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?

Sympathies mumuration. I got a knockback recently on the grounds of average "academic leadership". Well I guess that's what having two young kids and a semblance of a work-life balance gets you.

Sorry to hear the bad news murmuration and Blames. It s hard to watch people with no external responsibilities sail past because they focus on only one aspect of their job. I sit on a committee which has male and female academics on it. I only learned this recently, because the male academics have never turned up to the meetings!

Sympathies murmuration" and blames*.

And I'll join you on the fuck-the-NSS bench Maud.

Sorry to hear other people are having bad days too. I failed at the promotion round as well this year!
Colleagues have been so lovely today so I guess I'll just pick myself up and keep going!

Sorry to hear about promotion disappointments, murm and ivy.

Does anyone have a sense of what's a reasonable time-frame for my situation? I'm getting really fed up. I applied for a postdoc fellowship scheme (being slightly cryptic but a big government-funded scheme, so to be fair they have lots of applicants). I was told I'd been successful in April, and I had to send my paperwork by June 2nd. This was more of an administrative headache than it needed to be, for various reasons I won't get into but which were pretty annoying, but I got the paperwork in.

And then I send in the supplementary material they demanded, which was (again), pretty unnecessary and annoying.

It's now been over a month since they got the paperwork, and a couple of weeks since they got the supplementary material. And I've heard nothing. They say not to publicise the award until they've announced, so I'm sitting here like a lemon waiting. I don't have a job to give notice on, but I do need to do some fairly substantial things, probably including relocating, and the post starts in October.

Thanks for all the sympathies, and commiserations back to blames and ivy. Ivy - are colleagues being lovely about the disappointment, or just nice in general? Just asking as over here promotions are all "secret" and so no one knows who has gone in, and thus who doesn't get it! I have no problem with people knowing, but as I was applying I got the sense you 'just don't talk about' this sort of thing. So I've got my mentors feedback, and will see my Head next week, but otherwise I'm floating through people who have no idea. It's weird - we all happily complain about not getting grants, but promotions is all hush-hush for some reason.

Sarah - does it have anything to do with the Research Councils, or actually, you do say it's gov't? You might be facing what my PhD student ran into a few years ago - there's some mode the government goes into when there isn't a PM (I remember hearing the term, but now I can't remember it), and they can't actually do anything regarding funds. He had gotten an offer of a place from the RC-provided PhD funding, but the RC council needed to ratify it or something like that, and we just had to sit and wait for Theresa May to be re-confirmed as PM. So you might need to wait for the politics to blow over...

But if it's that or not, I would think it is perfectly reasonable to poke them and ask about progress, and also who you CAN tell, perhaps in confidence, so that you can start getting things in place, like relocation.

Ah, it's not in the UK, so it's not that. And it is a research council - I just meant the funding is allocated through the govt rather than it being within the university's own direct control.

I know I could just sort out relocating anyway (and I've got wheels in motion), but it's so bloody frustrating and stressful not knowing! It surely is a long time, isn't it?!

I was meaning that colleagues who lead other courses had been very sympathetic about the NSS - many of them have been there!
With promotions I knew 3 other people that I'm quite close to who had also applied. They all got it and I didn't. So they were personally sympathetic too. I know other people have applied but not who or outcomes as they haven't actually been published yet.
Generally in my department people are quite open about these things but I know that's not the culture everywhere.

Every single one has already gained some professional work in our field. But their perception is they are hard done by

Coming bak to the NSS and end-of-module surveys also - t seems to me that the more one offers to studeents, and the more open one is about why we do thigs etc etc, the more they demand.

If you just tell them to sit down and shut up, they do.

But it's not an ideal pedagogical situation - we're not school teachers, and I don't want my students to sit down & shut up.

Somehow we need to train them to be professional & responsible. more work for us in doing what parents & schools can't or won't or don't do...

TBH, I really don't think it is students' fault when you come down to it.

I can see why a lot of explaining what we're doing could result in lots of would-be helpful comments about what could have worked better.

If I get an essay that's 99% 'oh I love Tristram Shandy, oh it's the best book ever, couldn't be better, I love it so,' I give that essay very few marks because it is very dull to read unadulterated enthusiasm. So it is infuriating that for NSS, we're actually - if we want to come out well - hoping students suspend all critical judgement and go with rave reviews.

I just wish they'd scrap this bollocks. Not that they ever will.

Argh!!!! Why is everything so COMPLICATED! I may have moaned earlier about administrative problems with the grant I am co-I on. First issue isn't yet solved (although there is light and I feel it will be), and now another one. So frustrating, as I checked all this at the start and the relevant people all divested responsibility saying 'not to do with us' until it comes down to it, and in fact, yes, it is to do with you and there are a whole bunch of rules that we should have followed that you never told us about because you said it had nothing to do with you!!!!

Anyway. Frustration out. Back to work.

I feel your pain murmur. I'm now on version #372648927656 of a department timetable that I'm working on with no training, no software and no support. Every time I finish a version someone else chimes in with a class they can't do. Fucking doing my head in.

I do think sometimes that we shouldn't try to encourage critical thinking when it comes to surveys etc. Just bright and breezy 'Everything is lovely here, isn't this course/university brilliant, don't you agree, thanks bye!!!' But I was under the impression that university was a place to learn to think critically....

Except that real critical thinking weighs things up, looks at the logic, the evidence, and one's own motivations & actions. Then makes a judgement.

Not, "Oh the teacher [sic] didn't like me" or "Dr X was boring" etc etc etc which is the level of some of the comments we get ...

Or "we didn't have everything handed to us on a plate and the lecturer actually expects us to think"...

Oh god, it’s getting worse. I’m quite near the breaking point here. Was near to getting second issue on my grant sorted, and now people way lower down in the hierarchy than those I’d been directed to are feeling it’s their remit and trying to make decisions which would scupper my grant, lacking an overview of all the issues. And everyone is away on holiday so it drags on and on...

trying to make decisions which would scupper my grant

Ha! I had some low-down professional services people (I really should put professional in scare quotes) make a "decision" about a grant that I slaved over for several months (probably racked up to a month of full-time work) with several external partners. They decided it shouldn't go forward and it missed the submission deadline. Kicker was that that particular year was the last year in which that particular scheme was running.

I had an email apology from my VC.

But my department was still harangued for not meeting our application target that year ..

Should have said - the professional services decision was completely in error, and the research office admitted this. But it should never have happened in the first place.

And if an academic made a mistake of equivalent seriousness, especially with a student's work, can you imagine the furore?

Popping in to vent and also 'cause I need some advice re a PhD student.

My co-supervisor and I have had trouble with this student since she began. Most of her problems seem to be with me though. Matters came to a head when she objected to an email from me telling her not to expect a very experienced professor with specialist expertise to accommodate her schedule (I was short, but polite). After a couple of abusive emails, I referred matters to the DGS and said I was not prepared to continue supervising. This student followed me around the building crying, begging me to come back. I was cajoled back in for various reasons (probably a mistake).

Things seemed to calm down and we had a supervision a few weeks ago. I read the supervision note and I just wonder how to proceed. It basically paints me as unhelpful and a bit weird. Actually I was very helpful and I'm pretty sure I'm not weird. I can't get hold of my co-supervisor to discuss. I don't know whether to cut my losses, require a rewrite of the note, call in a third supervisor (which I wanted as a condition of coming back but of course it hasn't happened), and/or start recording the meetings so there is no doubt as to what was said.

Sympathies. I’ve had similar and always correct the notes to my satis. That way I’m in control of the record.

I’d write back with my version of the tutorial note, rather than requiring a rewrite. I’d add a cover note, copying the senior tutor, saying that in order to avoid any future misunderstandings, you’ll only see her with another supervisor present. But you’re happy to give written advice if it’s difficult to find you both available.

(If that makes it harder for them to get tutorials, that’s really not your problem.)

Satis = satisfaction.

Not sure what happens there!

I also correct notes (though it's mainly been students who forget things).

Hope you've all had a good summer, whether you were travelling for fieldwork, teaching summer school, beavering away on papers and grants or just on a relaxing (or not) holiday.

I've been allocated an assessment role for my sins and have been listening to tales of woe about how awful things have happened to students during or before exams (some truly dreadful), but the best was the student who went into the loos during an exam to find their pile of notes on top of the cistern had been removed, and suddenly developed a panic attack.
I wasn't at a couple of previous exam boards but we did manage to get rid of That Student without whom, as someone commented, no exam board would be complete.

Email telling us to expect ballot papers - I'm fairly torn about what to do! But I'm also not that convinced they'd get a majority for a strike anyway.

I just don’t think strikes are a particularly effective action for academics unless it’s the really serious sort of action we took last year. Which was pretty horrible and wearing on everyone I think.

I agree, those silly one hour strikes were a waste of time.
My dad was an academic and I remember them going on a marking strike when some cabinet ministers' children were waiting for finals results.