A very well attended thank-you party for Bob Forsyth

Thank-you reception for Bob Forsyth.

One of my main reasons for agreeing to take on the Senior Tutor rolefive years ago was that I found interaction with students (most of thetime!) a very rewarding experience, in particular in seeing one'steaching or advice having a positive benefit to students.  If there isan underlying theme to the role it is, on both the academic and welfareaspects, about helping students to make the right decisions forthemselves.  With of the order of 700 undergraduates in the Departmentit is inevitable that a small subset of students are going to run intomajor problems of one sort or another and hopefully I managed to steer areasonable proportion of those in the right direction.  One verypositive aspect of the job was discovering the wide range of expertiseand help available on the College campus (in the Department and Registryon academic matters, and through the College Tutors, hall wardens, theHealth Centre, the Student Counselling Service and the DisabilitiesOfficer) where I was able to refer students directly or seek advice ontheir behalf.

I was very touched by the large number of colleagues present at mythank-you reception back in January so I would like to take thisopportunity to repeat my own thank-yous I gave that evening to all thosewho had helped me in many ways over the years   ...to the studentsthemeselves for not making my life too difficult most of the time, andin particular to the dep reps I worked with over the years on thestaff-student committee,  ...to all the staff in the department whoeither as personal tutors or through the labs etc. helped with some ofthe difficult cases,  ...to the College support staff mentioned above,...and not least to my immediate colleagues on Level 3 (sorry I forgotyou on the evening!), Richard, Andrew, Derryck and Philip, the alwayshelpful staff in the student admin office, and to anyone else I've stillmissed out!  I certainly have no regrets about taking on the job andwish Ray the very best as he settles in to the role and hope he finds itas rewarding as I did.

Words from Daniel Burrows

Dr Forsyth AKA 'Bob' was probably the first IC professor to have his own support group on the Student Networking Sit, Facebook. One of the comments caught my eye, "What impresses me about Bob is how he treats everyone as a friend even though he is so far above us all. He is the Academic Tutor of Physics at Imperial College yet he is known as Bob."
Another comment (which is just a little worrying) reads "Bob is such a ledge [student speack for legend - means great guy ]... he convinced me to actually sit my finals rather than dropping out and now I'm a rocket scientist."

Students knew that somehow he always had time (thoguh none of us knew how) to listen to all our gripes. He paid attention to each student as an individual and I know that is what he will be remembered for. We will miss him and wish him good luck for his future research and travels.

Daniel Burrows Chair Science Challenge Commitee, Royal College of Science