I'm still in the semester that will not end -- I've got about 10 days til my exams start and I get hit with the next batch of marking (two big exams, and two sets of assignments). Then of course there are all the resits and resubs in July. I can see myself still marking stuff from this semester clear into the autumn at this rate.
I said this in another thread, but our VC is overjoyed at the PM's speech last night, sent around an email in comic sans that she hopes we'll be able to get the campus open and running again. Terrifying email, terrifying woman. Of course, senior management scurried off campus like rats off a sinking ship two weeks before they let anyone else do it.
The autumn plan(s) are a clusterfuck in the making. The uni is desperate to assume we'll open as normal, but have sent around to us the possible scenarios:
*open as if nothing has happened, face to face teaching as usual.
*open as if nothing has happened, have to shift online quickly again in mid-semester if there ia fresh outbreak
*open as if nothing has happened, some lectures delivered live, some online, some recorded; some seminars live, others virtual through teams or canvas.
*open as if nothing has happened, but practice social distancing -- involves recording something things, meeting virtually in others, but as much face to face as possible -- which means having to teach multiples of the same lecture/seminar as we can't have more than 16% of our students in the same room at the same time. No additional hours are being factored in, although this scheme will probably mean us teaching on campus 5 days a week between 9 and 6, and possibly into the evening. Considering that I am slated to have three full-on modules, two sections of weekly writing workshops with my dissertation students, various lectures given on modules where I team teach, and fucknoes wherelse they will plug me in, I can see having no time to mark papers or prepare lectures (I'm teaching three new modules next year and revising three others due to revalidation). It's fucking mental -- as mentioned in the other thread, we already have way too many students for campus classroom space.
*only teach Year 2 and 3, and delay Year 1 til January
* delay the full start of the academic year til January.
My money is on the absolutely worst possible choice, as senior management excel as working us into the ground and crushing any morale that we might show signs of. Everyone worked balls to the wall when we went online in the last three weeks of the semester, and all we got in return from senior management was a sniffy response, and orders that if we don't get recruitment up, they're going to start culling staff.
I know the VC and them are desperate to get us back to live Open Days, as well.
Just saw Blue Jam's post -- yeah, they don't want us on public transportation, either. I take the train as it's 15 miles to get to my campus. Ad even if I drove, I'd have to go to a Park and Ride and catch that bus. I'm in a small programme where three of the 7 of us actually live in England; the others are in Ireland or on the continent at the moment. Of the three of us in England, I'm the only FT person as they other two are part time. And I live the closest. So I can see a fuckton of stuff being dumped on me, as well.
My head of dept is a reasonable person, however, and I suspect he's going to continue to urge us to meet via Teams and that. I hope so, anyway!
