Greetings everyone, your friendly neighborhood Praetor reporting in. Sera’s a little under the weather and since this report is long overdue I’ve offered to write it for him. There’s a few things going on, and I’m even allowed to tell you what most of them are. If you have questions, let ‘em rip in the comments!

Projects

Audit

We really should be doing these on a proper schedule but between big events and other projects we just never seem able to. So last report Sera wrote that Magistrates were going to get more responsibility. Unfortunately for them that meant running point on the audit with me as their project overlord. But Kadrol and Ciara have been hitting it off, plugging plot-holes and fixing mistakes in our courses, like nobody’s business. This all pretty much happens behind the scenes until someone gets off his lazy butt and starts uploading the changes (me). They have finished almost all of the massive Fundamentals department and will then move on to our even bigger Lore department. To put this into perspective, that’s over 30.000 words that have been checked and rewritten already. Bravo!

Department reshuffle

There are a few departments that are unevenly balanced and others almost entirely under the purview of a DC member even though only a few courses pertain to their office. This is a little confusing and it robs us of wonderful professorships, so the biggest change is that Combat gets to be its own department away from the gaming courses, which have mostly been transplanted into the fundamentals department. We’ll also be reshuffling some courses between departments later on to balance out the workload.

Competitions

Wait, the SA has competitions? Apparently we do, small ones, but we do have them. And there’s another one in the works. Here’s what’s what:

• SA Decathlon - 2019 - So in the past way way way back when I was still a nubbin (yes, last week), there was this idea. The top three exam takers each month would get a shiny. For some reason this fell off the map somewhere and we’ve decided to bring it back. It is mostly geared towards new people as they need to do a few exams anyway to get their promotions, but seasoned members are just as eligible to join in and compete. We’ll be running this each month, so go get them shinies!
• SA Motto - We don’t have one. This is crazy, so it is up to you to come up with one. At least three words, maximum of one sentence. Creativity abound, make it funny, witty, smart, but I think I’m not alone when I say the only DC approved learning institution should definitely have its own kickass motto. If your entry is chosen you might end up being remembered by every student of the SA. Go and enter!
• Coming soon: Something graphics!

Upcoming

Finally I get to talk about -redacted-! It’s been a few months and we’re all incredibly excited for this, but as there’s a few -redacted- involved, we weren’t allowed to say anything. So on -redacted- we will finally be releasing -redacted-. It’s be amazing for you people, finally a -redacted- for the SA. You’ll be able to -redacted- and -redacted-, oh and -redacted-. Oh and the big prize will of course be -redacted-!

Shoot. Guess we’re not allowed to talk about it just yet. Hold yer hats though, next time, you’ll know everything.

Now hiring: Professors

The SA is hiring! We are reshuffling a few things, a few people are leaving, so we will be looking for some new talent. First Sera and I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved with their respective departments for all their hard work.

Now, we are looking for three new Professors to run three departments, namely Legends, Combat, and Writing. All applications in PDF format to both [Log in to view e-mail addresses] and [Log in to view e-mail addresses]. Failure to follow these two simple guidelines gets your application binned. The requirement for all these positions are as follows:

• No min/max rank.
• You must have passed, with no less than an 80%, most if not all of the courses in the Department. Writing has a special requirement of having ‘mastered’ the english language. Reason for this is that you will eventually have to grade and redesign the Test of Wisdom.
• Absolutely no more than a 24-hour grading turnaround time; 12-hour or less is the goal.
• Desire and ability to not only mark exams but keep the courses under you current.

These applications will remain open for two weeks, until April 20th.

Conclusion

The Shadow Academy is an amazing resource, created and administered by some imperfect human beings who strive for perfection. We try our best to catch and fix any and all errors before we release courses, but we're not always successful. Because of that, we will always need your help. If you spot an error, please report it to the SA Staff using this simple form; if it's a major enough error, or you spot enough, you'll be rewarded. With cookies. And an SA team thankful for pointing it out.

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Jax Bendal
Praetor to the Headmaster of the Shadow Academy