I keep writing and deleting tweets about this, but here we go. One of the most insidious contributors to poor staff mental health is the effect of so-called "reasonable adjustments" and special circumstances waivers that are put in place to help students. https://twitter.com/lottelydia/status/1200343114927480833

This is because, without adequate support from trained professional staff, academics are often left with only one option to offer students in need or crisis: the extension. Fees and loans make suspension a non-starter. Somehow we have to support the students in study.

When extensions are aggregated across modules and across year cohorts, they can seriously mess with marking and feedback deadlines for academic (and administrative staff). At no point in the year is this more acute than during the summer exam period.

Y3 students, who are most likely to go into crisis in the spring and early summer, may have all their hand-in deadlines extended close to or even right at the deadline for marks to be submitted for graduation.

The anxiety of joining the job market is bad enough for many students, and no one wants to miss the graduate job market train that leaves almost as soon as degrees are confirmed.

But this means that academic staff and their administrative support are often scrambling to mark/moderate work and enter the marks just hours before the final deadline.

In the past, I have received three 10K dissertations (which need an agreed mark and full report from two markers) in amongst a stack of assignments to turn around between 4pm and 10am the following morning.

Students deserve better support. Staff time cannot always be the buffer for the misfortunes and crises that affect our students - even without the pastoral burden that is taken for granted by the employers. #UCUStrikesBack