Archive for Department of Experimental Physics

Boards of Examinations

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on June 10, 2026 by telescoper

Over the last few days we have been having our annual meetings of the Board of Examiners in the Department of Physics at Maynooth. This process began last Friday with a preliminary meeting of those involved in the theoretical side of the Department, continued on Monday with another preliminary meeting for the experimentalists, continued yesterday with a final meeting with both sides of the house and a visit by two External Examiners, and ended this morning with a meeting I couldn’t attend with feedback. This is the first time since the Departments of Theoretical Physics and Experimental Physics merged that we have run the process like this. I think one of the primary purposes of the merger was to streamline the bureaucracy, but it seems to have had the opposite effect, with everything taking much longer. It was ever thus.

Still, at least I got a nice dinner with the Externals.

Since we have reached the end of the academic year, we looked yesterday at the final grades of those students who are completing their studies this year in order to consider the classification of their degrees. Another (pleasant) duty of our Examination Board was to award prizes for the best performance, not just for finalists but for students at every stage, including the first year. These will be announced in due course.

But that’s not quite the end of it – there is an overall University Examination Board that covers all courses in the University to formally bring an end to the examination process. It is not until after all the Boards have done their business that the students get their marks. If all goes to plan, students will receive their final marks onThursday 25th June, a couple of weeks from now.

In previous years this would have been followed by a Consultation Day on which:

Staff will be available in all Departments to discuss results with students. Students are entitled to see their examination scripts if they wish, these will be generally available on this day or at another mutually convenient time.

In its drive to scrap everything that could possibly be useful to students, however, Maynooth University has now ditched the formal Consultation Day. Well, you can’t expect a University running an €11M surplus to put any resources into processes for advising students can you?

If I had my way we would actually give all students their marked examination scripts back as a matter of routine. Obviously examination scripts have to go through a pretty strict quality assurance process involving the whole paraphernalia of examination boards (including External Examiners), so the scripts can’t be given back immediately but once that process is complete there doesn’t seem to me any reason why we shouldn’t give their work, together with any feedback written on it,  back to the students in its entirety. I have heard it argued that under the provisions of the Data Protection Act students have a legal right to see what’s written on the scripts – as that constitutes part of their student record – but I’m not making a legalistic point here. My point is purely educational, based on the benefit to the student’s learning experience, so this is unlikely to be adopted.

So that’s my internal examination duties here at Maynooth done and dusted. In a month or so I have to travel abroad to be an external examiner at another institution.

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A New Department of Physics

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on September 2, 2024 by telescoper

My first official day back at work after a year-long sabbatical coincides with the first official day of a new Department of Physics at Maynooth University:

I knew this was happening, of course, and it should have happened years ago. Having two separate Physics Departments at Maynooth was not just an oddity. It required the relatively small number of academic staff across the Departments to undertake a huge amount of duplication in teaching thereby wasting resources and increasing workloads. Even combined together, the total complement of 15 academic staff means that we’re still a very small Department.

There are, therefore, potential benefits in this merger but they will take time to accrue. At the moment it only exists on paper, and staff in the two ex-Departments will have to work out what to do next in terms of coordinating teaching and research. In my opinion this all should have been planned and agreed before going ahead, but here we are. We just have to make the best of the situation presented to us by The Management.

For the time being the New Department is just the two Old Departments in a single wrapper. We were already located side-by-side in the same building, the Science Building so there are no large-scale relocations of staff, at least not yet. All existing courses remain the same as before, too. That’s just as well, really, as we start teaching in three weeks!

That’s not to say that nothing has changed. The number of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers in the Department of Theoretical Physics has been growing and there was consequently a drastic shortage of office space. My return from sabbatical has involved me being granted an elevated status in the new Department: I’ve been moved upstairs out of the old Theoretical Physics Department to an office in the old Experimental Physics Department.

Here’s a question, though. My contract of employment says that I am employed in the Department of Theoretical Physics. Since that Department no longer exists, do I need a new contract or have I been made redundant?

P.S. I wrote this blog at home before going to the office as this blog remains banned on Maynooth University campus.

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New Term Ahead!

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , on July 28, 2021 by telescoper

I know that there are quite a few people out there who think the summer is one long holiday for academic staff. Well, it may still be July but after my 10 days away that’s the holidays over as far as I’m concerned. Still, ten days’ summer holiday is ten days more holiday than I got last summer.

Next week the Repeat Examination period begins; it lasts from 4th August to 14th August. Once again these examinations are online and once again they have to be supervised by a member of academic staff. I have five paper scheduled and have to be at the screen for all of them. Then there’s the marking, checking, collation and uploading of the marks which must be done by 18th August. After that there’s an Examination Board before the final submission of all the repeat exams by August 23rd.

Incidentally, I was just checking over my Semester 1 repeat examinations and it seems like decades since I taught those modules last Autumn! The pandemic has played havoc with the perception of time!

After the Repeat Examinations are done, I have the unenviable task of preparing teaching for the next academic year. Although I’m stepping down as Head of Department of Theoretical Physics at the end of September I am still in that position until then so that task falls to me. Quite apart from the continuing uncertainty about what the Covid-19 situation will be like at the start of term (20th September), I have to deal with the fact that three out of our six full-time permanent lecturers are not available for next year. One is retiring this summer, one is departing for a position in Germany and another is on sabbatical.

The appointment of a temporary lecturer to provide sabbatical cover is normal, but the two other departures have not been replaced with permanent staff but by two one-year temporary lecturers. None of these new staff will be in post until 1st September but will have to teach a full complement of modules from 20th September onwards. Half our modules will therefore have to be reassigned, which means that the organization of teaching for the new academic year is not just the usual slight rearrangement of the previous year’s assignments but a major overhaul.

Losing two of our permanent staff to be replaced by temporary staff will of course have a negative impact on our research but that doesn’t seem to be important.

On top of al this the University is pressing ahead with a complete reorganization in the form of a merger of the Departments of Theoretical Physics and Experimental Physics which it intends to force through by 1st October 2021…

While glad that we may at last be emerging from the pandemic I’m dreading the next two months, not only because of the huge amount that has to be done by the end of September, but also because I think that period is going to set the scene for the longer-term future. I know I’m not the only academic who fears the massively increased workload dumped on us during the pandemic is going to become, to use a hackneyed phrase, “the new normal”.

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