Hei,

Since the earlier email I have received several complaints from students that the Pro Gradu Xmas week extension is unfair on students who Pro Gradu work will not fall over this period.

This custom started last year when it was pointed out that since students are not allowed to work over bank holidays those whose Pro Gradu work fell over the Christmas period were penalized, having less time to complete their Pro Gradu work. In the interests of fairness and after discussion with senior staff, one week was extension was automatically given to these students to make up for the lost time.

This year when I tried to set up the same automatic system it has been pointed out that Christmas falls on a weekend and therefore there is only 1 day of bank holiday and so granting a week extension was unfair to students whose Pro Gradu work did not fall over Christmas.

In reality it is not that simple. People, including supervisors, want to spend time with their family over Christmas, with many having to travel to see them and so the university empties for about a week whether Christmas falls on a weekday or the weekend. Since it is not safe for students to work in the lab on their own if everyone in your lab goes away for a week then you have to not work for a week and if the week is unavailable for you to work through no fault of your own then you should be given an extension.

Since people will argue this is group specific then lets complicate things and make it so.

a) I will assume that you are unable to work for a week over Christmas and grant 1 week extension unless I hear from you (lets cut down the paperwork to a minimum). If you fall into this category then you must have at least 5 days not including Saturdays and Sundays not working in the lab to make it fair to the rest please.

b) If Pro Gradu students discuss the situation with their supervisor and find that they are unable to work for a longer period because of the way the lab operates (as in 2 cases last year), then please let me know in the usual way with a letter signed by your supervisor and a longer extension will be granted, since you are unable to work through no fault of your own.

c) If Pro Gradu students discuss the situation with their supervisor and find that they are able to work fully over this period (remember no working alone in the lab is allowed for health and safety reasons) AND they decide that they will work over this period i.e. that they will not have a week off, then please let me know by email and work the appropriate number of days to have a total 5 month thesis work.

This is not the start of the slippery slope. We will not start issuing extensions for trivial reasons. We will continue to issue extensions to students ONLY because they are unable to work through no fault of their own. In my mind Christmas falls into this category.

Everything is designed to try to make things as simple as possible to administer and to make things as fair as possible for all students.

VBW,

Lloyd

p.s. Note the extension system usually works only in terms of weeks, not days so please don’t flood me with requests to have an extra day because you are unable to work 6 days over Christmas and the automatic extension is only for 5.