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Time Passes

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on April 10, 2025 by telescoper

I’ve been feeling very tired this week, probably as an after-effect my flying visit to Cardiff at the weekend. I need to learn to adjust the way I plan such trips in view of the fact that I’m getting on a bit. I tried to pack in a lot of visiting and walking about on Saturday which younger me would have managed fine, but I should have taken it easier. I was worn out when I returned to work on Monday and it has taken me several days to get back to normal. I definitely don’t have the energy I used to have. It’s not so much that I mind getting older, it’s just that I have to learn to accept that I need to be a bit less ambitious when I make plans, especially when that involves travelling. I don’t really understand what makes travelling so tiring, as it mostly involves sitting down, but I’ve always found it so, and it’s getting more and more noticeable as time passes.

Term time is passing too. This morning I gave my last 9am Computational Physics lecture of the Semester. This is only Week 9 of 12 teaching weeks, but lectures finish early for this module because for the last few weeks of term the students are working, in teams, on their projects which form an important part of the module. A week today we take a break for Easter (Good Friday being 18th April this year). There will then be a very welcome week off before we return for the last leg of term and, of course, the examinations followed by the marking thereof.

After this morning’s lecture, on the way back to the Department, I was talking to some students about the forthcoming May examinations. I was a bit taken aback to realize that I did my finals precisely 40 years ago. I went on from my undergraduate degree at Cambridge to a PhD DPhil at Sussex. It took me three years to complete that and become a postdoc. Now there’s only a three-year period between now and my retirement.

This week I had my Developmental Review, the first one I’ve ever had at Maynooth. In other places this is called an Annual Appraisal or some such name. I conducted quite a lot of these when I was at Sussex, and was on the receiving end at Cardiff a few times too, but the Developmental Review scheme has only just been implemented in Maynooth University and in any case I am now just an appraisee (reviewee), not an appraiser (reviewer). The idea of these reviews is that the reviewee agrees some goals in a meeting with the reviewer and in two years’ time we meet again and see how well I have managed. In my experience can be a useful process for people who want to advance their careers by getting promoted. In my case those I have neither the desire nor the possibly to get promoted so it’s all a bit futile. I’ll be retiring in the not-too-distant future anyway. There are one or two things I want to finish before I retire so I wrote them on the form. All staff have to go through the process, so that box is now ticked and I can now move on until my next review (which will definitely be the last!)

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MSc in Theoretical Physics & Mathematics at Maynooth

Posted in Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on March 27, 2025 by telescoper

It is time once again to use the medium of this blog to advertise the fact that the MSc in Theoretical Physics & Mathematics at Maynooth University is open to applications for entry in September.

This postgraduate course is run jointly between the Departments of Physics and Mathematics & Statistics, with each contributing about half the material. The duration is one calendar year (full-time) or two years (part-time) and consists of 90 credits in the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). This is split into 60 credits of taught material (split roughly 50-50 between Theoretical Physics and Mathematics) and a research project of 30 credits, supervised by a member of staff in a relevant area from either Department.

This course is a kind of follow-up to the existing undergraduate BSc Theoretical Physics & Mathematics at Maynooth, also run jointly. We think the postgraduate course will appeal to many of the students on that programme who wish to continue their education to postgraduate level, though applications are very welcome from suitably qualified candidates who did their first degree elsewhere.

Here is the “official” poster:

You can register your interest by scanning the QR code or, if you prefer, following the link here.

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Half-term Time!

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , on March 14, 2025 by telescoper

After a Departmental meeting this afternoon being the last item on the agenda for this week, at last we’ve reached the Mid-Semester Half-Term Study-Week Break. Six weeks down, six weeks to go (not including an extra week off for Easter). This coming Monday is St Patrick’s Day, a national holiday here in Ireland, and the rest of the week is free from lectures, labs and tutorials. I have two batches of computational physics tests and a particle physics assignment to grade, four examination papers to write and a graduation ceremony to attend before we return, so it’s not exactly a holiday. I plan to try to make the most of the time freed up by not having to teach to finishing writing up at least one, and possibly two, papers.

I’m glad of the arrival of this break, as I’ve been running on empty for the last several days, the general sense of fatigue exacerbated by a flare-up of the arthritis in my knees. Doctors say that there’s no reliable evidence that arthritis pain correlates with the weather, but in my case it does seem to come on when the weather changes, especially when it suddenly becomes cold or damp as it has done over the past few days. I’ll be due for another steroid shot soon, which should help, and hopefully the weather will improve over the next few weeks. Possibly. It seems to be a tradition for St Patrick’s Day to take place during inclement weather so, while I plan to go and watch the parade in Maynooth on Monday, I won’t linger outside if it’s cold. I will be taking the whole day off though.

The second half of term should be a bit easier than the first. For one thing, we have another break coming up four weeks after the resumption. Good Friday is on April 18th, so that is a holiday, as is the following week. The second 6 weeks of the Semester is therefore split 4-2 with a week off in between. Moreover, I usually only give lectures in Computational Physics for 9 or 10of the 12 teaching weeks in the Semester, after which the students will be working on the mini-projects which form part of the assessment for this module.

Anyway, it’s time to head home via the shops and buy something to eat while I watch St Pat’s versus Bohemians on the telly box. I haven’t got the energy for anything else!

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Pandemic Memories, Five Years On

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on March 13, 2025 by telescoper

At the start of my Computational Physics lecture at 9am this morning I suddenly remembered that it was the corresponding day five years ago that Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were introduced in Ireland. The date for that was Thursday March 12th 2020, while today is Thursday March 13th 2025, but it was the same stage of of the semester, the Thursday before St Patrick’s Day and the mid-term Study Break.

One thing I remember quite well from that day five years ago was that I told my Computational Physics class to keep an eye on their email during the day as I thought an announcement would be made. When it came – around lunchtime, if memory serves – it was much stricter than I had anticipated: from 6pm that day, all schools, colleges and cultural institutions were to close until 29th March. Few people believed that would be the end of it, and we were right!

I had a computing laboratory session that afternoon, which went ahead, but some students understandably left early as they had to find their way home. The next time I interacted with any students it was online, and remote working carried on for many months, not just the two weeks originally planned. I did not envisage it would last so long. Nor did I imagine how little support teaching staff would receive from management. Indeed, the University saw the opportunity to build up large surpluses during the lockdown, all generated by the huge amount of extra, unacknowledged and unrenumerated, work put in by academics and support staff. That’s all money that should have been spent on the education of students. It was never going to be easy to teach during lockdown, but deliberately withholding resources made it far harder than it had to be.

Among other things, the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions played havoc with my perception of the passage of time and messed with my memory. I remember some things very clearly, such the lecture and lab on the day the restrictions were announced, which seem like they happened a few weeks ago never mind five years. Other things are like ancient history. Several major life events took place during the Covid-19 period period that I find it hard place in chronological order without looking at written records (including this blog).

I am not an expert on such matters but it seems to me that the isolation, disruption of social interaction, and the loss of familiar routines imposed by work are among the things responsible for distorting one’s perception of the passage of time and powers of recall.

It was not just the disruption to routine of course. There was also a genuine fear of becoming infected. From time to time after my last in-person class on March 12th 2020, I wondered if I would ever see those students again. I also made arrangements to write a will. For a time it looked likely that intensive care facilities in Ireland might be overwhelmed so I felt it important to make contingencies of that sort. Fortunately they weren’t needed. As far as I know the Coronavirus never reached me, though I think even those of us who were never infected by Covid-19 were definitely affected by it.

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Universities: Death by Bullshit

Posted in Education, Maynooth, Politics with tags , , , , , , on March 9, 2025 by telescoper

Just time for a quick post to pass on an Editorial by Masud Husain with the title On the responsibilities of intellectuals and the rise of bullshit jobs in universities which appeared in BRAIN magazine (which I buy for the Spot-the-Cell competition). I agree wholeheartedly with the article, which is available free of charge so I recommend you read it in full here, but I thought I’d give you a couple of tasters. The first is:

For some years now, it has become increasingly apparent to me that we are sleepwalking into a disaster. We are losing sight of the academic mission: to think, to enquire, to design and perform new research, to innovate, to teach and communicate our findings for the purpose of societal improvement. There are many reasons why this has occurred over just a quarter of century but a key contributor has been the corporatization of academic institutions.

The second is

To undertake corporatization, universities have borrowed principles that they think work in the private sector. These involve creating layers of administration to run different sectors of our institutions. In the UK, for example, between 1995 and 2019 while spending on university departments roughly doubled, the amount allocated to administration and central services more than quadrupled.

As you probably imagined, the piece borrows some themes from the book Bullshit Jobs (subtitled The Rise of Pointless Work and What We Can Do About It) by anthropologist David Graeber that I wrote about here.

The other day a colleague asked me if what I thought could be done about the underfunding of UK universities and the consequent job losses. I replied to say that I don’t think the problem so much that the universities as a whole are underfunded, but that the core missions of such institutions, by which I mean teaching and research, are. What is happening is that a huge slice of the money coming into universities is dissipated on bullshit jobs in a bloated management superstructure instead of being spent in the departments, which have become entirely subservient to “The Centre”. That is not only the case in the UK, but also here in Maynooth. Hardly a week goes by without some new bullshit job being advertised while our student-staff ratio soars and we academic underlings are starved of the resources we need to do our real jobs properly. It’s very dispiriting that Management continue to get away with this nonsense. If it continues, Ireland will undoubtedly encounter the same structural problems as are currently affecting the UK. I’m sure this is also the state of affairs in many other universities around the world.

It seems obvious to me that when your income falls, among the first things to do is reduce waste. If I were in charge of Higher Education funding my first priority would not be to increase funding but to impose penalties on universities that spend too little on what they’re actually supposed to be doing and too much on bullshit.

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Lecture Recordings Again

Posted in Cardiff, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on March 5, 2025 by telescoper

Long before the pandemic restrictions – was it really five years ago that all that started? – I posted an item about an innovation I encountered when I moved to Sussex in 2013, namely lecture capture facilities which

…allow lecturers to record videos of their own lectures which are then made available for students to view online. This is of course very beneficial for students with special learning requirements, but in the spirit of inclusive teaching I think it’s good that all students can access such material. Some faculty were apparently a little nervous that having recordings of lectures available online would result in falling attendances at lectures, but in fact the evidence indicates precisely the opposite effect. Students find the recorded version adds quite a lot of value to the “live” event by allowing them to clarify things they might not have not noted down clearly.

A few years later, when I did some teaching back in Cardiff, I discovered that lecture recording had become normal practice there too. The main difference was that Sussex had a proper policy on important matters such as who could see the recordings, and what they could be used for, which allayed some staff fears about snooping and the inhibition of academic freedon; the policy at Cardiff had not been fully developed in advance of the rollout of lecture capture, which I think was a big mistake.

Anyway, before the pandemic we didn’t really have any facilities at Maynooth University for recording lectures so it certainly wasn’t normal practice. With the onset of Covid-19 lecture recordings and live streams became the only way to carry out teaching and we lecturers made the best of what we had at home. A couple of years ago, after restrictions were lifted, I posted about a meeting between student representatives and staff in the (then) Department of Theoretical Physics during which students criticized, among other examples of inadequate teaching resources. Part of the reason for this is the drastic shortage of student accommodation which means many students have to commute long distances to campus and have difficulty doing that every day for lectures.

I – and I’m speaking personally here – wish we could offer lecture recordings as routine. Unfortunately, however, and much to my disappointment, Senior Management at Maynooth University has discouraged lecture recording as a matter of policy and has not invested in the technology required to enable it, so it is not practicable anyway.

In my view the benefits of lecture capture far outweigh the disadvantages, and we should incorporate recordings of lectures as part of our standard teaching provision, as a supplement to learning rather than to replace face-to-face sessions. Every student learns in a different way and we should therefore be doing as much as we possibly can to provide a diverse range of teaching resources so that each can find the combination that suits them best. Technology allows us to do this far better now than in the past.

Some really enjoy live in-person lecture sessions, especially the ability to interact with the lecturer and the shared experience with other students, but others don’t like them as much. Others have reasons (such as disability) for not being able to attend in-person lectures, so providing recordings can help them. Others still have difficulty attending all lectures because of a dratic shortage of student accommodation. Why not in any case provide recordings for everyone? That seems to me to be a more inclusive approach.

The problem with lecture capture in Maynooth is that we will need to improve the cameras and recording equipment in the large lecture rooms to make it possible for lectures with a significant mathematical content. The existing setups in teaching rooms do not easily allow the lecturer to record material on a whiteboard or blackboard. In Cardiff, for example, the larger rooms had more than one camera, usually one on the lectern and one on the screen or whiteboard (which has to be placed further away and therefore needs to be of higher resolution). In Maynooth we only have small low-resolution cameras in the teaching rooms. In fact I have far better facilities in my study at home – provided at my own expense – than my employer is prepared to provide on campus.

Anyway, the reason for mentioning all this is that I saw an article today in the University Times (a student newspaper based at Trinity College, Dublin). I can only infer that someone at Trinity has floated the idea of mandatory lecture recordings, because the piece argues against them even with

…established guidelines for their use, re-use, storage, and dissemination, and a ban of their use during industrial action.

I think a properly negotiated agreement with the Trade Union representing staff (e.g. IFUT, of which I am a member) covering these points would allow me to accept mandatory lecture recordings. Worries about covert monitoring or unauthorized dissemination on social media would hopefully be assuaged by such an agreement. A particular issue in the UK, given the current meltdown of its higher education sector, Senior Management may sack lecturers to save money but keep using their recordings. That would be unconscionable, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be tried.

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Term goes on…

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on March 2, 2025 by telescoper

Here we are, about to start the fifth week of the Spring semester at Maynooth University. Teaching isn’t going too badly, but I have come to realize that I have a lot of continuous assessment marking to do – classs tests and mini-projects for Computational Physics and assignments for Particle Physics. The numbers of students involved are 32 in the first case and 23 in the second, but I have to do all the corrections myself. Ho hum. Still, I’m enjoying teaching particle physics again after a gap of 15 years or so so I can’t complain about that.

Last week saw some important achievements by research students. Two students in the Department of Physics – one of them supervised by me – submitted their PhD theses last week. Nominations of examiners have to be approved by Faculty and Academic Council but that should be a formality and we then have the viva voce examinations, so the process is not over yet, but the submission of a thesis is a landmark in itself and is to be celebrated.

Something less worthy of celebration is the ongoing chaos at Maynooth over funding for future research students. You may recall that I posted about the terrible decision by the Management of Maynooth University to scrap the John and Pat Hume Doctoral Scholarships and followed this up with another post suggesting the decision might be reversed and another pointing out that it hadn’t been. The Hume scheme has been paused for a “review”. That review was actually completed in January. It is now March and academic staff have still had no word about the status of the Hume Scholarships. Someone is stalling.

I have received a number of enquiries in recent weeks from prospective students about when applications would open as I’m sure is also the case for several of my colleagues. It has been very depressing to have to reply saying that I have no idea. As far as I know the scheme is suspended indefinitely. It’s now effectively too late for this year anyway, as most prospective students will already have lined up offers elsewhere. Only students not able to secure a place elsewhere will be available to apply if and when the scheme does open.

The timing of this is especially sad for the new Department of Physics. Our final-year Theoretical Physics class sizes are larger than ever but the Maynooth is sending them a very clear signal that it doesn’t want any of them to stay here for their PhDs.

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The University of Edinburgh in Crisis

Posted in Education, Finance with tags , , , , on February 26, 2025 by telescoper

It seems that financial emergencies are spreading around the United Kingdom like a contagion. About a month ago I posted about the crisis at Cardiff University, but now there’s a bombshell about the University of Edinburgh which, according to the Times Higher is planning to make cuts of around £140 million in recurrent expenditure, about 10% of its annual operating budget. This level of cuts is greater than those previously listed at other universities, including Cardiff, the largest of which are measured in tens of millions. The piece goes on to explain that target can’t be reached by voluntary redundancies, which presumably means compulsory redundancies are looming.

I don’t know which particular academic units are under threat, but I’m sure this episode is causing a great deal of stress to a great many people. The only advice I can offer to anyone at Edinburgh worrying about the future is, if they haven’t done so already, to JOIN A UNION!

Talking of which, the University of Edinburgh UCU has pointed out that the University revealed a budget surplus last year and has huge reserves measured in the billions. It accuses managers of manufacturing a crisis in order to cut staff and bring about even more centralisation – thus achieving an even greater level of corporate control over teaching and research activities. The subordination of academia to management is the aim. I don’t doubt that university managers around the world believe that teaching will be largely done by AI anyway which will allow even more lecturing staff to be cut.

I believe that universities need less centralisation not more. The Principal of the University of Edinburgh, Peter Mathieson, is quoted in the Times Higher piece as saying:

We can no longer afford to run duplicative services across the university, often with inconsistent practices which create inefficiencies, increase staff workload and impact our student experience..

This is fair enough, but it is quite wrong to assume that greater centralisation is the solution. In my experience it is “The Centre” that creates inefficiencies, increases staff workload and impacts student experience. That is because it knows far less than Schools and Departments about what is needed to achieve their academic objectives. Universities need a flatter and more responsive structure, not the ever-increasing management bloat that has been imposed on them for decades and which is now causing them to capsize.

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Particle Physics Masterclass at Maynooth

Posted in Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on February 23, 2025 by telescoper

Last week’s announcement about Ireland joining CERN reminded me that I should have advertised the annual Particle Physics Masterclass at Maynooth University long before now, not least because I’m actually teaching particle physics this year. My only excuse is that I’m old and forgetful. Anyway, better late than never; there’s still almost a week until the registration closes.

Since 2012 the Department of Theoretical Physics hosted the International Particle Physics Masterclasses for secondary school students each spring (except for 2020 when it was cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions).  Now the Department of Theoretical Physics is no more, having been incorporated last year into the Department of Physics, but the Particle Physics Masterclasses continue; the next event will be on Tuesday 18 March 2025.

These Masterclasses give secondary school students the opportunity to discover the world of quarks and leptons for themselves, by performing measurements on real data from CERN, meeting active particle physics researchers and linking up with like-minded students from other countries.  We will join thousands of other secondary school students at more than 100 universities and laboratories around Europe and worldwide in a programme stretching over four weeks.

Physics at the most fundamental level – the smallest and most basic building blocks of matter – is an exotic world.  But a few introductory talks and working with data from CERN will give the students insight into the fundamental particles of matter and the forces between them, as well as what went on during the Big Bang.

In the morning the students are introduced to particle physics, experiments and detectors in lectures given by active particle physics researchers.  After an early lunch, they work on their own with data from the ALICE detector at CERN. Afterwards they participate in a video conference with students from other countries and moderators at CERN, where they discuss and compare their results.  For more information on the masterclasses, see the International Masterclasses web site.

You can find more information about the event here and you can register here. Hurry up though as the deadline for registration is the end of this month, i.e. this Friday, February 28th!

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Two Weeks into Term…

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , on February 17, 2025 by telescoper

I thought that this semester would have had an easier start than the last because I am teaching only one new module (and one familiar one) instead of the two new modules I had last semester. Unfortunately I wasn’t very well before the start of this one and have been struggling to recover so this term hasn’t been easy at all and I’ve had a lot to catch up. At least I’ve managed to stay on top of the lectures and lab sessions and everything so far has gone relatively smoothly. I have to admit though that only two weeks in, I already feel extremely tired. I went to bed at 9pm last night and slept straight through to my alarm at 7am. I’m getting old.

Last week we had our Examination Board meeting for Semester 1 in the Department of Physics. I also attended the Examination Board for the Department of Engineering because I was teaching an Engineering Mathematics module last semester. The students in both Departments should receive their provisional examination results this week, although there have been some gremlins in the campus systems which may lead to a delay in the marks being released.

Semester 2 is a bit more complex than Semester 1 because of a number of interruptions for holidays, etc. The first Monday of this term was actually a holiday, but I don’t actually have lectures on Mondays this term so that didn’t matter, nor will Monday 5th May which is also a holiday. I do, however, have a Particle Physics lecture on Fridays so will miss one on because of the national holiday on April 18th for Good Friday and will have to plan accordingly. The following week (Mon-Fri, starting on 21st April) is the Easter Break, and the week from 17th to 21st March is Study Week (starting with the St Patrick’s Day national holiday on Monday 17th). Although the number of teaching weeks is the same as Semester 1, they are spread out over a longer period with two gaps instead of one. One break is coming up about a month from now, and then another a month after that. This schedule is rather kind to those of us Oldies who tire easily!

Although I’ve kept up with the teaching preparation reasonably well, I have let other things slip. In particular, I have a graduate student getting ready to submit their PhD thesis ahead of an imminent deadline. I promised to read it and supply suggestions/corrections which I have yet to. That’s right at the top of my list for this week.

Talking of PhD students, my first ever official PhD student at Maynooth has already already passed his viva voce examination – about a year ago actually – but owing to bureaucratic delays he won’t graduate until this year, at a conferring ceremony in the March study week mentioned above.

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