***** Vol.3 Chap.12 Mayhem at the office *****
When Frank arrived at the office the next day, all the secretaries were watching out for him to come in. Even before he had the chance to open his office door, Mary, the receptionist from the office, had already spotted him and sprinted after him with a stack of phone messages.
“Dr. Abdulcizi, Dr. Abdulcizi!” Mary called after him.
Frank stopped for her to catch up with him.
“Dr. Abdulcizi, I’ve got a bunch of phone messages for you.”
“Well, somebody’s been busy this morning.”
“They are all from Dr. Summer of the Academic Appeals Board. She wanted me to pass on the message for you to call her as soon as you come in.”
“OK, thanks. Any other urgent business?”
“Nope. Here is Dr. Summer’s phone number.”
Mary gave him a whole wad of phone messages and trotted back to the departmental office triumphantly having performed her duties.
Frank trudged back to his office. As he entered, he noticed the blinking red message light on his phone. Shaking his head, he set his briefcase down and lazily sat down in his chair.
Reaching over and pressing the speakerphone button, he entered his personal code for the phone playback. There were three phone messages, one from yesterday and two from this morning.
“Hello, Dr. Abdulcizi? This is Dr. Summer from the Academic Appeals Board. Please call me as soon as possible on extension 3502? Thank you.”
“Hello, Dr. Abdulcizi? This is Dr. Summer again. I guess I missed you yesterday. Please call me this morning? It is urgent. My extension is 3502. Thank you.”
“Hello, Dr. Abdulcizi? This is Dr. Summer. It is crucial for me to talk to you this morning. Please call me as soon as you come in? My extension is 3502…”
He heard a few mumbles as if Dr. Summer was talking to someone else when she was replacing the handset.
He wanted to take care of this ‘crisis’ immediately so that he could get back to his research. He fumbled around the phone messages and located Dr. Summer’s phone number. As he was reaching out to the telephone, the phone rang at the same instant. He had a hunch who that might be.
Annoyed, he let the phone ring four times and picked it up right before the answering machine kicked in.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Abdulcizi? This is Pam from the Dean’s Office.”
“Hi Pam, what can I do for you today?”
“Dean Cherry would like to schedule a meeting with you today.”
“Sure. When is he free?”
“Well, it looks like he has an opening this afternoon at 3:30. If that is not convenient, he could meet with you after hours like 5:30.”
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“Let me check my schedule, Pam.” Frank took his phone scheduler out. “You said today at 3:30 or 5:30?”
“Yup”
“Let me see. At 3:30, I have office hours. I don’t think I want to miss that.”
“No, definitely not. Then how about 5:30?”
Pam was a very efficient secretary at the Dean’s office.
“Looks clear on this end.”
“Great, I will pass this on to Dean Cherry. He will expect you at 5:30 this afternoon.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thank you, bye.”
“Bye.”
Frank put his phone down.
He told himself that he needed a good lullaby this time.
The phone rang again. He picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Abdulcizi?” A strange voice came over the phone.
“Yes?”
“This is Dr. Sabinski from the National Science Foundation.”
“Hello, Dr. Sabinski. This is Frank speaking.”
“I heard your talk at the AMAS Meeting and I was impressed.”
“Thank you. The results were very preliminary and should not be taken for any extrapolation at all.”
“I understand. Your work is very interested to me personally.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, this is exactly the type of research we like to fund at NSF.”
“That is good to hear. Two years ago, I put in a proposal to NSF with the Computer Systems Directorate.”
“Oh?”
“The reviews were excellent, but the reviewers thought this should be funded more appropriately by the National Institute of Health.”
“Well, since then, we recognized the importance of teaming life scientists and engineers together. Hence, we have recently formed a new subdivision in Intelligent Systems funded jointly by Computer Science and Life Science. And we are looking for projects just like yours to showcase our program.”
“That is good to hear.”
“I would like to encourage you to submit a proposal to us.”
“I love to. When is the deadline?”
“The deadline for the next round of funding is due in 3 weeks.”
“That is right around the corner!”
“I know. That is why I am calling you directly to encourage you to apply.”
Frank considered the proposal for a minute. Even though he still had two years of funding left in his NIH grant, he knew better than to turn down an offer like this.
“Dr. Sabinski, I will be delighted to send in a proposal.”
“I thought you would. I’ll be looking forward to receiving your proposal.”
“It will be there.”
“Well, have a good day.”
“Thank you and goodbye.”
That was certainly a welcomed call and reprieve on what had appeared so far to be a very bleak day.
He slowly set the handset back on his desk phone. He savored the moment because not every day that you had people coming to you with money just for the asking. Of course, he still had to ask, but he knew he could now fund Mark’s research for another 3 years. His subconscious mind was already busy writing the proposal in the background.
He felt much happier than five minutes ago.
The phone rang again.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Abdulcizi?” Another strange voice on the phone.
“Yes.”
“This is Dr. Summer.”
Frank’s heart sank.
“Yes, Dr. Summer. I had a bunch of phone calls this morning. Sorry, I did not get back to you right away.”
“That is OK. As you know, I am the chair of the Academic Appeals Board.”
“Yes?”
“We have received a complaint from several students. We would like to meet with you for a preliminary hearing with the committee members assigned to handle your case. Would you be available later this week or early next week?”
“If we can put off till early next week, then that is the best for my schedule.”
“No problem. How about Monday at 9:00am?”
“Let me check.” Frank whipped out his phone scheduler. “Next Monday at 9:00am is no good. I have a Master Student defense at the same time. I am free the week after at the same time?”
“Well, that might work, but I don’t want to wait that long. How about this Friday at 4:00 pm?”
“Let me check. Yes, this Friday at 4:00 is clear.”
“Great. I will email you the details as soon as I can reserve a room.”
“Is there anything that I need to prepare?”
“Not really. This is only a preliminary hearing to determine if there is enough justification for a full hearing.”
“OK.”
“I’ll see you soon. Thank you for your cooperation.”
“Sure, you bet.”
Frank hanged up the phone pondering about his surmise, unsure if he felt happy or sad. On one hand, this could be a joyous day because NSF came to him with an invitation for a proposal. Usually, that means a decent proposal would be funded without question. Yet a hearing by the Academic Appeals Board hearing looming over his head certainly dampened anyone’s spirit.
But even more so, there was this dark cloud hanging over his head. Why did JB deliberately miss his lectures and refuse to talk to him now?
In the past, he knew he had a good rapport with the students. Who would complain so loudly about the missed lectures? He could not make sense out of the situation. He shook his head and tried to put the day behind him.