“Madam, – Your Education Correspondent, Seán Flynn (Home News, December 29th) referred to a message I sent to colleagues in institutes of technology recently. He also quoted Prof Von Prondzynski, who is not from our sector, as saying that holidays in institutes of technology were ‘hard to defend’ …” (more)
[Paddy Healy, Irish Times, 31 December]
“Quicker workloads measure done the better RT @9th_level_irl: 3rd level staff ‘bludgeoned’ on concessions – http://wp.me/pjiT3-5Ro” (twitter)
[Declan Jordan, Twitter, 29 December]
“General perceptions of academics’ workloads are absurdly wrong and, in contrast to the recent media reports, an academic career is no leisurely stroll through the honeypots …” (more)
[William Reville, Irish Times, 2 December]
“Academic workload is a contentious topic at the moment, after the recent Public Accounts Committee grilling of the University Presidents, and their FAS moment. At one stage of this committee hearing, Roisin Shorthall TD requested to know how many hours an academic worked. I think the question of number of hours is over-simplified …” (more)
[Is this going to be on the exam?, 24 October]
“Yesterday I was at a meeting where some of the results of an independent study of our research outcomes was presented. I was told I couldn’t see all the results, but nobody told me I couldn’t talk about the results that I did see. The study was carried out by a Dutch company who specialise in this kind of thing. It is to help NUIM focus on those areas where research output is the highest …” (more)
[Science, society, stuff …, 3 February]
“Yesterday I looked at the recent comments by the Minister for Education, Batt O’Keeffe TD, about academic teaching workloads. In the post I argued that politicians should not make or propose policies that are not backed by proper and credible evidence. In this case, the Minister’s comments were, as he told us, prompted by something he had been told by two ‘high profile’ academics …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 2 February]
“So on Saturday, the Minister for Education announced that he was very worried because two people had told him (possibly over coffee and some nice biscuits) that most academics only work for four hours a week. Now most of the time, with most people, that’d lead to someone looking up what the situation actually is and determining if there was a problem and so no-one would be worried about knee-jerk reactions. Thing is, we’re talking about a Minister for Education who recently decided to abolish the NUI and didn’t tell anyone until the press conference (ignoring the point that abolishing the NUI does not abolish the work they are required to do …)” (more)
[Mark Dennehy, Stochastic Geometry, 1 February]
“Clearly it’s still the hunting season for universities. After last week’s events at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science, we have now had the Minister for Education and Science, Batt O’Keeffe TD, offering his views on academic staff performance: and he’s not impressed at all, he says …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 1 February]
“This week I’m teaching Frankenstein in a lower-level women’s literature course. Among the host of meaty issues, we discuss the ways that Mary Shelley’s novel critiques the male scientist’s obsessive and isolating pursuit of knowledge at the expense of family/romantic/community ties. At the novel’s end, Victor Frankenstein counsels the explorer, Captain Walton, to ‘seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition’. I was musing on this as I read Liz Stockwell’s excellent post yesterday in which she discussed the contrast between the obsessiveness of an absent-minded researcher and the time management skills of a successful multi-tasker …” (more)
[Aeron Haynie, Inside Higher Ed, 30 September]
“I’ve been watching a debate hot up on the THE website in response to an article about academic workloads. The research for the article suggests that academics’ working hours (in the UK, where the study was done) have remained fairly stable over the past few decades, averaging about 55 hours per week. What has changed is the proportion of administrative duties that academics undertake (up now to just over 30% of their workload) …” (more)
[Summa cum laude, 30 September]
“I thought that today I would write about my job. I would, from time to time, get somebody say to me something like ‘Oh, I suppose you are off for summer now?’ Which is a legitimate thing to assume, given that undergraduate students have all gone for the summer. However, I spend only about 20% of my time dealing with undergraduate students. The following is a list of things I do …” (more)
[James McInerney, Science, society, stuff…, 16 July]
