It's Different If I Say So

Spent the last two weeks more or less in the dean's office. As vice-dean one of my duties is to be there when he is on vacation.

Summary: (German) professors can be really childish.

If you give them a deadline, many ignore it. If one of the women in the office reminds them of the deadline, she risks getting yelled at. If *I* send an email signed "Vice-Dean" they finally get cracking and send in what it was we needed, in this case, the grades for last semester which are needed so the students know if they have to prepare for the re-sit.

They have 8 weeks - far too long, in my opinion - to read and grade final theses. The exams have to be done by Tuesday, or the students will not be able to apply for Master's programs. Guess how many grades are already in! But we are supposed to invite the students anyway. Good for the student, that means they can't fail, otherwise we would not have invited them. But some professors even have not bothered to discuss the time of the exam with the other professors involved or with the student, and want us to invite a student for tomorrow. We don't even know if the other professor can come!

The clerk objected. Called the professor - how about next Tuesday? That is still within the legal limits. No, professor can't come, yadda yadda yadda, end of story. The clerk came to me, I felt that Tuesday was reasonable. That's why we have 3 days advance notice on oral exams. I checked the professor's announcement of when s/he would be out of town. Nope, in town all next week. So now I called. Turned out that s/he would have to come to school extra for the exam. Well, let's have a pity party. And guess what - if I ask, s/he will come.

I think this is horrible - the students have a right to be able to plan their lives just as much as we do. I would almost want to set the date for the oral exams as soon as they are admitted to the thesis. Then we don't have the "I need a 2-month extention on a 3-month project" cries from some students, and there is no discussion with the professors. The dates would be given.

But what I really find strange, is that professors are so egoistical, only seeing their own point of view, not that of the administration or the students. They berate the administration for sloppy work - but the reason for the sloppy work is usually that the professor didn't bother to have his or her planning paperwork submitted by the deadline. Everyone wants their schedule as soon as possible, but we can't plan if we don't have data!

And why do they listen when I say something, or do the right thing, and not when a "lowly clerk" says the same thing? The content is the same. So I must assume that this is a hierarchical thing - won't take no nonsense from underlings. The worst is the way they act towards the women. Just in these two weeks I had two instances of the clerks in tears because a professor (who had him/herself been responsible for what went wrong) hollering at them and accusing them of incompetence.

Maybe we need to hire a kindergarten teacher and teach the professors how to plan their work so it is done on time, how to share, and how to be nice to each other. Really!