Archive for Retirement

It’s That Time Again

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , , on October 26, 2025 by telescoper
Photo by Ola Dapo on Pexels.com

It’s Sunday 26th October 2025 and in the early hours of this morning the clocks went back, bidding goodbye to Summer Time. You can tell I’m an oldie because I have quite a lot of time-keeping devices around the house that need to be set by hand. My computer updates itself, of course, but I’m not sure if WordPress does. I’ll find out when I publish this post!

I’ve written before about the silly business of moving the clocks backwards and forwards (e.g. here) so I won’t repeat it all again. I will mention, however, that some time ago, before the Covid-19 Pandemic, the European Parliament approved a directive that would abolish `Daylight Saving Time’.  Unfortunately that plan was ‘paused’ although Spain is apparently going to try to get it going again.  I’ve long felt that the annual ritual of putting the clocks forward in the Spring and back again in the Autumn was a waste of time effort, so I’ll be glad if and when this silly practice is terminated. It would be far better in my view to stick with a single Mean Time throughout the year. I’m disappointed that this hasn’t already happened.

Anyway, talking of time, we have now completed five weeks of teaching in Semester 1 at Maynooth University. Tomorrow (Monday 27th October) is the October Bank Holiday and next week is Study Week so there are no lectures or tutorials. We do, however, have conferring (graduation) ceremonies including one that involves my recently-completed PhD student. Looking at my diary I notice also that I also have an appointment for my flu jab and Covid-19 booster, another sign that I’m an old codger.

Normally Study Break comes halfway through the 12-week teaching term but this year it splits 5-7. It did so last year too, actually. I am not unhappy to have an earlier break as I’m very tired, but I am conscious that this is going to make for a longer run-in to the Christmas holiday. We are supposed to teach up until Friday 19th December, but I don’t have any lectures on that day.

I’m not sure how much studying the students do during Study Week, but it’s not a holiday for academic staff even though there is no undergraduate teaching. Among other things we have examinations to write for the January examination period, which must be checked and printed well in advance. The deadline for these is November 3rd, so I have all week but I am planning to spend next weekend elsewhere so I need to get them done beforehand.

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Happy Retirement, James Hirschfeld!

Posted in mathematics with tags , , on July 22, 2025 by telescoper

I’m indebted to my erstwhile colleague from Sussex days, Dorothy Lamb, for passing on the news that another former colleague from Sussex days, mathematician Professor James Hirschfeld, has finally retired at the age of 84. He formally retired some years ago, but remained in employment as a Tutorial Fellow. He was very popular with students and staff alike.

Prof. James Hirschfeld, picture credit: University of Sussex

James started as a lecturer at Sussex University in 1966, soon after the opening of the University, and remained working there for almost 60 years. I remember him well from both my stints here: from 1985-990 when I was a research student and then postdoc in the Astronomy Centre, and then from 2013 to 2016 when I was Head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, of which the Department of Mathematics was a part. He was an excellent colleague who knew the workings of the University inside out and provided valuable advice on many occasions.

James’s retirement was marked by an event at Sussex University. I’m sure I speak for many present and past colleagues and students in wishing him a long and happy retirement.

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Saving Time Again

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , on October 27, 2024 by telescoper

It’s Sunday 27th October 2024 and in the early hours of this morning the clocks went back, bidding goodbye to Summer Time. You can tell I’m an oldie because I have quite a lot of time-keeping devices around the house that need to be set by hand. My computer updates itself, of course, but I’m not sure if WordPress does. I’ll find out when I publish this post!

I’ve written before about the silly business of moving the clocks backwards and forwards (e.g. here) so I won’t repeat it all again. I will mention, however, that some time ago, before the Covid-19 Pandemic, the European Parliament approved a directive that would abolish `Daylight Saving Time’.  Unfortunately that plan has been ‘paused’ and there’s no sign of it happening for the foreseeable future.  I’ve long felt that the annual ritual of putting the clocks forward in the Spring and back again in the Autumn was a waste of time effort, so I’ll be glad when this silly practice is terminated. It would be far better in my view to stick with a single Mean Time throughout the year. I’m disappointed that this hasn’t already happened.

Anyway, talking of time, we have now completed five weeks of teaching in Semester 1 at Maynooth University. Tomorrow (Monday 28th October) is the October Bank Holiday and next week is Study Week so there are no lectures or tutorials. When I took the train into Dublin on Friday evening I noticed it was much less busy than during term-time. I think most students had already left for the week.

Bank Holiday Weekend Weather..

Normally Study Break comes halfway through the 12-week teaching term but this year it splits 5-7. Since I’m teaching two new modules this term I am not unhappy to have an earlier break to allow me a bit more time for preparation and to catch up on some correcting, but I am conscious that this is going to make for a longer run-in to the Christmas holiday. We are supposed to teach up until Friday 20th December, on which day I do have a lecture scheduled, though I suspect attendance will be low!

I’m not sure how much studying the students do during Study Week, but it’s not a holiday for academic staff even though there is no undergraduate teaching. Among other things we have examinations to write for the January examination period, which must be checked and printed well in advance. The break from teaching will also allow me a bit of time to work on my retirement plans and figure out how much Time I can afford buy with my Savings…

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More Thoughts of Retirement…

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , , on September 16, 2024 by telescoper

Now that I’m back home from campus after work, and have access to this blog once again, I thought I’d share a little ethical question with you.

Less than a year ago, while I was in Barcelona, I posted an item about looking forward to retirement. Here are two paragraphs from that piece:

The fact of the matter is, though, that I can’t afford to retire yet. I have a mortgage to pay and I’ve only had five full years of pensionable service in the Irish system, so won’t get much of a pension. I have the frozen residue of my UK pension, of course, but that is subject to an actuarial reduction if I take the benefit before I’m 65, which is also the standard retirement age for academic staff in Ireland. I can’t be made to retire here until I’m 70, in fact, but I think I’ll be well beyond my best-before date by then and am not keen to overstay my welcome.

So it looks like I’ll have to stay until I’m 65 at the earliest. In fact I won’t be able to collect the State Pension (SPC) until I’m 66, so I’ll probably have to stay another year. That means that when I get back from sabbatical I will have four or five years left until I can retire. I don’t know what I’ll be teaching when I return but I hope I get a chance to teach a few new modules before the end. In particular some cosmology or astrophysics would be particularly nice. All this is predicated on: (a) me living long enough; and (b) Physics at Maynooth not being closed down; neither of these is certain.

Since I posted this I have made a firm decision that I will retire as soon as I’m able, which should be in June 2028. This is partly because I recently had a health scare which, though it is now seemingly resolved, has persuaded me not to take (a) for granted. There are things I’d like to do before I pop my clogs and I won’t be able to do them while still in full-time employment. I’ve done some calculations and should be able to pay off my mortgage early, perhaps even by the end of this year.

Anyway, this led me to the following ethical question, to which different colleagues have had different responses.

A PhD in Ireland typically takes a minimum of 4 years. That means that if I were to take on a new PhD student next academic year (starting in September 2025) then less than three years would pass before I would retire. If a member of staff is less than 4 years from retirement should they decline all PhD supervision requests?

Opinions through the Comments Box please!

PS. My two current students will both have completed well before 2028.

PPS. Another question is who would take over the Open Journal of Astrophysics…

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Thoughts of Retirement

Posted in Barcelona, Biographical, Maynooth, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on November 19, 2023 by telescoper

I’ve been reviewing my situation while here in Barcelona. One of the themes that keeps popping into my head is well expressed by part of a little speech by Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai:

But there are times… when suddenly you realize you’re nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything – or if it made any difference at all, really. Particularly in comparison with other men’s careers. I don’t know whether that kind of thinking’s very healthy, but I must admit I’ve had some thoughts on those lines from time to time.

Healthy or not I’ve also had thoughts along those lines, and sometimes feel I should step aside and create a job opportunity for someone younger. I know my employer wouldn’t mind if I did that either. They’d much prefer replacing me with someone cheaper and more compliant than me. I think if I asked for early retirement they would probably jump at the chance. I’d miss the teaching and the students, of course,

The fact of the matter is though that I can’t afford to retire yet. I have a mortgage to pay and I’ve only had five full years of pensionable service in the Irish system, so won’t get much of a pension. I have the frozen residue of my UK pension, of course, but that is subject to an actuarial reduction if I take the benefit before I’m 65, which is also the standard retirement age for academic staff in Ireland. I can’t be made to retire here until I’m 70, in fact, but I think I’ll be well beyond my best-before date by then and am not keen to overstay my welcome.

So it looks like I’ll have to stay until I’m 65 at the earliest. In fact I won’t be able to collect the State Pension (SPC) until I’m 66, so I’ll probably have to stay another year. That means that when I get back from sabbatical I will have four or five years left until I can retire. I don’t know what I’ll be teaching when I return but I hope I get a chance to teach a few new modules before the end. In particular some cosmology or astrophysics would be particularly nice. All this is predicated on: (a) me living long enough; and (b) Physics at Maynooth not being closed down; neither of these is certain.

When I moved to the Emerald Isle in 2017 I supposed that I would carry on living in Ireland after retiring. Now I’m having some doubts about that. I have been advised by medical experts that my arthritis would be more tolerable in a warmer climate. And there’s the cost of living in Ireland, which is much higher than Spain. I can imagine living here, actually, though I think Barcelona itself might be a bit expensive for a pensioner. Somewhere in the surrounding countryside, or along the coast, might be nice. I’ve got a few years to think about that.

Another thing in my mind is what will happen to the Open Journal of Astrophysics when I retire? I would like some larger organization or community to take it over in the long term. It’s not expensive to run, actually, but someone would have to take over as Managing Editor. Moreover, I don’t think it’s really fair to expect one small University in Ireland to bear the full cost of a global astrophysics journal indefinitely.

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Strategic Plans

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , on September 18, 2022 by telescoper

Maynooth University is in the middle a consultation exercise involving the construction a new Strategic Plan Envisioning Our Future for the period 2023-28. This is something higher education institutions do from time to time, and it usually involves dreaming up ways of spending money they haven’t got on things they don’t need. I’ve seen a few Strategic Plans in my time, but yet to see one that was worth the glossy paper it was expensively printed on. I can’t envision this one being any different,

You could dismiss the current Strategic Plan as merely an irrelevance but it is having a real effect, in that it has completed distracted the University management away from crucial operational matters, such as new appointments and fixing various failing systems. Moreover, it seems very likely, there being little chance of a substantial increase in government funding, that any new “initiatives” arising from the Strategic Plan will be paid for by further plundering already hard-pressed departmental budgets.

The other day I looked up “Strategy” in a dictionary and found

Noun: a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim.

The biggest issue is not the plan of action bit, it’s the articulation of the aim and the interpretation of long-term as being “the next five years”. I know I am excessively old-fashioned but I think a university – especially a publicly funded one – should be aiming to be as good as possible at teaching and research. If we have to have a plan for the next five years, at a bare minimum it should involve increasing the investment in its existing departments and providing better teaching facilities. I don’t see either of those happening at all. We’ve got a new teaching building, but nothing has been done to improve any of the other teaching rooms on campus. It’s very dispiriting for front-line academic staff to appearance such neglect of what should be the core functions of the institution.

Anyway, now that I am no longer Head of Department and free of the requirement to attend pointless meeting after pointless meeting I am going to focus what remains of my energy on teaching and research, even if The Management does not deem these important.

Tomorrow (19th September) is the first week of teaching term for the 2022-23. Though new students don’t officially start until 26th September, some are already here and I have even spoken to them. Although we have had a very rough couple of years, our first-year numbers look healthy, which is a good point to be handing over the reins. I have two new PhD student and one Research Masters student arriving this academic year which should help me with my research plans.

Undergraduate science degrees and PhD degrees in Maynooth are typically of four years’ duration. I’ll be sixty during this academic year and over the last few weeks I have been doing a bit of strategic planning of my own. Although I can’t be made to retire until I’m 70, I think it will be a good time to go when the incoming UG & PG cohort finishes, i.e. four years from now. I love teaching and enjoy my research but there is a point at which one should step aside and make way for someone younger.

Assuming, that is, that: (a) I live that long; (b) I can sell my old house and pay off my mortgage; (c) my USS pension is not worthless by then; (d) I’m not sacked in the meantime for insubordination.

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