‘I tend to release it to the staff first. And if they are ok with it, I release it to the students.’ I was so casual about it! I didn't expect any problems. I was wrong.
When I didn't expect it anymore, an email came in from a disgruntled colleague. He wasn't happy that there were some colleagues who didn't have their full load of students. And that's not the first time! These are people in the physics corner of the school. Most students are in the biology corner. And I do ask all staff to volunteer for supervising other people’s topics, because some topics are just very popular and we need all hands on deck with these, but the problem with these physics-focussed people is that they would be inclined to volunteer for other physical projects, and these never attract much attention. And then they end up with fewer students than most.
I totally understood his frustration, but I in turn was frustrated that he brought this up after I had already completed the allocation. Sort that out beforehand! And a bit of an email battle ensued through the weekend. It ended with the Head of School inviting me and Dei (as he is the Director of Teaching and Learning) for a chat on Monday. The disgruntled colleague wasn't available as he was teaching.
The outcome was: for this year we leave things as is, but next year I get the power to force everyone to take up their full load of students. So if they don't volunteer for biological projects, I will give them biological projects. I look forward to that! It will be nice to spread the load evenly. And there absolutely are biological projects I would not be comfortable with teaching, so of which I could imagine they wouldn't be either, but there is so much choice that I am sure they will find topics they will actually do quite well on.
First things first; let's first deal with this year. But I do think this is an improvement in the long term!
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