In the Dark

I’ve just finished my presentation about Theoretical Physics at today’s Open Day in Maynooth and now have a short break before the online Question-and-Answer session so I thought I’d use the time to do a quick post.

Yesterday our students got their marks and as a consequence I had quite a few emails from students about their results. Happily the vast majority were absolutely lovely. Here are two excerpts of emails from graduating students (I’ve removed bits to ensure anonymity):

Thanks a million for all your support throughout the 3 years. I enjoyed every minute of this course, largely due to yourself and the other lecturers..

Thank you and everyone in the TP department for everything, I am indebted to you all and am incredibly gratefully for all your support, help and advice.

And another:

I want to express my gratitude to yourself and the rest of the department. I had a great experience in Maynooth and having personable and helpful professors helped a lot.

Such nice comments mean a very great deal, especially since these students – and others too numerous to mention – have been taught remotely for the last three semesters. They’re not just about me, of course; they refer to all the staff in the Department. I’m sure the gratitude expressed goes both ways too. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all our students for putting up with everything that’s been thrown at them over the last year and a half and for being so determined and cooperative.

I really do hope it will be possible to offer congratulations in person to our graduating class at a formal Conferring Ceremony due to take place in September, but that I suppose is dependent on the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccination, and so on. It’s out of my hands.

I’ve said before on this blog that I always feel a curious sense of loss at the end of an academic year. After three or four years in the Department you’re only just starting to get to know students and then suddenly they’re finished. This year in particular it would be very sad if they just disappeared without a proper goodbye. As one of my correspondents said:

I am really looking forward to attending the conferring ceremony. As you said, it’s been far too long since we’ve talked to anyone in the department in person.

Of course this little tinge of sadness is more than made up by the success of these students which is hard won and thoroughly well deserved. I’m very pleased for them all. They now have the opportunity to follow a career of their choice. It must be very exciting for them, as a degree in Theoretical Physics opens a great many doors!

I noticed an article today in the Grauniad about a wave of redundancies about to hit English universities. Among those affected are the University of East London; Goldsmiths; and the University of London and the universities of Liverpool, Leeds, Leicester, Southampton Solent, Brighton. Dundee is also threatening redundancies (Higher Education is a devolved matter in the United Kingdom). There are probably many other institutions planning similar moves.

The University of Sussex, for example, has embarked on an ominous-sounding “Size and Shape” exercise that will probably lead to course and Departmental closures. “Restructuring” is the word being used. The Vice-chancellor of Sussex has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies, triggering a dispute with the Universities and Colleges Union UCU.

As regular readers will know I worked at the University of Sussex until the Summer of 2016 – was it really 5 years ago? – and when I left I was very optimistic about the future for the School of Mathematical & Physical Sciences of which I was Head. I haven’t really kept up with the details of what has been going on there but I’m not sure my optimism was well placed.

In late 2017 after I had started work here in Maynooth I wrote about my reasons for moving to Ireland. One of them was this:

My short exposure to a role in senior management, as Head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex, convinced me that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a system that I felt had lost all sight of what universities are and what they are for.

I haven’t changed my mind.

Anyway the timing of this attack on university staff – during a global pandemic – is rightly described in the Guardian piece as “despicable”. University staff have worked themselves into the ground by putting in countless hours of unpaid overtime to keep teaching going during the time of Coronavirus restrictions and now many of them are to be rewarded with a hefty kick in the teeth.

It’s notable too that these decisions are going to be made before the outcome of the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021) are announced. This makes me doubt that the motivation for these changes has anything to do with academic considerations. It seems much more likely to me that certain university leaders see the pandemic as an excuse to force through change while staff too exhausted to resist, using the opportunity to get rid of expensive courses and/or troublesome departments.

We don’t now whether there will be widespread restructuring of the University system in Ireland but I wouldn’t bet against it. Generations of Irish governments have copied the idiotic English approach to Higher Education. The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins can see what’s coming. In a recent speech he highlighted the threats to academic freedom and breadth of teaching.

Follow @telescoper