Question for any university employees

[MumblesParty]

Just reading the news about Cardiff uni, among others, having to make redundancies and cut courses. This is apparently due to dropping numbers of international students. Students tuition fees are £9500 per year. They have about 9 hours of lectures per week. Can anyone explain where the costs are? I’m not being argumentative, I would genuinely like to know why it costs so much to run a university. I’ve googled, and it seems the biggest cost is teaching. But I know lecturers aren’t paid much. So where does the money go?

Tuition fees don’t touch the sides of the costs of delivering some degrees. Contact hours are a misnomer- for humanities students, their reading is their labs.

I didn't say they were in the office. And yes there is flexibility, but as more staff are cut, others have to take on more, and you need to publish and be a 'good citizen' to get promotion, so I stand by the idea that the hours are 50 plus on average and sometimes less, sometimes more.

Are you kidding, or are you writing to us from 1975 or something?

No. are you saying your corridors are packed with academics come 5pm? And you're the same person who seems to think academics work 11 hour days, 7 days a week? Not sure where you work.

No offence, but have you found your 75 hour weeks to be working for you and your career? Because nobody I know does that, and we're all pretty much knocking it out of the park. Five days a week of 8 solid hours (and I mean actual work) will do wonders for your career. Do you think it's a time management problem?

@PicturePlace consider that other people's experiences may differ from yours. We frequently have lectures starting at 4pm and 5pm. Even on a Friday. It is good that you can fit your job into more regular hours but not everyone can.

Workload pressures are real, but I also think a lot of academics have their whole identity wrapped up in their job and struggle to have a life and interests outside of their work. Not healthy!

I didn't say they were in the office. And yes there is flexibility, but as more staff are cut, others have to take on more, and you need to publish and be a 'good citizen' to get promotion, so I stand by the idea that the hours are 50 plus on average and sometimes less, sometimes more.

Ah yes, apologies, I thought you were the poster who said we routinely work 75 hours a week. I agree that 50 hour weeks are common.

I think you must work in a very unusual institution @PicturePlace or a very odd subject area.
That certainly isn't the case in the 3 Universities I know anything about.

Every academic I know under the age of 45 is working those hours. You can’t even get a permanent lectureship in my field without 2-3 monographs and spending every hour god sends, on top of your substantial teaching and admin commitments, plus “impact”, to do research and publish. My STEM colleagues are in the lab 7 days a week. Even our essential governance meetings are held at 8-10pm at night (I’m in Oxbridge where senior admin don’t give a rat’s arse about Athena Swan or a family life).

If you are “very successful”, I’m assuming you are pretty senior, and got your job way back in the old days when things were rather cushier. And that as a result you aren’t doing much admin, pastoral , teaching or grunt work. Many of my older colleagues have always had a very nice life, actually, and have always managed to dodge all the “service work” or dump it on more precariously employed and junior staff. That’s how senior academics got “very successful” without working their arses off. Not so much luck these days.

Yes, all universities will have lectures timetabled up til 6pm and beyond. The lecturer delivering that session will be there. Place is a ghost town otherwise come 5pm (staff-wise - there are lots of students still around). I'm saying that academics are not known for solidly working 9-6. It's a very flexible job.

This is my impression too. I work for a department that seems to have four or five managers for each tiny project - none of them academics. But all the academics are on zero hours or 0.5 (or less) contracts, doing weeks of unpaid admin every year, writing references for students and attending meetings and responding to student queries and emails.

No, I work in one of the 10 largest unis in the UK, and in one of the top three most popular areas of study. Academics are absolutely not working 9-6 in the office (or home) every day. Many do work in the evenings, though.

You can ask for their accounts.

Our research seminars start at 5:30pm, and run until 7pm+; and 2-3hr meetings are common each night of the week from 5pm or even later in the evening. So I actually see a lot of my colleagues in the evenings!

I'm salaried professional support staff and I can easily run up 60 hours per week during start of term. Especially with our "cloud" IT service providers being based in different time zones. If I need a support call with Microsoft, it doesn't start until 5pm because their US staff are eight hours behind us.

When I studied my degree, the lecturing day was 9am until 9pm and one of my modules was taught 6pm-9pm.

If you are “very successful”, I’m assuming you are pretty senior, and got your job way back in the old days when things were rather cushier. And that as a result you aren’t doing much admin, pastoral , teaching or grunt work. Many of my older colleagues have always had a very nice life, actually, and have always managed to dodge all the “service work” or dump it on more precariously employed and junior staff. That’s how senior academics got “very successful” without working their arses off. Not so much luck these days.

No, I'm 42. Nice try, though. I am very successful, and - to be fair - have absolutely worked my arse off. Nobody I know has ever worked a 75 hour week, though. I think this is where you are making yourself look ridiculous.

I'm salaried professional support staff and I can easily run up 60 hours per week during start of term.

Aye, the odd 60 hour week happens a few times a year during busy periods. It's not the norm, though.

@PicturePlace you've probably heard the saying about academics working in ivory towers. Are there any jobs going in yours?
For me...
Member of staff off sick for over a year. The department would only pay for cover for one module and we had to cover all the remaining teaching and admin.
Two members of staff resigned and have not been replaced. Again, we're expected to cover.
Numbers of students not coping have gone through the roof.
Our practical/technical staff are coming under more and more pressure to lecture even though their contracts limit the number of hours they can teach and they don't get paid academic rates.
Pressure to accept quantity not quality when it comes to admissions. This generates more work because we're supporting weaker students.
I could go on and on and on.

Lots of places teach into the evening. My academic colleagues who deliver this teaching are not in the office from 9 am, though. They tend to pop in to teach and then pop home again. Most wfh most of the time.

I’ve yet to hear of a field where that’s the case, if you’re doing all of the full load of undergrad and postgrad teaching, admin, committee work, reviewing, reference-writing, editing journals, mentoring and training younger colleagues, grant-writing, conference presenting, sitting on appointments committees, and (last but most important), research and publication. In my field, like many others, it’s very common not to even get a permanent lectureship until early forties because the standards for appointment are now so high. So I’m afraid I just really don’t believe you!

Oof, that sounds tough, and a similar picture to our place. Definitely more teaching, marking and supervision than last year across the board. It's a really tough time for academics. I think statements about working 75+ hours a week actually lose us all credibility. Things are tougher than they have been and people are struggling. That should be enough without any wild exaggerations needed.

And yet it's pretty routine for me to open my mailbox and Teams to requests from academic colleagues sent outside of office hours. Less common from PS colleagues, although there's a few of those who need to learn that being on holiday means not sending emails.

Off the top of my head ...

Salaries/NI/Pensions will cost at least 60-75% of income.

Facilities cost - electric/gas/water/maintenance/insurance/cleaning/insurance

Marketing

Student welfare/support

Library

IT

Exams costs

Goal posts changing - you feel you can invest in things and the government change the goalposts
Overheard are really expensive too - so each student is costly each staff member is costly too - then professional services. Resources, estates costs for the land, gas, electric, printing, new books, new computer equipment, classroom space and equipment, it all costs a small fortune

I’ve yet to hear of a field where that’s the case, if you’re doing all of the full load of undergrad and postgrad teaching, admin, committee work, reviewing, reference-writing, editing journals, mentoring and training younger colleagues, grant-writing, conference presenting, sitting on appointments committees, and (last but most important), research and publication. In my field, like many others, it’s very common not to even get a permanent lectureship until early forties because the standards for appointment are now so high. So I’m afraid I just really don’t believe you!

Of course I do/have done the "full load". That's just the basics of an academic job you're describing. We are expected to, you know, work. This is not a hobby.

I'm not sure what you don't believe. I got my first lectureship when I was 28, and have worked very solidly since. Thankfully, with great success - I'm really good at this.

I suggest perhaps getting a life coach to help you with your time management skills, because the things you describe above do not take any normal academic 11 hours a day, including Saturdays and Sundays,

Wow