AIBU to think we should be funding this BS?

@AlwaysColdHands , I was referring to the Sociology departments at universities when I suggested they be defunded because we don't need them.

Well of course we should not - as Oxford and Cambridge are very rich in themselves, they can fund this nonsense from their own coffers.

I think they were bang out of order ignoring the student complaints about JA as well and the students who had him and got poor value for money should be compensated.

The irony here is that your post, be it in good faith or otherwise, proves so neatly that we do need them.

We have to have certain output if on a research and teaching contract each cycle otherwise we’re in bother. It’s difficult for women who take maternity leave or people who get sick but it’s part of the contract. I don’t whinge, I feel incredibly thankful to have this job. That particular research sounds interesting but I can see why people not in the world of academia think it’s all a bit pointless. I come from humble beginnings and there is some research I look and feel a bit sort of … WHY about it. For me it’s things like Shakespeare and I say this as a literature academic. How many more interpretations of Hamlet can we have before someone realises it doesn’t actually matter to anyone?

I’m more invested in research that can and does have a real impact for actual people so I’ve been shifting into the education system and the overall impact the arts and creativity can have on young people (esp working class kids) in recent years.

Agreed 👏

You could try and explain what is wrong with what I said. Why do we benefit from word salads where the writers invent new BS words. Are there really not enough words in the English language already?

Are the words invented by the author cited, or are they academic language? I've already said that I believe some use of academic language to be exclusionary. I think we would benefit from the knowledge, views and research of people outside traditional academia, although a lot of people have used the Arday case to argue against this! So I do see your point about the difficulty of interpreting academic language although my solution would be to further democratise academia whereas yours would appear to be its abolition.

Most university funding from funding councils (government funding) is for science, engineering or similar. Funding for humanities, arts and social science research is far harder to get and mostly small scale grants from the university block grants for teaching staff to pursue research/attend conferences on top of a full teaching load. There are funding councils for these subjects but it’s a £5k grant perhaps whereas science councils may be £500k!

@ClarkeandNewman If it is academic code which only those admitted to the circle of knowledge understand then it is pointless because you all just keep things going round and round amongst yourselves. See other posts about keeping the gravy train going. Comfortable lives for Professors.
They work short hours, 14 hrs per week is it? Some students are getting a very bad deal because they see the lecturer for so few hours per week, £10,000 per year?

No, it's not a code to which only a few can be admitted, any more than any other language related to a profession. I don't understand mechanical terms, or the ins and outs of IT - but people in those professions do because they've learned. My point isn't to get rid of academic language but to accept other voices as well so that more people realise they're capable of learning and contributing to human knowledge across a lifetime. When studying, one of the most useful pieces of advice I received from a lecturer was to write in my own voice and not feel I had to couch everything in purely academic terms.

I'm not sure why you think that university professors work a 14 hour week - perhaps you're confusing workload with teaching hours? You do highlight one of the problems with the marketisation of education though, and I agree with this. I don't think it was a good idea to turn students into consumers. To an extent it has led to some unwanted outcomes.

Academic roles come in many shapes and sizes. A minority are teaching only and most are teaching/research. Academics work year round - my old contract before I moved to industry, stipulated only ‘holidays by arrangement’. An alarming number of positions are temporary, short term, lurching from research grant to research grant and/or zero hours contract teaching; it’s very hard to get a secure post. For each hour of lecturing I did, I would do about 6 hours plus prep. You need a real density and depth of knowledge. It may have got easier if I had a chance
to repeat material but I would never have risked winging it and would have closely reviewed notes and updated them with any research findings that had occurred in the interim before repeating. Academics are judged on ability to source funding, deliver completed PhDs and publish papers. This in itself can be stressful. It’s no cakewalk.

I should have added that my experience of academia I would sum up as lonely, insecure and highly competitive. I’ve been a couple of decades in industry and I have not regretted moving on.

Just because you don't know or understand the words it doesn't mean they are "invented" or BS. I don't understand Hungarian but I don't think it's a bullshit nonsense language.

Absolutely. I didn't mean to give the impression I disagreed that there's a huge amount of subjectivity - far from it. I just meant that, having acknowledged that, you then need to decide how to assess these subject areas despite the inherent subjectivity.