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?

One thing at my institution that I do like though is that everything is standardized. The time to give feedback, the time to respond to an email, the things we have to include in the module handbook or whatever, how extensions are given, even the amount of words for feedback or the type of referencing. It's very boring in some ways and doesn't allow for individual flourish, but in other ways it takes a lot of the stress out as I just say 'we are following the departmental standards' for everything. That's cut out a lot of discussion for starters.

Out of office is staying on here. I'm going to give one day a week to get back to student enquiries, our official like is 48 hour response but I'll clearly explain at the start of term that it's not feasible right now and if management complain then they will need to come up with a solution for my workload. I'm going to step back from all work that is taken for granted and not allocated any formal time in our workload including various committees. Going to try and block out time in my calendar for research and grant writing to try and regain some control.

i m going to step down for the 3 EB I serve on, and the ethics committee, and the AS committee.

In fact, as many of the non science "citizen" activities - because non of these actually really matter for promotion or keeping senior management at bay, or getting research privilege (time, space or money). It only flags me up as a mug.

@Lifeinaonesie I think this is a great idea. I think if I only looked at student emails once a week though, easily solvable but time-dependent problems (e.g. I've got an exam in two days time and I want to defer it) would build up, so I've decided to go for not looking at my emails til after midday and then only deal with them for a limited time. That way they aren't the first thing I do!

@Marasme I agree that journals in particular are going to suffer as people realise that we cannot keep giving large amounts of free labour. I'm only on one board and am sticking with that, but I'm not taking on any new reviewing or committee work full stop at the moment, unless it would be very expedient for my career.

There's a great person on Facebook who writes about how women in particular can manage their academic careers. It's very 'American' in style, and might be a bit too directive for some, but some of the ideas I've got on how to cut down on admin/collective crap and how to refocus on my own research and interests have come from there:

www.cathymazak.com/blog/

Re. the cutting back on the good will stuff: has anyone had experience of simply not being able to find external examiners for taught programmes? What would happen if absolutely no one said yes? I'm trying to find one at the moment, and can't think why anyone would say yes to it, given all the other stuff we're dealing with.

thanks for the recommendation @Poppingnostopping - i ll check her out!

EE - we cannot find one. We begged our current one to stay under special circumstances as desperate. It s a thankless job.

I spend a huge amount of time facilitating others' careers - external examiner, running a national organisation, doing readers' reports, references etc etc etc. I actually do start to feel resentful of the people who say they can't, although I also totally understand why it's becoming unmanageable. I find it unmanageable! I'm in the situation of doing too much - and not doing any of it well. Argh.

QueenoftheAir I think the issue for me is that all this collegiate stuff, all the extras which aren't in our workloads, made sense when we had smaller classes and more time in the schedule. When I first arrived at my institution, one of our professors was just leaving who had never written a grant! He said it was not for him, this new way, and got out. For him, being an external examiner was probably an enjoyable interlude to writing his book, a chance to travel, get to meet nice colleagues who had time for a lunch, look through other students' work. In the context of having to churn out REFable papers and put in grants at all opportunities, it doesn't make sense to do this, and online it's not even fun! Same with student reference, my classes have tripled in size, so three times as many references now needed as when I started. Reviews- I still review, but only things I would want to read anyway.

It's also worth saying that many of these long hour careers were facilitated by wives, and again, when you move to a model of two career, women who may have caring or dependent responsibilities lose out, produce less. There's already research showing women sent fewer papers for journals during the first lockdown than men. Wonder why...

I think we have to move to a more selfish model, I don't mean not helping colleagues, I would (and do) help my immediate colleagues if one of them is ill, and I've been helped in turn. If we don't think of ourselves though, we will just drop out at each stage towards prof which is what again the research shows happens. I don't even know if it is selfish to prioritize your own research, interests and put boundaries around what you can do, time-wise, it sounds quite sensible I think.

I get all that, @Poppingnostopping - I work wit a number of women with young children & also older male professors who've never written a grant.

But if people stop, for example, editing journals or sitting o editorial boards, or running learned societies, how will research be facilitated?

It's a conundrum. For me, it's structurally about the way in which we all work in a male-shaped profession, based around the male life pattern & the history of the male body.

It's a conundrum. For me, it's structurally about the way in which we all work in a male-shaped profession, based around the male life pattern & the history of the male body

Partly, but also universities have failed to recognize the increase in workloads and long hours for everyone, not just women, due to the huge expansion of student numbers. It just can't add up to the same career it always was, but with double or triple the teaching time!

I do sit on EB's and still review, but these models of free labour are outdated, same as external examiners are (soon it will have to be a paid position). Having externals hasn't stopped grade inflation because individually that's hard to do, and our externals usually think we are too stingy!

I don't know the answer, but it can't be for us as individuals to flog ourselves into the ground or make ourselves ill or consider leaving.

I'm on a journal which pays (tiny amounts but it swung my decision to move from another journal!)

Lots of discussion on our internal Teams about whether we are keyworkers as we are "teachers in education".

Hi again all. I don't know who might have seen my post on another thread about my accident back in October - I'm still on sick leave through the end of this week and cautiously trying to figure out how much I can do now. But "sick leave" was working at least 75% time anyway, just MUCH less efficiently. And now, even if I'm fully recovered (still trying to figure that out, and getting worried as I'm not as better as I'd hoped I'd be), I still have a MASSIVE backlog to handle from last semester. I would have normally prepared a lot for the semester start, and in current times even more because of the different formats, and was unable to do any of that. So I'm really panicking about workload. And I'm worried I'll lose that central post I got and had wanted for so many years - I really want to be back so they don't go looking for someone else to do it.

I'm also massively confused about sick leave and what I do - it has literally been the most stressful thing I've done as an academic so far. I still don't understand what I'm allowed to do/not allowed to do, the doctors keep sending notes that don't say the same things they told me on the phone, I'm told by my HoD "do nothing" and then "contact everyone you're doing things for to tell them they need to get someone else" (which, given my capacity at the time would have taken a full week of maximum effort and put me beyond the deadlines of some of the stuff that had to be done! - I just went ahead and contacted the director of teaching instead) and I have no idea how I go about going back to work proper. Other than just doing my job, like I am right now and have been doing to my max anyway. There have been noises about occupation health and interviews and whatnot and I really don't understand the process.

Oh dear, sorry to hear that murmur.
I was off sick (different reason) last academic year and found that the Uni had no idea what OH did. They expected OH to say for definite what I'd be able to do and when and OH... couldn't.

Lots of discussion on our internal Teams about whether we are keyworkers as we are "teachers in education" If I had primary age children, I would be pushing for this. Mine are older teens though so don't really want to go into school to do the same lessons as online school, and I can work with them around me, kind of, though it is distracting and they do eat up time and energy without meaning to necessarily.

murmuration so sorry to hear about all that, I don't have any great suggestions as I always swerve HR and tend to get things handled internally in the department.

@murmuration that sounds rotten. It might be worth having that chat with OH. When I had a different issue, and presented with a doctor’s note, they wrote to my HoD stating what adaptations he needed to make to my work routine. (It’s really not on that you have had to work when off sick, but then I get why you feel the need to). Do try and construct what an ideal scenario might look like. Is it to be relieved of a course, or what? Then you can steer the OH person to what your needs are.

Yeah, popping, I've never dealt with HR in things like this except for maternity leave, but it got extensive enough it had to go to them. Which I suspect is part of why I have no idea how it works...

Thanks, imposter. What I want is to be fine and do everything :) But even that means lots of make-up work from last semester. The two big things I'm doing are my central role and a course I run - and I want to do both. I really don't want to lose the central role, and I do enjoy the course and it would create chaos to back out - and I also worry that backing out would be met with instead I should quit the central role...

I guess what I'd like is not to have to do any extras, like you constantly get asked to do. And I am so bad at saying no - I've already got a request to sit on PhD interviews and I'm not sure how to say no (as I have to say no!) as I'm not even sure what my reasons are, since I haven't had that conversation yet! Any tips for how to decline? Do I really just say "sorry, I can't do that"?

Well @murmuration, you must put yourself first. As for tips, the following are on my standard responses to anything that shifts the balance from “just managing” to “I’m on my knees” (I have a chronic illness): 1. Avoid responding on the spot; 2. Say you have so many demands on your time already, that you won’t be able to give this the amount of attention that it is due; 3. Suggest an alternative person (if necessary checking with them first), ideally somebody more junior for whom this will be an opportunity rather than a burden; 4. If suggested by somebody more senior to whom you feel uncomfortable refusing, say you’d like to do this but you’d need to drop another commitment so can they advise which do they think should take precedence?

... adapt as suits.

And again I know it’s easy for me to say but you must look after yourself. If you feel guilty, remember that you’ll be no use to them if you cannot work at all.

Honestly, I just say ‘I’m sorry, I’m not able to take on any more commitments at the moment’

I wouldn’t say anything personal or explain.

Exactly, don't explain. Just "I'm really sorry, but I can't fit that in".

No, don't say you're sorry, I think that's a thing we often do as women. Just say you cannot make it, no need to apologise and or bow and scrape.

There’s a difference between saying ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that’ and bowing and scraping, surely. I think not apologising when you are emailing with colleagues comes across as extremely brusque. Would you just say ‘I can’t do that’??

I went ahead and did the the "sorry I can't" method, no further explanation. I do think it's just polite - I think my desire to add a REASON is more of the bowing/scraping part. He would have already gotten my sick leave autoreply, so that could have been a reason in itself, I suppose... He replied with a polite thank you, so that was a success.

I'm feeling a bit less "protected" now that I'll be turning the autoreply off next week.

imposter - I have a chronic illness too, which is also part of why it is so hard for me to gauge if I'm ready to go back. I'm never going to 'feel fine' and am used to pushing myself to the limit anyway. I suppose I can call the doctors later and get another note if things go downhill? I have some really big commitments in the next few weeks, so even managing those would make me feel less like a skiver if I then determined I was still not up to full time work. (Although I just can't imagine anything less than full time, since I was spending nearly full time hours just picking up the edges when off already! Massive guilt over my new PhD students - had my first good length meeting with one today, and really glad she managed so well in my absence)

crap...
i applied for a big group lead job in a research institute in one of my fuck you moment when my uni was aggravating me.
They ve given me an interview next week followed by meet and question time with a team of people working there.

I am now freaking out. Need to pull together a presentation (no detail on content of course, so will need to be bullshitty / visiony). Crap.