Academics Chat Thread

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I believe the old Chat thread has fallen off the front page of this section, and I thought it might be time to reinstate it. I know it's only sporadically useful, but sometimes it's nice, right?

I am a lowly postdoctoral English Lit type. Finished my PhD in 2014, teaching associate for a couple of years, and now part-time while DD is a baby. I'm currently working frantically to get my book manuscript to the publisher by my deadline (October), and also trying to regain enthusiasm for the job market.

Who else is lurking around here?

Ooo, fingers crossed for you fluctuat!

I've gotten myself into organising too many things and am swamped and have a big deadline on Friday.. (so I shouldn't be MNing...)

Hello!

I'm Writing Papers. I'm happy.

Woot Never. I just finished a humungous chaper yesterday, due to start another one tomorrow. Enjoying today off :-)

I'm procrastinating.....

Hello all. Has anyone had a peek at this Ask Me Anything thread? While not questioning the credentials of the OP, I wonder at the range of questions being asked, as if s/he is some sort of academic oracle. Some of the answers may be true for their department at their university, but how on earth can people read this as definitive?

Because people always do.

It really frustrates me that there are loads of MN threads, and people will always listen to the person sounding very certain, rather than the others saying there are lots of variables and here's their informed best guess.

The higher education board is worse, though, with a handful of parents claiming to be experts on all aspects of university education on the basis of their children's experience.

I do find quite scary how many parents ask questions on MN boards (getting confident but erroneous answers) that could be answered accurately and definitively from university websites.

It's tricky though, isn't it? I saw a thread recently with someone saying they'd done the same degree at the same place .... over a decade ago. So could they help? It's not badly meant. I guess if you've put all that effort into trying to understand things, you naturally want to share it. And you can't know you have the wrong answer.

Exactly. I'm sure the OP is intending to be helpful, and they provide caveats every now and again, but read out of context, people may be getting the wrong idea. And yes, the higher education boards can be just as bad, but sometimes worse.

The higher education board certainly explains why there are some students out there who expect bum wiping rather than actually having to show initiative etc....

Argh, argh, argh! Had an exhausting and stressful "holiday" visiting family, and have now come back jet-lagged to two grant rejections and a burst of having to solve problems created by other people. Can I have a real holiday instead? Or just go hide in bed?

Anyone else feeling better than me :) ?

murmuration I hate those holidays that aren't really holidays, you don't come back refreshed, do you? Annoying about the grants, I am about to go into grant-writing mode and it just reminds me why I hate it so much. At least with writing a paper, you know it'll pretty much appear somewhere in some form. Grants- awful!

I usually try to plan some rest time after my "holiday" (we always visit family abroad, and its always exhausting), but this year DH had work things 3 weeks apart in the same country, so he booked the trip to catch both of them, meaning I was already away a long time! So I couldn't do much recovery upon the return.

Although for grants, I've just learned that we can put unsuccessful grant applications in our promotion material - to show that you were "trying". But I'm not sure if that's going to paint me in a better light or not, to see how many times I got rejected... (starting to think seriously about going for Prof! I read the criteria and vacillate between "I might be able to fit this" and "no way in the world". But there's a timing issue as my HoD is really supportive and this is the last promotion round she'll be able to write for me - so I might actually go for it. I suppose the worst that happens is I get some feedback about where I fall short?)

I agree with trying- several people I know had more than one go at Assoc Prof and Prof, or even just SL. As you say, you may make it and if you don't you will get advice on where to strengthen your application second time around.

(name changer from upthread here!) I've just joined the WIASN group on FB someone mentioned upthread. Will have a poke around to see if any of my colleagues are on there before I start bitching ;-)

Oh, interesting, LaDaronne, how did you find someone in it to invite you? I googled WIASN and got a bunch of twitter stuff. Maybe I should look there for someone I know? (I've got no clue about twitter)

Thanks, Summers. I keep hearing people say "what if you get rejected?" but I feel like the answer is "apply again". Sure, I'll be unhappy (like I was at not getting a central position again - did I mention that here? - but it was only 'reactive' for about 24 hours and now I'm doing stuff and will probably apply again when the first position comes around again). But I can manage that.

Oh, and here I am at nearly 3pm on Friday and I still haven't done the thing I said was my priority this week. I keep responding to email instead! And I just remembered one more I must send. But then I will get on my top priority for the week. I will.

My sister is a member, as I suspected, and she got me in.

So are most of you off for the summer? I'm at an ex-poly technic and shocked that no one is in. A colleague just told me that apparently lecturers are all 'working' from home and will take their annual leave during term time. Is that true?

I think it varies a lot, both by institution and by subject.

My colleagues are all working (with very little annual leave taken), but many are away at conferences for part of the summer. People also work from home - I mean really work, very hard, on their research, through the summer period. This is a highly ranked research intensive institution, science subjects.

And people wouldn't be authorised to take annual leave in term time at any institution I have worked in (unless they don't have teaching or admin responsibilities in the leave period).

We can't have annual leave in term time, not teaching has to be authorized and would only be for very good reason.

I half work in the summer, do some writing daily, but also take more time with the family. I have had 2/3 weeks off other years, although always work a tiny bit when away, but this year and other years I just plod away getting some serious writing in.

I don't need to be at my desk in the uni to write though, I just work from home.

We can have one day at a time AL in term time but no more (without approval which I can't be bothered to argue about except for a special occasion). The students get 3+ months and I do lab type stuff so go in quite a bit.

I was in WIASN but they can't cope with gender critical women so I sodded off.

I was in WIASN but they can't cope with gender critical women so I sodded off

I'm hanging in there with WIASN - I give excellent advice to all the young ones intentional self-parody of me as an old gimmer

But the GC thing - I was threatened with disciplinary action via a complaint by a student (whom I'd never talked to, let alone taught) for my "transphobic" tweeting & retweeting. A horrible 3 months dealing with that. A "shadow" group of students wanted me sacked - although they were too cowardly to put their names to the complaint. And I knew that if I breathed a word even anonymously, on WIASN, I'd have been kicked out.

I saw the WIASN online pile-on of a respected feminist academic who works in the area of disability (maybe it's one of you?) - her distress was palpable. As was the distress of the WoC academic who found the discussion very difficult. I've no doubt she was absolutely genuinely angry & upset. But you talk it out, you don't ban people. A colleague of mine also left the group in response to what she saw of this.

So I am sceptical of the extent of the "support" of WIASN in certain areas, but it's also often a really interesting discussion, and there are people who really need the support.

I'm often quite taken aback at the lack of informal mentorship that a lot of young women deal with. It makes me realise how fortunate I am and was, in having wonderful generous feminist mentors in the early part of my career. So I try to pass it on.

And actually, now I realise it, this discussion of WIASN outside the group is probably being v naughty ...

lack of informal mentorship

Yeah, that's me. I got most of my career advice from online forums. Curiously, the one I spent the most time on as an early academic, it was clear in some responses that everyone assumed I was a man! Maybe just because it's a male dominated field, and I never said anything particularly related to being a woman? It does make me wonder if they would have given different advice if they thought I was a woman, and some posters clearly were women.

Hmm. WIASN sounds interesting, but perhaps a bit intimidating. Maybe I don't need more drama in my life.

olive - I don't think anyone is "off" for the summer! A lot of people are away - in my field the summer is when most conferences are, because the organisers know that academics won't have teaching conflicts, so run them then. And they often try to coordinate so you can go to more than one, so our building is setting up to be a ghost town soon - some of the students have already left for 'satellite' meetings of the big conference, and most of the staff will go next week. And my understanding of colleagues over in the Arts/Social Sciences is that summer is when they can do their fieldwork.

Annual leave during the semester is definitely not common! Actually, I've got no clue when people take annual leave. I think over Xmas is when many 'go visiting' - yet also that is when we have lots of marking to do, as some exams end right before Xmas and the grades are due first week in Jan (as are a several major grant deadlines). I usually try to get my marking done before Xmas if possible, even if it means staying up late on Xmas eve, so that from Xmas to New Years I can actually take a real break.