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?

never - good description :) It's the worst-run thing I've been involved in (although not that I've encountered) at my Uni thus far.

Thanks, medb, but my only choice would be to not run it at all - it's a cross-Uni thing and this is our School's "month". It's a nightmare as the communication is terrible and it's totally not my area. Somehow three people from my Dept ended up as contacts, despite us having nearly nothing to do with the topic - perhaps because the people in the more closely-aligned Dept were aware of the chaos of the main organisers and steered clear. So shaming won't work either, as I'm a near-stranger to the relevant people. If I don't get anyone in the next two weeks I will call it off with an apology and also step down. There are 7 Schools involved and one has never run their 'month', and another pops in and out, so while it'll make us look a bit bad it won't be a first. At least my name will be on the schedule for the "welcome" so at least it will look slightly more diverse? Hard to do gender-balance when you're working from a something like 30% female staff, and most of them aren't in the target area anyway...

Oooo! So a long chain of "no"s lead to someone suggesting their female postdoc who has said "yes". I have at least one speaker, and I'm assuming some gender diversity (although if I somehow manage to stumble upon an all-female line-up, I'll be fine with that - will balance the many months of all-males).

In other news, our workload has just come out. And they've left off my grants again. With them, I'd still be low on research overall but near the top on funding! (no one's doing great on funding right now) It's so disheartening, and also frustrating that my small accomplishments keep getting overlooked. I've sent an email asking where they've gone, but it's unlikely to do much good for those who have access to the whole list (we just see our place) and think I'm ripe for adding tasks to. Meaning I'll have even less time to translate that funding to actual research outputs.

murmuration, that is a pain. Who would have access to the list that could assign you more tasks to - just your Head of School, or someone else? I would cc anyone who matters into the email pointing out the omission of the grants. And definitely step down from the seminar thing after this time around.

I've scheduled a meeting with my Head in the wake of the disastrous and abusive evaluations. I'm going to ask for a drastically reduced load next year, or otherwise I'm going to ask for parental leave or have to take some other kind of leave because I cannot do another year like this, it is doing material harm to both my health and my career. I cannot believe I've gone from being nominated by students for a teaching award in 16/17 and 17/18, to this, thanks mostly to systemic and structural problems in curriculum planning.

Oh, medb, how awful! And your previous awards show that you ARE a good teacher, just are operating in an impossible environment. Not that you should need awards to show that, but it just makes it so much more blatant.

I'm not even sure who has the workload info - know it goes to the DoT, but that's fine as we work closely and he knows how overstretched I am. It might be a swath of the upper management of the School, which would be annoying as it could include the person I keep bouncing up against in admin things. It's like I can do no right around him. It probably does include my new Dept head.

And that's my newest question - instead of the HoS, Deputy HoS, or a mentor doing our performance reviews, its now been devolved to Dept heads. This is someone to whom I haven't disclosed my disability - there is a space on the form for special circumstances, which is also new. I'm not sure what to do here. Do I just leave it be? Do I let her know? Do I just put something mysterious to her, like "My disability accommodations have been agreed as..." I actually was thinking it might not be a bad thing to have a document with this written down in, as all I have otherwise is a confused email chain from a few years ago. But also not sure who reads these, so don't want to go into too much detail.

I understand your misgivings, @murmuration, as I decided a couple of years ago to declare my disability on my annual review and had my new HoD coyly ask if I would care to elaborate what my chronic illness was. For once I managed to control my natural inclination to say too much, and I snappily retorted, “no”!

But back to you, is there any reason why not? If it can lead to proper adjustments being made, I’d hope that’d outweigh any drawbacks.

Wow, imposter! What was your HoD's response?

I totally wouldn't mind telling her, just, I don't know, I'm confused about how much I should be 'spreading things around'. She will I'm sure at some point see my REF reduction results - I know they don't provide details, but I'll have a note that I'm not to be pressured to make more than X outputs, instead of the 2.5 (which, I suppose is 3!). I'm not sure writing it down would make much of a difference in anything, as I've already got the working time adjustments. I guess I'm nervous there as it is "informal", in that HR aren't involved, and OH was utterly terrifying (after they suggested an investigation into what accommodations I might need could result in a conclusion that I was incapable of doing my job). So it's all word-of-mouth and one confused email chain with a HoS two heads ago. So I suppose the more people who might eventually end up as HoS know, the easier it would be to continue with the informal arrangements. Some of HR do know, now, as I did the REF reduction thing, but I don't have official flex time in that I haven't changed my contract (which is what official flex time requires).

Hmm. Lots of words, not sure what I'm thinking!

murmuration, I would put exactly what you were thinking originally - "my disability accommodations have been agreed as xyz", and just leave it at that. You could mention the name of the person with whom they were agreed?

@murmuration HoD was a bit flummoxed I think, as we’re all allegedly very friendly (though in reality only if you’re one of the boys, which I’m clearly not, so I’m learning to not assume I can let my guard down in such situations).

Back to you, I see your point. Best to let sleeping dogs etc.

It’s the busiest possible time of the semester. I’ve just got proofs come through for an article with a 4 day turnaround. The copy editor has butchered it. And I’ve caught some kind of virus that’s got me doubled over in pain. Something like this happens every bloody semester.

history - argh!! I hate when they go and do that. I know its actually positive that they've bothered to pay someone to check for typos and such (unlike some journals where what you send is what you get...). But when they then make tons of weird changes that you have to undo, it is so frustrating. Hope you are feeling better soon!

I think I'm going to go ahead and put my disability info in my review document (or at least the statement about adjustments being agreed). The people I know will see this would be HoD, who will also see that I have a REF reduction and perhaps this will at least provide less wonder to her when she crosses that, and the HoS's administrator, who was also party to that email chain years ago. And probably the HoS, who already knows what he agreed. And perhaps having a written record on my performance review will help in continuing the informal adjustments when we get a new HoS. I am curious if HoD will actually ask me about it... I think I'm happy to tell her more, just perhaps not write it down.

(thread regular, recent name change)

That is a pain history . Last year I had 48 hours to turn around the proofs of an article I'd handed in five years previously. It was right in the middle of the February holidays and I was on a skiing break in the Alps. Practical.

Right, I have a question. Job interview coming up: is talking to recent graduates to get an idea of current course content going to be frowned on?

I once had a 48-hour proof turn-around request on the Thu before Easter. We rushed to get it in by Friday, as we weren't planning to work on Easter weekend, then the journal auto-replied that everyone was away until Thu the next week!!

burney, hmm: I don't know much, but (a) seems okay to me and (b) how would they know?

Probably me being paranoid but I'd find recent students by asking on a professional mailing list, and it's unlikely but there might be some hiring committee members on there too. It's a job I was turned down for 2 years ago (as recorded upthread) so I'm keen not to put a foot wrong this time. I also need to decide whether I can approach them for feedback as to what happened last time round - it's not a super-progressive institution I get the feeling, but it is the absolute number one in my field.

Aaaanyway, any general tips / reading suggestions on interviewing for professorships / giving teaching demos?

I’ve been on a few professorial interview panels, despite not being one! In general they’ve had larger panels, usually around 6 or 7 people, usually including our Principal and head of faculty, as well as external panel members (profs in related areas from another university) and a prof from a different department in our faculty. I would say that the questions are slightly more open ended than for lecturers and, possibly, more relentless if there seems to be weakness. I have seen someone’s research demolished in front of my eyes, they misjudged our head of faculty’s ditzy middle aged lady persona and failed to spot her razor sharp mind and tongue. That’s unusual though.

In the sample lecture from a prof ( now that we’ve suddenly remembered that teaching is important) we expect them to demonstrate that they will lead from the front in teaching. For a lecturer we might say we can help someone develop teaching skills, a bad lecture from a prof is a serious problem. A few years ago it would have been unthinkable to ask a prof to do a sample lecture.

Finally, in science anyway, a prof is expected to show a maintainable income stream with realistic plans for bringing cash in in the short to medium term. And of course they need a good publication record.

I realise it sounds horrible to rip someone’s research apart but this was someone who had clearly spun a fantasy in their application and the flaw in their science, once they had to talk about it, was glaringly obvious (think law of conservation of energy), yet there was a very simple and obvious answer that they couldn’t reach, even with strong signposting in the questions.

Thanks chem. This is humanities and not in the UK. Last time there were about fourteen people on the panel.

Oh, interesting burney that they want teaching demos! That would be quite unusual at professor level here. I did sit on a professor panel ages and ages ago (given my lack of seniority at the time, I think it may have been because I was the only eligible female...), and my memory of the focus was strongly on research and esteem. But this was in sciences.

Hmm. Not sure about asking on a mailing list (this may all be too late - have you had your interview yet?). I would think that perhaps an informal query of someone, preferably if you could find someone that was on the interview panel last time, but not this time, about where you fell short could be useful. And you could also ask them about asking on the mailing list thing?

I've had my annual review: I put my accommodation information on my form and my HoD said nothing about it. So either she didn't read it :) or felt it inappropriate to say anything. And it's now down on an officialish piece of paper, if I ever need that in the future.

Thanks Murmuration. Interview isn't until May. No idea who is on the panel, they don't tell you. Pretty sure I know where I went wrong last time - I had a one year old and was in the grip of sleep deprivation, so some of my answers were decidedly lacking, looking back

How are people's institutions dealing with COVID-19? I mean we are all online but has anyone's senior management actually said 'thank you' to staff who have been doing their utmost? Ours hasn't. Just telling us to put the students first, take accrued leave on days we have spare and reassuring students that they are being looked after.

We are somewhere in the middle between Warwick (we'll have one hell of a party!) and the take no prisoners approach. Our VC has dialled back on the 'take leave if you can't teach and have children at home', and has been upping the appreciative noises with each comms. One thing I think is quite good is the establishment of an IT hardship fund to help students get online during this period.

They’ve been quite good at my institution. Been given two additional days of annual leave over Easter and been told to take them. Lots of warnings about prioritising our mental health over work.

We have a fund for students too.

I just want a 'thank you' for all the extra work, but no such luck.

I don't want thank you. I want concrete steps in reducing workload (when we are back to normal) and reducing precarious contracts. I want the gender pay gap gone. I want a fair pension.

Yes. I do live in cloud-fucking-cuckoo land.

I want all that and an end to the bullying too. But that's long-term. For now a 'thank you' will do.