Friday, 6 September 2013

Extraordinarily exciting start to the new academic year



Last time I wrote about what we normally face at this time of the year. I mentioned that it will be a little different this time. I’m now going to go into more detail.
I’ve been in my office for much of the day. I’ve packed three boxes, filled six sacks of ordinary rubbish and three sacks of confidential rubbish. We’re actually moving next Friday and today was my only chance.
We’ve been in the new school a week now. So far so good. Everyone seems very welcoming. But of course, we’re facing a slightly different culture, even though we’re still within one institution. I’m very optimistic. The new school is called Arts and Media and I see Creative Writing sitting comfortably there.
Yesterday I spent half a day with a colleague who is programme leader for the other two English programmes. We looked at optimal fit for our first years so that they’re coming in for a good bunch of classes on three days but not so many that they’ll feel overwhelmed.
We then looked at some second and third year issues.
We also put together the submission deadlines. We rolled last year’s but made adjustments to avoid Mondays (a university regulation), to take into consideration the Easter break and also adjusted some weekdays to fit in with teaching.
This year we’re also offering more contact hours to our second years. I have to write some more lectures, especially as I’m teaching a course I haven’t taught for a few years and I’ve got some more research to add in. I’m also taking over a course from a colleague who has left. So some work to do there as well.
Exciting times indeed.        

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