New Welsh-speaking colleague

We have been recruiting large numbers of students! And why wouldn't we; ocean sciences are amazing. But all these students also need to be taught. So even though there had been a big round of potential redundancies not too long ago, recently we were allowed to recruit again. The process was frustratingly slow; between getting the ok from higher management that we could recruit, and the first job advert actually appearing, there seemed to have passed hundreds of years.

Then suddenly came the announcement we had recruited our first new lecturer. That was weird! Normally you are informed of the shortlist being made, and then job interviews. None of that happened; the explanation was that the person we had recruited had come through the redeployment scheme.

Then there was the case of the Welsh language lecturer. At some point I heard through the grapevine that indeed, a shortlist had been made. But there had been no announcement at all from school management to say that there were going to be presentations. If you hire someone on a lecturing job, you ask them to deliver a taster lecture! What was going on?

Then with only a few days’ notice, the email finally came. There were two candidates, and they would give their presentations on the next Monday. And I made sure to be there.

The candidates were asked to first deliver brief taster lecture aimed at a second year audience, and then provide a quick overview of innovative teaching methods they would wish to use. When they both were done, we had a brief discussion about whether we thought they were employable, and what we thought the ranking was.

The final decision lay in the hands of the committee assembled for making probably this appointment. But we, the general audience, figured that at least one of them was appointable. So in all likelihood, I will soon have a new colleague. Another person to share the workload with, another person to hang out with at work, and another person to speak Welsh with! What's not to like! I hope we will receive an official email with an update soon…