note: I posted this originally Monday morning — but failed to categorize it as a League Update, so you may not have seen it. Sorry about that.
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Today is August 15, the first official day on contract for regular George Fox faculty. This league used to be dominated by regular GF faculty, making August 15 an important inflection point in their ability to concentrate on managing their teams.
But this is no longer the case. This is the first August 15 in EFL history in which no league member is starting work on a regular faculty contract.
Rob is on a faculty contract, I believe — correct me if I’m wrong, Rob — on the theory that librarians are teachers. And he is leading the league. My contract as Civility Project Director officially resumes today, but I couldn’t tell you what kind of contract it is, as I haven’t seen a written version of it lately. I will also have an adjunct faculty contract whenever the paperwork is ready. Rob and I are 1 – 2 atop the EFL at the moment, so I guess you could say GF faculty still dominate the league.
And Jamie is a full-time GF employee, although I don’t think he has a faculty contract, and I don’t know that it starts today.
The Pears this year join the Dragons, Drive, and Alleghenys as teams owned by retired GF faculty. The league ACIT and Seraphim owner is a former GF employee, as of a looong time ago, and a former GF student, as of a looooooooooong time ago. The Kangaroos and Rosebuds are owned by former GF students, a status also shared by the Wolverines, Tornados, and Pears.
The owner of the Alleghenys is an alum of Western Evangelical Seminary, which was absorbed by GF back in the 90’s, making him an official GF alum. He was never a student at GF, but for the purposes of this study (yes, it’s a study, as you’ll see in a moment), we will count him.
Only the Cascades are innocent of any direct entanglement with George Fox University.
The average current GF employee is in third place (1st, 2d, 6th) . The average retired GF employee is in 7th place (3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th). The average GF alum is in 7.17th place (2d, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 11th). The average non-GF-tainted person is in 10th place.
The average owner who is both an alum and a retired employee is in 7.25th place. (3rd, 6th, 9th, 11th).
The average owner who is an alum and a current employee is in 2nd place.
What can we say about this information? Nothing, really. The sample sizes are so small, the standings this year are not a repeat of any other year (probably, I haven’t checked). So it’s statistical garbage-in-garbage-out. But if I were a mere journalist, or commentator on a politically-bent media outlet, I’d probably claim the data demonstrates that the more current your connection is with GF, the better you do in this league.
That’ll be true until the Seraphim and Kangaroos finish 1-2 or 2-1 this season. But then I can just do another fun garbage study.
And Andre, do not despair. According to this GIGO study, all you may need to do to soar into the upper reaches of the EFL is take an on-line class from GFU. You can probably just ignore the last-place Pears owned by a GF alum and three-decade-plus-newly-retired GFU faculty member. His dismal fate is probably just a fluke.