Going to the Faculty of Science board meeting at the request of the head of
school. I guess it's important to see where the faculty is headed to get an
idea of how the various teaching and research activities are going to be
impacted.

And the rest of the time was spent marking assignments and tests. That was
actually an achievement, I caught up with all my overdue marking in all 3
courses I am teaching this session, which are all very different. One of
them is a biochemistry course for undergraduates that covers very well
understood, fundamental aspects of biology. The second one is a postgraduate
course in bioinformatics which is more targeted at students who want
immediate applications to their jobs, and covers some new techniques in
science that are difficult to teach as they are constantly changing and
there is no textbook or established curriculum for bioinformatics - I have
to develop all my teaching materials from scratch. The third course is a
professional issues and ethics course that is a lot of fun to teach. It
covers topics that are not hard science but are definitely of considerable
impact on the practice of science. It's important to expose students to the
fact that as scientists and engineers they need to know more than just
scientific fact, they also need to understand the commercial, ethical and
sociological aspects of their job and how they will affect society in their
jobs. In this course we try to stay away from traditional
"lecture/test/exam" teaching and the students are enjoying it.