Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Well, it seems the students who I accompanied in the lab yesterday are not going to be able to defend their thesis today. During dinner with one of their panelists yesterday, she mentioned that they have not yet given their paper.

Those defending their theses are supposed to give their paper to the panelists one day before the date of defense to give the panelists enough time to absorb it. Some older faculty members would even insist on three days before. In the middle of the nineties, students were even known to deliver the paper to the panelists’ homes the night before the defense just so it could push through on time.

Nowadays students who don’t know how to prioritize their time try to give the paper to the panelists on the morning of the defense, accompanied by a well-rehearsed plea for consideration. It inconveniences the faculty very much though, since they don’t get to peruse the draft at their leisure, considering they are supposed to answer to the University and the prospective employers that these students were able to prove that their three and a half or so years of previous study did culminate in an achievement worthy of everything they’ve been taught.

I think it may get to the point wherein the chairman would not allow the defense to go through unless he gets a signed sheet from the panelists saying the students have followed all the correct procedure.
Anyway, so my co-teacher sent a text message to the students’ adviser early that evening, saying that since she didn’t receive their paper during the day, their defense has to be moved to sometime in the middle of next week, because my co-teacher has to study for her prelims in another university on Monday.

In another front, our soon-to-be-ex-vice chair and soon-to-be-vice dean has asked if I’m free on Monday or Tuesday night, because his masteral class, composed of all high school teachers, and which only started meeting yesterday, may be free to have a stargazing on one of those nights. This will be trial publicity for our planned recruitment drive for our offered courses in high schools this coming school year, which we discussed during the departmental workshop middle of last month.