My first official day back at work after a year-long sabbatical coincides with the first official day of a new Department of Physics at Maynooth University:
I knew this was happening, of course, and it should have happened years ago. Having two separate Physics Departments at Maynooth was not just an oddity. It required the relatively small number of academic staff across the Departments to undertake a huge amount of duplication in teaching thereby wasting resources and increasing workloads. Even combined together, the total complement of 15 academic staff means that we’re still a very small Department.
There are, therefore, potential benefits in this merger but they will take time to accrue. At the moment it only exists on paper, and staff in the two ex-Departments will have to work out what to do next in terms of coordinating teaching and research. In my opinion this all should have been planned and agreed before going ahead, but here we are. We just have to make the best of the situation presented to us by The Management.
For the time being the New Department is just the two Old Departments in a single wrapper. We were already located side-by-side in the same building, the Science Building so there are no large-scale relocations of staff, at least not yet. All existing courses remain the same as before, too. That’s just as well, really, as we start teaching in three weeks!
That’s not to say that nothing has changed. The number of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers in the Department of Theoretical Physics has been growing and there was consequently a drastic shortage of office space. My return from sabbatical has involved me being granted an elevated status in the new Department: I’ve been moved upstairs out of the old Theoretical Physics Department to an office in the old Experimental Physics Department.
Here’s a question, though. My contract of employment says that I am employed in the Department of Theoretical Physics. Since that Department no longer exists, do I need a new contract or have I been made redundant?
P.S. I wrote this blog at home before going to the office as this blog remains banned on Maynooth University campus.
