Thursday 29th January 2015 - Disruption by snow

Snow!  It creates a complex series of problems.  Yesterday afternoon I left the Houses of Parliament at Westminster in bright sunshine.  That persisted through much of the train journey home.  But by Derby it was cloudy, by arrival in Sheffield it was drizzling, and by the time I got home - on the hills on the western edge of Sheffield - it was snowing.  This morning I awoke to over 10 cm in my garden, with no buses running and roads that would be impassable to my car.

So between 0700 and 0730 I was in contact, either directly or indirectly, with the Head of the Exams team, the person in charge of communications to students, and the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Learning and Teaching as we decided that everything was in place for us to let the exams go ahead.  Then I set off to walk to work.

That took me an hour and ten minutes, and when I took my hat off on arrival at my office I discovered a 5 centimetre snow covering that had accumulated during my walk.

Decisions about whether to go ahead with teaching during snowy days are generally more complex than decisions about exams.  Back-up invigilators can be put on stand-by, but back up lecturers are harder to organise.  Something that came home to me a few years ago is that the average journey to the university for students (particularly for first years) is considerably less than for staff.  Many students live within 20 minutes' walk of the university, few staff do.  And that means that when lectures are cancelled because staff don't get in we can get student complaints. I remember two newly-arrived Finnish exchange students being surprised at lectures being cancelled - saying it would never happen in Finland because a) the public authorities are fantastic at keeping the roads clear, and b) when snow is forecast their university opens dormitories for staff to sleep in.  I observed that Sheffield has more hills to deal with than every Finnish city put together.

Communications are clearly important when there is snow around.  I have observed that staff living in the Peak District need to get their act together to co-ordinate their stories.  One would claim that the road to Sheffield was completely impassable, not knowing that someone else had come in with no problem.

Those who do struggle in, taking several times longer than their normal journey time, do deserve praise.  A Head of Department I know once sent out a message to his staff after a guest lecturer had been greeted with a tiny audience on a snowy day: the message complained that people had not made an effort to get in.  That message did not go down at all well with those who HAD made such an effort.

Most people I needed to see today made it in to work.  But perhaps I stayed too late.  When I went out for a bus I found it would only take me part way home and I ended up walking most of the way -so my return journey took me only 5 minutes less than my inbound one: 1 hour and 5 minutes instead of 1 hour 10.  So that made a total of two-and-a-quarter hours travelling - as against my usual 25 minutes.

Saturday 24th January 2015 - The demise of writing by hand

I wonder how many pieces of extended writing by hand today's undergraduate students do?  Apart from work things such as essays, I would include elements such as hand-written letters.  I observe that most students still take notes in lectures and other classes via the 'traditional' methods of pen and paper, but those notes are for themselves.  Formal writing for someone else to read is another matter.  When we do ask for essays or coursework we generally ask for it to be word processed.  And I suspect that very few students today do as I (and others of my generation) did, writing a letter home from time to time.

While I was an undergraduate I was generally asked to write three essays every fortnight.  Sometimes I read them out in the tutorial, sometimes they were handed in beforehand, sometimes they were read by the tutor and given back at the next tutorial.  Those, of course, were the olden days before word processors.  But they all had to be legible.

Some years ago, in my early days as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Learning and Teaching, I came to the observation I have shared in the first paragraph above - that today's students rarely do extended pieces of formal writing for someone else to read. When they do it is for an exam.  They are not used to it.  I therefore put forward the idea that perhaps 'written' examinations should consist of writing to a screen via a keyboard.  Perhaps the idea was ahead of its time, because I was told that it wasn't technically possible to limit access to the internet for students if they were using a computer, that we couldn't ensure that work was saved properly, and so on and so on.  This was before the invention of tablets where, for example by ensuring that both 3G and wi-fi are turned off, there can be no access to outside information.  Maybe we should once again consider the idea of tablets, or stripped down computers, for all students in exams.

I mention this today because I have just completed the marking of the exam for my third year module.  Well - I haven't quite completed it.  I have become used to student handwriting over the years (and have noticed the long-term deterioration in its legibility, consequent on the things I've talked about above).  But for only the second time in my career I have been completely defeated.  After ten minutes struggling with one essay I found I had reached only the end of the second paragraph, had underlined 20% of the words as incomprehensible, and had completely lost any thread of what the student was trying to say.  I looked at the second essay in the book, and it was clearly worse.

When I went in to exams I was used to writing substantial pieces by hand - and was used to having to write in a manner that others could read.  I wonder what the student whose script I was struggling with today would have got as a mark then - probably 0.  Instead on Monday I will invoke the process for the student to be summoned in to create a supervised transcript of her or his exam script, which I will then have to mark separately from all the others that I completed today.

I wonder if the same thing will happen as occurred when I last invoked this procedure a few years ago?  The girl concerned then, confronted with her exam script, found that she couldn't read it either.

Friday 16th January 2015 - Changing degree ceremonies

Ever since I first became a University Lecturer I have tried to attend the graduation ceremonies for the groups of students I have taught.  Over the years I think there have only been one or two years when I was unable to do so.  I remember the 3-hour long ceremonies at Sheffield's City Hall before the present venue, the Octagon Centre, was built - and the way in which the very last person to cross the stage always got one of the biggest bursts of applause.

The first ceremonies I attended as a Pro-Vice-Chancellor were in December 2004.  Although I had taken up position on the Executive Board on 1 May that year my predecessor attended that year's summer degree ceremonies.  Today I have attended what is likely to be my last ceremony as an 'Officer' of the University.  How many have there been in the meantime?  Well, in my early days as a Pro-Vice-Chancellor under the previous Vice-Chancellor, Bob Boucher, PVCs were expected to attend every ceremony - and by and large we did.  That meant 21 a year - 15 in the summer and 6 in the winter session.  And at that time all ceremonies were presided over by either the Chancellor or the Vice-Chancellor.  It was only one December - possibly 2006 - when Bob was ill and asked that his ceremonies be taken by someone else.  Thus it was that I presided as a Pro-Vice-Chancellor at a degree ceremony - I believe the first to do so in recent times.  Since then almost all Pro-Vice-Chancellors have presided at one or more ceremonies - although the bulk are still taken by the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor or, more recently, me as Deputy Vice-Chancellor.  It is a responsibility - speaking to a captive audience of around 1000 in the hall, plus more (now) watching on a livestream.  But that also gives a platform for some important messages, and I've never been afraid to try to use it for something meaningful.

Many people probably think that degree ceremonies are unchanging in their traditions.  Not so.  Here are some changes that have taken place since 2004.

• The Octagon floor just used to be bare for ceremonies.  Now it is carpeted.  We got the chance to take on some blue carpet after the BBC held its 'Sports Personality of the Year' show in Sheffield a few years ago, and we then realized how much better the hall looked with a carpet installed.  We also dress the walls with banners in a way we used not to.
• At one time the organ was played throughout the period when guests were taking their seating.  Now we have a saxophone group (after a period with a wind band).
• An innovation brought in a few years ago was the introduction of a short film about student life in the university during the preceding year.
• Back in 2004 honorary graduates were not invited to say anything.  What a waste that was!  The congregation heard accolades being read about Sean Bean, Trevor Pinnock, Ranulph Fiennes and many others without them speaking a word in response.  The first person to be invited to say anything was Eddie Izzard.  More recently it has become standard for us to offer a response to the honorary graduand, and most take that opportunity and use it very well.
• In 2004 we used a very tinny organ to accompany the ceremonies: we now invest in a much better and more powerful model.
• Another innovation has been the way in which we now have all the new graduates walk out in procession behind the academic party - symbolizing their new position as life-long members of the university. (It also helps to clear the hall more quickly!)
• Finally (and of relevance today) we have changed the higher degree ceremonies to do two per day instead of three per day.

For the last few years I have been the liaison from the University's Executive Board to the Events Team over these and other changes, so I have been actively involved in some of the innovations.  It has been great fun.

Some of the most memorable ceremonies have actually been those that were not in the public eye of the Octagon Centre - that for a dying medical student, another carried out to award a PhD in a hospice in June 2013, the ceremonies for the parents of deceased students.  And I have been involved in other interesting ceremonies in a tin hut in St Lucia, in hotels in Trinidad, Shanghai and Beijing, in Guernsey, and in the Thessaloniki Concert Hall.

Octagon Centre degree congregations are, I think, my favourite events in the University - the celebration and culmination of achievement, and a day that brings the whole university community together.  I am going to miss being so centrally involved.