It’s the day earlier than the beginning of a brand new Semester in Maynooth. Final week we completed all due processes referring to the First Semester examinations and the provisional outcomes will probably be uploaded to “The System” subsequent week. They’re provisional at this stage as a result of they’re not set in stone till the ultimate assembly of the Examination Board. Clearly I can’t talk about the outcomes right here. I might remark right here about how clunky the entire course of is, together with a number of downloads of spreadsheets and subsequent uploads someplace else, however I received’t hassle. No one appears to be attention-grabbing in fixing it. Maybe by the point I retire “The System” could have been changed by one thing that doesn’t waste an unlimited quantity of workers time. However I doubt it.
It’s a curiosity of the instructing allocation within the Division of Theoretical Physics that I do first-year and second-year modules (MP110 Mechanics and Particular Relativity and MP201 Vector Calculus & Fourier Collection) in Semester 1 whereas in Semester 2 it’s the third and fourth yr college students who must put up with my ramblings.
The menu for this time period entails MP354 Computational Physics 1, which entails only one hour of lectures per week however two two-hour lab periods. Every pupil attends considered one of these periods, so that they get 3 contact hours per week however I’ve to take care of each periods. Our laptop lab has a small cluster of Linux machines and, this time period, a model new show display which I’m trying ahead to taking part in with. I’m additionally trying ahead to seeing how the notorious ChatGPT copes with the Python coding workout routines I give the scholars to do at school: I’ve solely tried one thus far, with out a lot success. That is the primary module I taught at Maynooth, again in 2018, so this would be the sixth time I’ve performed it.
My different class is MP465 Superior Electromagnetism, which I’m doing for the third time now. It is a customary chalk-and-talk form of module protecting a well-established syllabus, and involving two lectures per week plus a tutorial. Not less than I’m instructing in a classroom relatively than on-line like once I first did this module!
In 2020/21 (through the Pandemic restrictions) I did 5 modules in addition to being Head of Division. Right now two educational workers departures left us severely short-staffed and struggling to ship our programmes. My workload then was unmanageable and I requested to step down. I modified my thoughts when have been finally allowed to recruit two lecturers and noticed out my three-year time period to the tip. I had higher not repeat right here what I consider the deliberate administration selections that left us reeling and had such destructive results on workers morale and on the schooling of scholars within the Division. I simply hope the harm just isn’t irreparable.
Though I’m doing the identical variety of modules as final time period, the variety of contact hours I’ve to do is greater (8 versus 5) due to the labs and the truth that we don’t have tutors for 4th-year modules so lecturers must do the tutorials themselves. 4 modules a yr is a a lot heavier instructing load than a Full Professor at a UK college can be anticipated to hold, however it appears regular in Eire the place the funding for sciences is way lower than satisfactory. The impression on analysis productiveness is apparent and is systemic. There are glorious physicists in Maynooth however they’re given little time or different assets. It’s an enormous waste of potential. That’s one other “System” that wants altering, however I see little urge for food for change of the required kind at institutional stage. It’s all about recruiting an increasing number of college students to be taught with fewer and fewer assets.
The impression of this on workers careers is extreme: instructing masses are so heavy that it’s very troublesome to succeed in the extent of analysis productiveness required for promotion. For myself, although, the subsequent profession step will probably be retirement so I don’t have to fret about promotion. Fortuitously too, I take pleasure in instructing, so I’ll simply get on with it. So I’ll cease writing and get on with getting ready my first week of lectures and lab periods!
