Two more appointments

I already mentioned we had two rounds of successful applications this year: we could welcome first Martyn and then Claire into the academic staff. And about a week after Claire's interview, another email came in from the head of school: he announced two more appointments! One for top predator ecology, and the other one for top predator conservation. The first concerned a lady I wasn't familiar with, and whose presentation I had not seen, and the other one was another internal candidate! It was one of our researchers, who happened to also have run the Steepest Street in the World race last year. So now he is permanent! I will begin in April, and the lady in May. I look forward to meeting her!

I hope this means staff morale will go up a bit! People were really unhappy with how long it was taking to hire these people. And with the workload. We can now spread some of the tasks over a few more people. Things such as the first year tutorials. In recent years I got groups of about 10; that is so much you don't really get that close tutorial atmosphere you hope for. That hinders the tutorials, but also hinders building up a relationship with these students. It is much harder to provide pastoral care if you have to provide it to too many people. I think the first big practical change I'll notice is when I have to assign the next cohort of third year students to a dissertation supervisor! Watch this space…

A grey reef shark; certainly, a top predator. Picture by NOAA