It's déjà vu all over again... I had a bad case of déjà vu this week, as the universities of Manchester, Aberystwyth and Sunderland announced job cuts. I went through this at Reading in 2010 and it was why I left to take up a position at the Open University. More on that in a moment.… Continue reading Redundancy in universities
Exam season – my top tips
Students - How to survive the exam season with your sanity intact...
The travelling academic (2) Being allowed out
Should you go to that conference? What's the real cost? Can you get there from here?? And what's my top conference tip?
Harassment and sexual misconduct: discussing the unthinkable
Issues of power and consent in higher education: as harassment advisor and from the other side
Publishing the book
'There are two sorts of failures,' one said with authority, 'those who never publish their PhD and those who publish it with xxxxxxxxx'. .
The agony of marking
It's that season, yet again. For UK academics, term has ended, and coursework marking has begun. Soon to come: marking dissertations, followed by marking exams. I gave up marking when I moved to The Open University in 2011, as there it's done by the associate lecturers (aka 'tutors'), so all that was left for me… Continue reading The agony of marking
‘Helen and the Mentors’: life in a MOOC
Updated 6 April The last thing I did at The Open University before leaving was to produce a MOOC. I'm so glad I did this, because the challenge of writing around 35,000 words that took advantage of the FutureLearn platform - arranged in 'steps' of 750 words or five minutes or so of audio or… Continue reading ‘Helen and the Mentors’: life in a MOOC
On sleep and nightmares
So, subconscious mind, get used to it: I'm still an academic, but I'm not going back to the Day Job, ever!
Rites of passage (2): cake and flowers
On a beautiful spring day, what better way for a retired academic to spend an afternoon? Off to Milton Keynes, where the campus crocuses were looking particularly lovely, for the School Assembly to include my final official farewell. Today's School Assembly was a new experience for me, one of the features of the restructured Faculty of… Continue reading Rites of passage (2): cake and flowers
Rites of passage (1): lunch and visibility
Yesterday marked a double rite of passage. My first pension payment arrived in my bank account (always a relief to know that this sort of thing works!) and we had lunch with my former department to mark my retirement. Held well away from the office (as in, not in Milton Keynes but in Oxford - distance… Continue reading Rites of passage (1): lunch and visibility
