The sciences department is quite small compared to what I'd ideally like it to be. Physics, chemistry, and biology are completely absent, as I couldn't find anyone who would fit the necessary criteria to actually teach them. However, we do have instructors in precursor fields that I could probably teach enough about the subjects that over time we may be able to build a faculty in the areas I want. I was able, at least, to find instructors to teach geology, zoology, basic astronomy, and what I'm referring to as basic magicology.

Basic astronomy and basic magicology are both going to be covered by demons. Astronomy is being covered by one of the demons I've had making astronomical observations with our large telescope for some number of years now, and magicology is being handled by a demon who's been assisting Tiberius quite a lot. I actually offered the position to Tiberius first, but he adamantly declined arguing that he has absolutely no interest in wasting his time teaching other people when he could be doing research himself.

Zoology and geology are going to be taught by dwarves. The zoologist was the only person who applied, but they seemed skilled enough and interested enough in taxonomy that I hired them. By comparison, we had a large number of applicants for geology. Of those who applied, quite a number were skilled. The deciding factor on who I hired ultimately came down to the fact that I had worked with him for years already. He's gotten a bit older than I last saw him, but Konkur's drive to study minerals seems just as strong as it was decades ago when he moved to Kembora to study the rocks there and share his research.

It was great to meet up with him again, but it wasn't all good news, as one of his two children, who were just young kids when he was on our island, had given their life fighting against the invasion of the demon lord Malagord. There was something a bit more personal about hearing about that loss than many of the other stories I'd heard from the mainland, since I was familiar with his two children, having seen them a number of times when I'd visited Konkur in the past to discuss minerals.

Konkur's willingness to travel to what could be perceived as dangerous places to further his field of study is ultimately what made me decide that he'd be a good fit for the position. Not only do I know he's dedicated to his field, but it also means that I can expect he'll be more than willing to go on funded expeditions to gather samples personally if the opportunity arises. I am, after all, treating the academy as a place of learning and research combined, which means that when faculty see an opportunity to further their research by traveling somewhere, I intend to try to make that happen.

I've also created a business department, though it's very minimal. Most economies, including our own, are largely state-driven. They're not complicated enough for centralized planning to be an issue, and the amount of economic prosperity is low enough that basic entertainment and necessities are enough for most people. That, however, is likely to change in the coming decades. Industrialized economies lead to more economic prosperity, and the ability to centrally plan everything becomes impossible.

So, while right now the business department only has two instructors teaching mercantile trade and business finances, in the future I'm hoping that I can personally train some people to fill other roles in economics. Mercantile trade essentially covers figuring out where to buy products cheaply and sell for a higher price, which forms a basis for supply and demand, where as business finances covers understanding your own supply needs and labor and what you should sell products at to maintain your business long term. While these seem like pretty basic functions, the level of basic education is low enough in the world that these aren't obvious to most people.

Its even less obvious when you consider that most businesses actually just involve someone going out and gathering supplies from the wilderness themselves, so their operating costs seem to be lower than they are. Many individuals don't realize that they should value their own labor so they can determine if their business should hire someone to do that harvesting instead. Until businesses become more sophisticated, higher economic principles are meaningless to teach.

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All these instructors and faculty will form the core of our initial academy's offerings. I fully expect that we'll find new areas that we'll want to add faculty for over time, but to begin with, this forms the core. We have about six months until what will be the first academic semester now. In two months time we plan on having all the faculty housing complete, at which point we'll be relocating everyone to Drazvok. Once on Drazvok, we'll begin planning out the academic semester.

Moving faculty to Drazvok didn't go nearly as smoothly as I would have liked. The pay for their positions is actually fairly high compared to other jobs they could be working thanks to subsidies from Kao and the dwarven government. For the demons who are working as faculty, it doesn't actually mean much as they're quite used to how things are on our islands, with little to actually spend that income on. For quite a few of the dwarves, especially those who previously lived in the dwarven capital, they found themselves with a bunch of money, and little to spend it on.

The cost to import things from the mainland was also fairly high, though not nearly as high as it would have been in the past when shipping relied on wooden boats. While I've assured the faculty that there are plans to build out some entertainment on the island after the academy itself is finished being constructed, that didn't stop many of them from complaining nearly nonstop about it.

It made me realize exactly why Kao was so willing to have all of these people brought here to work. Even though a lot of the dwarven capital is rebuilt, with their economy still recovering and money being reinvested into repairing infrastructure, I'm sure that they've been complaining back at home as well about lack of luxuries. I'm actually a little worried that once we get entertainment up, it'll be a situation similar to when the gambling hall was installed where a handful of demons take on bad habits, rather than us modifying any dwarven behaviors.

Regardless of that situation, at the very least those whom I've hired were doing their work and weren't going on strike. We had regular meetings in departments as well as across departments to set various requirements for classes and schedules. We don't really know, however, how many students we'll have and we probably won't know until next month, about a month before classes start. So most of our scheduling and planning was setting time limits for classes and weekly schedules so that when we have a student body estimate we can select appropriate class times.

We were able, however, to start designing course tracks for students. That means selecting required versus optional courses for various areas of study. Our intention is to send out these tracks of study to students or perspective students so that they can focus their studies in particular areas. For example, a noble's children may want to take politics track, which would involve a lot of dwarven and demon studies classes, with options for certain basic courses in other areas, like agriculture or business practices. By comparison, someone who is taking an engineering track would have optional courses in dwarven or demon studies with required courses in engineering instead.

As much as I wanted to send out those tracks to perspective students for this upcoming year, we realized that without data on how easy or hard some of these classes are we really can't appropriately make a detailed track. The main issue we had with getting such a long term schedule figured out was that each instructor really didn't have a good grasp on what kinds of courses they'd offer, and even when I worked with them to start to figure it out, we realized we really had no clue about dozens of details that we'll only be able to figure out after having classes experience them. For example, we really don't know whether or not arithmetic courses need to be split into multiple courses, or a single course and how many hours a week do students need to be in such a class.

I quickly realized that the first semester, and likely the entire first year is going to be a mess. It'll be a necessary mess, but a mess none the less. I worked with each instructor to give our best estimates for all the various courses, and at least got a rudimentary schedule made for prospective students, but the first batch is going to have a hard time of it. We did at least create general categories for focused study, like politics and engineering, which will determine the types of classes they'll be required to take, but the classes themselves for later years of study are still undetermined.

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