When Associate Professor Catherine Roberts became chair of the mathematics and computer science department at the College of the Holy Cross, she never anticipated conducting a year-long quest for the perfect piece of chalk.
"That's right," she wrote in a Chronicle of Higher Education column. "A task that has consumed a surprising amount of my time as department chair has been trying to find the right chalk for our faculty members to use in the classroom. It is definitely not the kind of responsibility I had in mind when I signed on to the job. But my chalk search has resulted in a new understanding of the skills necessary to be a successful department chair—not to mention my acquisition of a slew of facts about the manufacturing and distribution of chalk that I now use to amaze friends and family."
This "Holy Cross in the News" item by Kristine Maloney.
