time other students are given when we take out that year off. i hear back; it does not. i'm still expected to graduate by the end of this year. if i cannot? my adviser must ask our department to petition the grad college to allow me to extend my stay. minor problem: my adviser left UI last year to go to U. of Illinois. hmmm. now, my goal for the past 2 years has been to graduate in december of this year. that's still a dream, but now with a 2nd baby coming i'm hesitant to lay any guarantees on that line. if i do, then none of this will matter. if i don't, i'm worried about the process to extend my student stay.

my 2nd problem is that in the time it has taken me (and many, many other students) to finish my PhD in anthropology, many of the faculty members who have been on my committee have since moved onto other universities. of the 5 people on my doctoral committee, only one is still a current faculty member in our department. youch. i have no idea if this will affect me when it comes time to defend the diss. if it will, i'd like to know now so i can start adding new people to the committee before having to scramble at the last minute to find professors who like my project enough to sign off on it (who have no previous knowledge of the past 5 years of work i've done on it).

sigh. and all this administrative b.s. is keeping me from actually working on the diss., to get it done. this crap makes poopy diapers and sleepless nights seem like a good deal in comparison. i don't even want to consider the publish or perish mentality i'd be facing if i were teaching in a tenure-track position instead of staying home with my babe.