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University Challenged

Started by Alberon, March 16, 2020, 10:17:12 PM

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Attila

Quote from: Alberon on September 22, 2020, 07:30:11 PM
No one here can see face to face teaching in non-practicals surviving more than a fortnight.

If I was a lecturer I'd start 'developing' Covid symptoms and begin self-isolating.

Sadly it's been made clear here that we will be face to face unless the government explicitly says 'stop.'

Might have have to pretend, as we've already had students going into isolation. Staff have to fill out a fuckton of forms and prove that we really have the symptoms, &c., as management are convinced we're all just  bunch of scivers. Exhibit A is from last March, when they tried to order everyone to install a work-tracking app on our home computers/laptops, since they are convinced that WFH = just being sat around being lazy.

The fact that for the past 48 hours people have been run ragged trying to carry out the mad initiatives for on campus teaching with software that doesn't work, entire buildings with no HDMI cables, and all sorts of tech issues should be a clue for them, but, nah.

I came to this university because it was a lifeline and a chance at a much better career than I'd had up til then :(

BlodwynPig

University's have been corrupted and gutted in all but the top tier - well they are as corrupt but at least you'll have excess HDMI cables at Oxford.


Puce Moment

My colleague has quite a strong speech impediment AND quite a strong Swedish accent that students get used to eventually (in the 3rd year) but he's really looking forward, indeed relishing, the chance to get in-class to deliver a lecture with a facemask on as he already cannot be understood by just about everone he encounters.

Of course online teaching would solve that, but he is absolutely delighted to record his lectures and upload with the hope they end up on Youtube by some canny screen-capturing software student.

This has tickled me a great deal.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: bgmnts on September 22, 2020, 09:02:44 PM
ahem.

precis.

mock me, but its early onset dementia, so if you're fine with that, laugh away's.

Attila

Quote from: Puce Moment on September 22, 2020, 09:18:40 PM
My colleague has quite a strong speech impediment AND quite a strong Swedish accent that students get used to eventually (in the 3rd year) but he's really looking forward, indeed relishing, the chance to get in-class to deliver a lecture with a facemask on as he already cannot be understood by just about everone he encounters.

Of course online teaching would solve that, but he is absolutely delighted to record his lectures and upload with the hope they end up on Youtube by some canny screen-capturing software student.

This has tickled me a great deal.

Excellent.

My lectures all have to be recorded and close captioned, and CC is doing amazing things to Greek and Latin terms.


Blue Jam


Attila

Ton of emails this morning from students wanting to know if they can simply switch to online, since the PM says we have to work from home as much as possible.

Staff were already reprimanded on Monday for allowing students to dial in rather than attend in person. Students are being told they actually have to have proof of a medical reason why they have to attend exclusively online -- simply being cautious, afraid, or having an utter faff of trying to fit a commute around rando rota scheduling won't cut it.

Reminder from the dean this morning that we have to wear face shields to teach, and we are to collect our face shield from the faculty office -- the good news is, it's ours to keep!


Bleeding Kansas

Look out for a face shield deduction on your next payslip.

Attila

Quote from: Bleeding Kansas on September 23, 2020, 09:24:50 AM
Look out for a face shield deduction on your next payslip.

Cost for them: .001p

Deduction from my wages: £20

Blue Jam

Outbreak at Edinburgh Napier's halls now. Oh goody.

About to cycle to werk, no way I'm getting on a bus for the foreseeable future.

Puce Moment

We now have four confirmed cases in our main building (cavernous and cathedral like compared to the tiny pinch point buildings in the rest of the campus). This is playing out like the most boring, predictable action movie of the 1980s where you can see each beat of the story coming within the first 5mins.

Pre-sessional English language tuition for international students.

LOL

Attila

Email from a student to the programme leader of my programme, paraphrased more or less: 'Hi, my mom lives me in houseing near the campus. Anyway, she's tested positive for covid, should I self-isolate?'

Said student has already been on campus, hanging out with friends, and attending class.

Awesome.

bgmnts

Can't wait til winter, every campus will be like The Thing.

Blue Jam

Wednesday evening. All the sports teams are out and about in big close groups. "Cigs, we're young and fit, we're in no danger..." Expecting Bollock Halls to be cordoned off any minute now.

Camp Tramp

Quote from: Attila on September 23, 2020, 05:40:57 PM
Email from a student to the programme leader of my programme, paraphrased more or less: 'Hi, my mom lives me in houseing near the campus. Anyway, she's tested positive for covid, should I self-isolate?'

Said student has already been on campus, hanging out with friends, and attending class.

Awesome.

American student? I'd be worried that Mom is described like a parasitic entity.

Attila

Quote from: Camp Tramp on September 23, 2020, 09:33:18 PM
American student? I'd be worried that Mom is described like a parasitic entity.

British student -- I'm the American hybrid who still uses colonial vocab over here.

Up early to get a train onto campus this morning, after another wonderfully sleepless night (class at 10am, but the 930 train gets me in too late, the 830 train is full of school kids, and so the one I'm taking at 730 means I get campus around 8 -- and I'm not sure if I can actually get into any of the buildings as I think we're forbidden from being in any building before 9am now. Tipping down with rain, so I'm hoping one of the cleaners will let me in. Only supposed to be on campus for 'essential business' -- i.e. teaching staff only in classrooms at classtimes -- which I'm trying to keep to, but yeah.)

Puce Moment

Our Uni deciding to run the term late this year (decided over a year ago) on the 5 October is making me weep with relief and happiness. Still well over a week until apocalypse happens by which point most other Unis will have stuck enough canaries into the mine for their to be some kind of formal decision.

Attila

Yay -- happy to report that I can ninja into the building from as early as 630 if I want -- it pays to befriend and to be good to the cleaning team (there is generally no one around til about 9, even under normal circs. Handful of the archaeology researchers, but I would swear some of them actually live in the labs.)

Boo -- the train I took is the one the local college kids get; very few of them wearing masks. The guard kept going through the corridors telling people/them to put their masks on, and just got a lot of 'ha ha yeah yeah' back.

Ah, the immortality of youth.

I've now got a 2 1/2 hour 'live' class -- 10 students in the room, 10 dialling in. Trying to keep my laptop alive on Teams for 2 + hours should be fun. Recording, trying to lecture, trying to lead a seminar, all the while monitoring the room, and the dialled in students, trying to keep an eye on the chat in teams.

(People are reporting that the students, on discovering chat, just sit chatting away about everything but classwork; we've recently been sent a Guide to Chat Etiquette, as some of the students have been abusive towards their tutors via chat, thinking we can't see it.)

The Borg cannot come soon enough - I welcome assimilation.

Attila

Quote from: Puce Moment on September 24, 2020, 08:42:17 AM
Our Uni deciding to run the term late this year (decided over a year ago) on the 5 October is making me weep with relief and happiness. Still well over a week until apocalypse happens by which point most other Unis will have stuck enough canaries into the mine for their to be some kind of formal decision.

Friend at home is a librarian at the university I went to/taught at. 200 confirmed covid cases on campus in the past week -- compared to 200 all summer in the actual town itself.
My university here is still taking the hardline that if we have outbreaks, staff will still come onto campus to teach those students who aren't isolating.

Eventually it's going to be me and one other person, while everyone else dials in.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Attila on September 24, 2020, 08:50:57 AM
Yay -- happy to report that I can ninja into the building from as early as 630 if I want -- it pays to befriend and to be good to the cleaning team (there is generally no one around til about 9, even under normal circs. Handful of the archaeology researchers, but I would swear some of them actually live in the labs.)

Boo -- the train I took is the one the local college kids get; very few of them wearing masks. The guard kept going through the corridors telling people/them to put their masks on, and just got a lot of 'ha ha yeah yeah' back.

Ah, the immortality of youth.

I've now got a 2 1/2 hour 'live' class -- 10 students in the room, 10 dialling in. Trying to keep my laptop alive on Teams for 2 + hours should be fun. Recording, trying to lecture, trying to lead a seminar, all the while monitoring the room, and the dialled in students, trying to keep an eye on the chat in teams.

(People are reporting that the students, on discovering chat, just sit chatting away about everything but classwork; we've recently been sent a Guide to Chat Etiquette, as some of the students have been abusive towards their tutors via chat, thinking we can't see it.)

The Borg cannot come soon enough - I welcome assimilation.

Stick this thread up on the screen

Attila

Apparently the dean is surprised that many of us are so tired and demoralised at the moment.

poo

Tempted to try and ditch the permanent lectureship for a 5 year fixed term research-only post. Or drive a van for Tesco.

Puce Moment

Quote from: Attila on September 24, 2020, 08:52:31 AMMy university here is still taking the hardline that if we have outbreaks, staff will still come onto campus to teach those students who aren't isolating.

Mate, it's not the 1800s. Do you even have a UCU branch at your Uni? Are you a member?

Do you have any kind of medical issue that could facilitate an exemption? If you are worried about lying or exaggerating, please console yourself that you would probably be safer at this point joining the marines, and the pay is better.

Attila

Quote from: Puce Moment on September 24, 2020, 09:28:40 AM
Mate, it's not the 1800s. Do you even have a UCU branch at your Uni? Are you a member?

Do you have any kind of medical issue that could facilitate an exemption? If you are worried about lying or exaggerating, please console yourself that you would probably be safer at this point joining the marines, and the pay is better.

Yes -- UCU at this uni, and yes, I'm a member. They had an emergency meeting about all this palaver yesterday.

Nope -- I'm healthy as a fucking ox (at the moment, anyway).

Fuck knows -- maybe they're change their minds when students start having to self-isolate en masse.

Meanwhile, gotta go to class here in half hour or so, so need to prep. 2 1/2 hours, but hey, the windows are open!

Puce Moment

Ooof, sorry to hear that.

This might cheer you up:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54278053

Would you send your kid to Uni? I fucking wouldn't.

Icehaven

Quote from: Attila on September 24, 2020, 08:50:57 AM

(People are reporting that the students, on discovering chat, just sit chatting away about everything but classwork; we've recently been sent a Guide to Chat Etiquette, as some of the students have been abusive towards their tutors via chat, thinking we can't see it.)

The Borg cannot come soon enough - I welcome assimilation.

I've been in a few meetings/seminars on Teams where some participants seem to forget they're not on their own social media and say things on chat or even out loud that they'd be far less likely to say if we were all in the same room. A few months ago there was a Teams seminar with about 150 attendees on the reactions to Black Lives Matter protests and what the council can do to improve equality etc. The chat managed to just about stay on the right side of offensive but there were definitely a few who had clearly momentarily lapsed into Twitter mode and didn't quite get that all their colleagues, their boss, their boss's bosses, and every other council employee and various others were reading what they'd written in real time.
I'm the complete opposite, I'm so paranoid that I'll forget people can see and hear me because it feels like they can't that I barely move or speak, and I don't bother with the chat as I can't follow what's being said in the actual meeting and what's being written at the same time. It's theoretically useful if there's far too many participants for it to be practical to have everyone on the screen and potentially speaking, but in practice you can't keep up with both.

Braintree

Attila; this is awful. I sent my friend who works at an Oxford University College Library some flowers yesterday because it sounds like utter chaos but it doesn't feel enough. I am really worried about her and everyone working in those environments. It clearly isn't safe and just because deaths are low now doesn't mean they will be in the next couple of weeks/months.

Puce Moment

I'm always on FOI alert so I put shit in writing as little as possible, hence never using Teams chat unless I am just saying 'yeah' or 'no'.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: icehaven on September 24, 2020, 10:59:17 AM
I've been in a few meetings/seminars on Teams where some participants seem to forget they're not on their own social media and say things on chat or even out loud that they'd be far less likely to say if we were all in the same room. A few months ago there was a Teams seminar with about 150 attendees on the reactions to Black Lives Matter protests and what the council can do to improve equality etc. The chat managed to just about stay on the right side of offensive but there were definitely a few who had clearly momentarily lapsed into Twitter mode and didn't quite get that all their colleagues, their boss, their boss's bosses, and every other council employee and various others were reading what they'd written in real time.
I'm the complete opposite, I'm so paranoid that I'll forget people can see and hear me because it feels like they can't that I barely move or speak, and I don't bother with the chat as I can't follow what's being said in the actual meeting and what's being written at the same time. It's theoretically useful if there's far too many participants for it to be practical to have everyone on the screen and potentially speaking, but in practice you can't keep up with both.

I just had a meeting in Teams with the government, prominent academics, key policy makers etc, even wore a shirt...I was intimidated so minimised the window so the speaker could just be seen. I just about managed to reign in a rant about Boris...quickly switched to grid view and was once more cowed. Some fuck that I messaged privately in chat stole my idea and got a thumbs up when I announced it. That was my only contribution.