Before continuing with the winter school story from my last post, I quickly went over it. The frequent use of the pronoun "I" instead of "we" irked me and possibly irked the other readers as well. Let me clarify - I am not a megalomaniac. Nor do I lack in team spirit. There were three of us who initially planned the lecture series.
However, by the time the plan was put into motion, one of my colleagues was battling a serious health problem while the other colleague was dealing with some personal issues which significantly engaged the colleague's mind and energy.
Moreover, since Dr Rock Star has been my academic mentor, it meant a lot to me that his visit should be a success and that he should return with a good impression of N1. So, I ended up planning the event myself (although with a lot of help from the admin staff). Hence the use of "I" more than "we".
Nonetheless, I do acknowledge that I have a serious problem in asking for help. I tend to take on more responsibilities than can be handled comfortably[1]. Recently, I made some serious mistakes because of this tendency to bite off more than I can chew and have learnt, since then, to ask my colleagues frankly for help and also to say no to something I am unable to do(though I must admit, I say it rather tactlessly and sometimes to the wrong people, but more about that later).
Coming back to the topic at hand, the whole event was shaping up very differently from what had been initially anticipated. Ideally, workshops/instructional schools should be planned and announced at least 4 to 5 months before the event so that by the time the participants are invited, they have enough time to book their tickets.
However, in this case, the announcement was sent out only about two months before and it was exactly a month before the event week that the "selected" participant list was ready [2]. At this time, a tragedy occurred - due to an unexpected server problem, some of us lost all the emails in our N1 email account.
I was among these unfortunate few [3]. Not being a very computer savvy person, I had not created a back-up and therefore, lost all the contact information of the selected participants [4](their email addresses had been clubbed together in my address book, which I also lost). However, since I was "personally invested" in this mission and 25 is not such a big number, I remembered the names of all the participants and which institutes/universities they were from. It was easy to retrieve the email addresses of students coming from research and IIX institutes. Not so for university students. Fortunately, I remembered the writers of their reference letters and it was easy to contact them and ask them to send me the email addresses of these students. So, this crisis was somehow averted and important lessons were learnt regarding data management as falling back on memory is not always a viable option.
All invited students, except one, confirmed their attendance. Around this time, I announced Dr R-S's visit to students at N1 again and about 25 students expressed an interest in attending these lectures. So, we now had a nice audience of about 50 students ready for the lectures, with four of them being PhD students, willing and able to run tutorials. So, it seemed more appropriate (and also more fashionable) to call this a winter school. The budget was approved, all required rooms in guest house and hostels were reserved, the registration packages for participants were ready and a bus was arranged to bring students from the train station at scheduled hours. A big lecture hall was also booked.
Around a week before the arrival of the speaker, I started receiving emails from more students at N1, who wanted to attend the winter school. Since the lecture hall can accommodate a very big number of students, there was no problem in them attending the lectures. However, it was too late to register them for the winter school and therefore, we could not give them the registration package (which included meal coupons).
In the 48 hours preceding the first day of our winter school, a few strange and unexpected things happened. An undergraduate student from an IIX institute, who had not applied before, wrote to me out of the blue that he would be attending the event and that he had already booked his train tickets for N1 city. I was highly irritated, but could not do much because by the time I received the email, he would have already boarded the train to N1 city. I did not have the heart to refuse him hostel accommodation on his arrival, but I did have a talk with him about winter school application etiquette. I would like to hear back from readers what they would have done in such a situation.
I also got a panic call from four female students coming from a college in Delhi.
These students had made their booking together through a travel agent, who booked their train for a wrong date. They realized this only on reaching the station and by then, it was too late for them to book another train. So, they had no option available except to come by flight the next morning. This was not such a big problem for me - the shuttle bus driver was instructed not to wait for them at the train station and pick up arrangements were made from the airport. However, on the day of their flight, they called up again to inform me that this flight had got canceled and that the only flight available was a late night flight. Due to a shortage of institute vehicles, at such short notice, I had no option but to hire a vehicle(Tata Sumo) from a private operator known to me. The father of one of the women spoke to me and said that he had apprehensions about the girls arriving at N1 city at such a late hour and being received by a private taxi driver. I sympathized with his concerns, but was at my wits end. At that time, I remembered that most students at N1 are usually up till very late at night. I called up two second year students, who had volunteered to help me with organizing the event, and asked them if they could accompany the Sumo driver and receive the girls. These two boys, of course, jumped at the opportunity. The father was now sufficiently reassured. Needless to say, the girls arrived very late, but safely and comfortably at N1.
All students had now arrived on campus and we were ready to begin.
Okay, so the post has again turned out to be much bigger than I thought. What's more, I am visiting my family this weekend and my disciplinarian father is mortified that I am blogging so late at night. I will continue the story in my next post.
[1] As a child, I once asked my teacher to make me a class "monitor". But, once she did so, I found myself unable to do even simple things like opening a Godrej almirah, in which we stored our books etc.
[2] Some students, who could have really benefited from these lectures, applied after the deadline. Sadly, I was unable to invite these students because we had already reached the numbers approved by the administration.
[3] All our lost data was indeed retrieved later, but by then the winter school was over.
[4] I had put together all their email addresses in my address book the previous evening, with the intention to send out the invitation the following morning. The server problem happened overnight. In my (misplaced and ill-timed) effort to save paper, I also did not print out the applications of students, but kept track of them online.
However, by the time the plan was put into motion, one of my colleagues was battling a serious health problem while the other colleague was dealing with some personal issues which significantly engaged the colleague's mind and energy.
Moreover, since Dr Rock Star has been my academic mentor, it meant a lot to me that his visit should be a success and that he should return with a good impression of N1. So, I ended up planning the event myself (although with a lot of help from the admin staff). Hence the use of "I" more than "we".
Nonetheless, I do acknowledge that I have a serious problem in asking for help. I tend to take on more responsibilities than can be handled comfortably[1]. Recently, I made some serious mistakes because of this tendency to bite off more than I can chew and have learnt, since then, to ask my colleagues frankly for help and also to say no to something I am unable to do(though I must admit, I say it rather tactlessly and sometimes to the wrong people, but more about that later).
Coming back to the topic at hand, the whole event was shaping up very differently from what had been initially anticipated. Ideally, workshops/instructional schools should be planned and announced at least 4 to 5 months before the event so that by the time the participants are invited, they have enough time to book their tickets.
However, in this case, the announcement was sent out only about two months before and it was exactly a month before the event week that the "selected" participant list was ready [2]. At this time, a tragedy occurred - due to an unexpected server problem, some of us lost all the emails in our N1 email account.
I was among these unfortunate few [3]. Not being a very computer savvy person, I had not created a back-up and therefore, lost all the contact information of the selected participants [4](their email addresses had been clubbed together in my address book, which I also lost). However, since I was "personally invested" in this mission and 25 is not such a big number, I remembered the names of all the participants and which institutes/universities they were from. It was easy to retrieve the email addresses of students coming from research and IIX institutes. Not so for university students. Fortunately, I remembered the writers of their reference letters and it was easy to contact them and ask them to send me the email addresses of these students. So, this crisis was somehow averted and important lessons were learnt regarding data management as falling back on memory is not always a viable option.
All invited students, except one, confirmed their attendance. Around this time, I announced Dr R-S's visit to students at N1 again and about 25 students expressed an interest in attending these lectures. So, we now had a nice audience of about 50 students ready for the lectures, with four of them being PhD students, willing and able to run tutorials. So, it seemed more appropriate (and also more fashionable) to call this a winter school. The budget was approved, all required rooms in guest house and hostels were reserved, the registration packages for participants were ready and a bus was arranged to bring students from the train station at scheduled hours. A big lecture hall was also booked.
Around a week before the arrival of the speaker, I started receiving emails from more students at N1, who wanted to attend the winter school. Since the lecture hall can accommodate a very big number of students, there was no problem in them attending the lectures. However, it was too late to register them for the winter school and therefore, we could not give them the registration package (which included meal coupons).
In the 48 hours preceding the first day of our winter school, a few strange and unexpected things happened. An undergraduate student from an IIX institute, who had not applied before, wrote to me out of the blue that he would be attending the event and that he had already booked his train tickets for N1 city. I was highly irritated, but could not do much because by the time I received the email, he would have already boarded the train to N1 city. I did not have the heart to refuse him hostel accommodation on his arrival, but I did have a talk with him about winter school application etiquette. I would like to hear back from readers what they would have done in such a situation.
I also got a panic call from four female students coming from a college in Delhi.
These students had made their booking together through a travel agent, who booked their train for a wrong date. They realized this only on reaching the station and by then, it was too late for them to book another train. So, they had no option available except to come by flight the next morning. This was not such a big problem for me - the shuttle bus driver was instructed not to wait for them at the train station and pick up arrangements were made from the airport. However, on the day of their flight, they called up again to inform me that this flight had got canceled and that the only flight available was a late night flight. Due to a shortage of institute vehicles, at such short notice, I had no option but to hire a vehicle(Tata Sumo) from a private operator known to me. The father of one of the women spoke to me and said that he had apprehensions about the girls arriving at N1 city at such a late hour and being received by a private taxi driver. I sympathized with his concerns, but was at my wits end. At that time, I remembered that most students at N1 are usually up till very late at night. I called up two second year students, who had volunteered to help me with organizing the event, and asked them if they could accompany the Sumo driver and receive the girls. These two boys, of course, jumped at the opportunity. The father was now sufficiently reassured. Needless to say, the girls arrived very late, but safely and comfortably at N1.
All students had now arrived on campus and we were ready to begin.
Okay, so the post has again turned out to be much bigger than I thought. What's more, I am visiting my family this weekend and my disciplinarian father is mortified that I am blogging so late at night. I will continue the story in my next post.
[1] As a child, I once asked my teacher to make me a class "monitor". But, once she did so, I found myself unable to do even simple things like opening a Godrej almirah, in which we stored our books etc.
[2] Some students, who could have really benefited from these lectures, applied after the deadline. Sadly, I was unable to invite these students because we had already reached the numbers approved by the administration.
[3] All our lost data was indeed retrieved later, but by then the winter school was over.
[4] I had put together all their email addresses in my address book the previous evening, with the intention to send out the invitation the following morning. The server problem happened overnight. In my (misplaced and ill-timed) effort to save paper, I also did not print out the applications of students, but kept track of them online.
6 comments:
Oh dear! Sorry about the e-mail loss, New Prof. And congratulations on successfully organizing the winter school.
For me, this brings back memories of the time when our e-mail server went down and I lost a paper acceptance notification e-mail. I'm still a bit stressed about that. :-)
Hi NewProf
Congratulations on your ( and your institute’s) successful efforts at getting your winter school done. Such workshops can be transformative for all: Students, faculty and even for the Rock Star. Many underestimate their value and administrators and the government tend to put meetings of all types into one ‘wasteful expenditure’ basket. We also underestimate what it takes to organize these meetings, are amazed at the effort needed, exhausted at the end of it, swear never to do it again and do it again 5-7 years later. Finally, we underestimate what it takes institutionally for our administration, accounts and hospitality. An efficient meetings and workshops office will be invaluable in larger institutes. A small but talented team can put together all the coordination needed. Its no less hard work for them, but this is their full-time job which they are justifiably proud of: Helping with raising funds, organizing the meeting and making sure all is done well and closed. Such an office allows you to focus on the academic aspects of your workshop and to run it regularly (say every other year). More Rock Stars will come and your place (with the very great added attraction of mangoes or tea in Kulhars) can become an excellent Adda for good STEM banter. Without further extending yourself, you may want to work with your institute’s top-samosas to see if this can be done. We have tried this, its still much work for our colleagues who manage this, but certainly helps hugely in easing the organization of meetings for all of us
Cheers
Vijay
Hello Pramod and Vijay.
Pramod, I now operate under the assumption that good friend Murphy is always waiting in the background.
I hope you retrieved your paper-acceptance email on time!
Vijay, thanks very much for your comment and suggestion. It certainly would be very advantageous to have a workshop office that could coordinate the logistics of organizing workshops. As an institute grows and the number of employees increases, it would be eminently reasonable to form such a group.
I hope that N1 does become a hub of academic activity and a favored destination for many rock star academic travelers in the future. For this to happen,
academic staff here would also have to pay much more attention to the non-academic aspects (at least for the next couple of years) than in a bigger and older institute because the admin staff members here (other than those at the the senior most levels)are also new and organizing events at N1 for the first time.
Hi Newprof
Why don't you redirect your academic mail via Gmail? It could prevent mishaps like this.
Stumbled onto your blog today. Could not help but read all your archives. I had been following FSP's blog from my last year of UG and it is great that there is a blog from India in similar vein ( with added India specific perturbations) which discuses day to day stuff in academia and how not to go crazy over them.
Since I am a grad student in the US of A and would one day like to look for a job in India, I enjoyed your blog post on your job hunting and would look forward to articles on hiring processes and things that you could do during PhD/postdoc to increase the chances of getting hired in India and common pitfalls which one should try to avoid,etc.
"These two boys, of course, jumped at the opportunity."
That was funny!! :-)
"would look forward to articles on hiring processes"
You may find the following linlk useful
http://giridharmadras.blogspot.com/2011/07/this-is-pinned-post-i.html
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