Students demand solution for their professor's workload
Students at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA) have started a petition to draw attention to the amount of work their remaining lector has to do all by himself.
We all have the occasional working week that might be busier than average, but teachers of the HvA’s Engineering, Design & Innovation programme say they’ve been dealing with exceptional amounts of work for more than two years straight. Electrical engineering teacher Rogier Haas (47): ‘I only have a chance to breath if a lesson is cancelled due to a scheduling mistake’.
Due to changes that will effect the study programme next year, many students who still have to pass preliminary exams only have this year to do so. And as Haas is practically the only teacher available to help, he must make time for this alongside teaching and advising an additional 50 students on their study careers. When the HvA’s doctor saw his schedule, he immediately sent Haas home to rest. But when he returned to work, nothing had changed.
‘You’d expect the HvA would have taken notice of the situation by now,’ says Lucas Tazelaar (23, student), ‘But no.’ The dean of the Faculty of Technology, Gerard van Haarlem, however, has issued a statement saying the HvA takes these alerts seriously, and will start a dialogue with Haas and the students who organised the petition. Only once the HvA is fully aware of what is going on can it make adjustments.
