Anyone in the UCU?

[Closetlibrarian]

And striking at end of Feb?

I joined UCU after the last strike, so this will be my first. Even though I voted in favour it, I'm now in an utter quandary. I have an absolute monster of a semester coming up and I'm fretting about all the lectures, tutorials, etc, I'll have to cancel as part of the strike.

If you've gone on strike before how did you present it to your students so that they didn't just get really pissed off with you for cancelling lectures (that we're then, according to UCU, not supposed to reschedule)?

Also, how did you mange with the loss of income? I'm the 'breadwinner', so 14 days of strike action is going to massively impact us (i.e. I'm not sure we'll be able to pay our bills).

I’m not British, user. So you don’t need to pontificate to me about involuntary migration. I don’t consider it much of a “choice” actually.

Not to mention people with caring responsibilities of various shades, who aren’t as free to move around as the traditional academic model of the single unencumbered, able-bodied male.

You sound pretty privileged, but not everyone has had it as easy as you.

I can assure you that none of the professors in my department do any teaching. None at all. The APs do very little (possibly contributing a bit to one module). Some of the APs don’t teach at all. None of them have any grant income worth mentioning. My colleague (SL) was highly amused to discover that a £15k grant she got was the third largest in the department. No one is editing journals or sitting on grant committees or anything of the sort. Most of the profs do at least have some big role. But most of the APs just seem to have a lot of time and curiously little pressure to do anything useful with it.

It is not a research-intensive university. It’s a post-92. And I have no idea how any of them are getting away with it.

All these emails show is that our experiences across the sector are very varied. I’m striking, and am in a minority in my dept. I’m trying not to be judgemental because it’s really not that easy for everyone to take 14 days without pay.

None of the professors in my department (ex polytechnic) teach. They have few grants and in terms of REF, as far as I can see poor outcome. They tend to produce reports and conference papers, rather than journal papers.

All our professors teach and research and sit on committees.

I am genuinely shocked at these jobs where professors do nothing but produce the odd report! Where are these universities? I think I might apply there, especially if they have TPS as a pension scheme. I do know, however, of institutes within post-92 places where a lot of contract research is done, and these are run very differently indeed from a standard university department. They are more like a think tank or something.

It's obvious in my department that the professoriat has a much greater workload than the rest of the staff. The other staff don't always know that much about management. In fact, I'm consistently shocked how many SL/Ls seem to know virtually nothing about how things are run. However, I do know that a couple of adjacent departments are not so well run - in fact, they're basket cases, filled with individualist and selfish professors who only want to pursue their own agendas, and who palm off extraordinary amounts of the grunt work to lower staff. So it can vary considerably within an institution, even within a Faculty - let alone between institution and institution.

I do think it's a matter of colleagiality to stand together in a strike. I mean, that's almost a tautologous statement, right? Like saying "collective action should be collective". The whole point of being in a union is that you act in solidarity with others, with the expectation that they will also have your back when the chips are down for you.

I am not sure that this is an intergenerational issue of the type that soupy describes, though - in fact, I've heard the pro-VC argue this the other way, that what essentially is happening in a lot of places is that young people are out on pickets protesting pension losses for those who are much more senior, who are crossing pickets. (Said with an eye roll at the naivety of youth! ). Actually, if you look at the modelling, just about everyone stands to lose a bloody fortune over this, and whether the loss is 33% (younger staff) or 43% (older staff) is a bit, well... academic (pardon the pun).

I do urge people to look at the personal figures on the USS modeller, if they haven't done so already. It takes literally 2 minutes:

uss-pension-model.com/

All the professors in my department teach (RG). Our last principal reiterated often that professors should do more of everything - research, teaching and admin than junior staff, that's what being senior means (I'm not convinced they should do more teaching but they should do a fair share). There is no way we could survive without professors teaching!
I understand that it is financially hard for some people to strike, so I think that makes it even more important that people who can afford it, like me, do so, in solidarity with those who cannot. Yes this will make things difficult for me, but since I have some seniority and a partly managerial role, it will have a bigger impact on the department, which is the whole point of striking, to have an impact. Striking professors would have the most impact here so I will be disappointed if they have not made their contribution.

"In fact, I'm consistently shocked how many SL/Ls seem to know virtually nothing about how things are run." That's me! I know a bit from running Athena Swan for a while but decided that these things are above my pay grade...

Not paid enough.

I think it’s dreadful that our senior staff don’t teach here. For everyone, but particularly the students. Instead our department appears to have a policy of ensuring that students are taught by the most junior people they possibly can at all times.

Anywhere else I’ve worked (or studied) the professors did their fair share of teaching, as well as taking on management activities and producing impressive research. So it came as quite a surprise when I started this post that the senior staff here contribute so little to the department.

I think I could understand the logic if they were bringing in lots of grant income or producing really impressive research. But they really aren’t. Many of the supposedly senior staff are struggling to produce 2* research outputs and the research grant income target (which is apparently ‘aspirational’) for the entire department (which is enormous) is laughably small. I told someone at a nearby research intensive university what it was and she was shocked. Individual professors in her department have higher research income targets than my entire department.

Neverever - My bad, I wasn't clear at all there, was I?! I didn't mean to suggest for a second that L/SL ought to be running things themselves. In fact, I think it's fucking awful when professors go all slopy-shouldered and palm off major admin jobs onto junior staff (see my comments above on the basket-case departments adjacent to mine). It seems only right to me that senior members of staff, who are better paid, should carry a greater load.

I just think that there is someimes a weird lack of communication about the way that things are done and the pressures that come from the institution, and from the general climate. It leads to a kind of disconnect between managerial staff and non-managerial staff.

In DH's department, there are a number of junior staff who are simply annoying on this issue - always trying to strike a "radical" pose, but in the most ridiculous and ineffective ways, simply because they haven't actually grasped what the situation really is. He has a couple of members of staff who have been running around doing a community project. Now this project has failed utterly and completely to achieve a single positive practical outcome, despite a lot of money and time being invested in it. In fact, the community in question basically told the academics in the end that they'd had enough and could they please sod off. It has also not produced a single piece of decent research output. Yet these fuckers lecture everyone else about being a "radical, engaged" scholar. It's infuriatingly sanctimonious. I was personally lectured by one of them that "there is more to life than books in a library" - a complaint that I am not sure would have been made to a male colleague!

I think what I'm trying to say is that it's good to think critically and to challenge, but the way in which that challenge is mounted matters, and that it's the production of positive change that matters, not personal ego. And that production of positive change involves actually understanding how institutions work in the first place!!

Knowing how institutions work is dependent on getting on the right committees, which can be hard if you are snowed under doing the bread and butter work to keep the department running.

I lose 34% on that personal pension link

whiskyowl I didn't think you were accusing junior staff. In our department I think communication is mostly good between everyone and there's not much evidence of any hierarchy or power struggle. We unite in wanting to actually work in teaching and research ..

I know a bit from running Athena Swan for a while but decided that these things are above my pay grade

But surely gradually learning "how things work" is part of career development and promotion? And if you want a more idealistic answer, it's about knowledge = power. If you learn how things work, you have a bit more power in the system.

I was a HoD as a very new Senior Lecturer, 5 years later, that was part of what got me promoted to professor. I was mentored/trained/nurtured by very active feminist pioneer professors on the principle of "feminist oblige' - that if I could take action and get involved and do things, as a feminist, I should. Just being one of the 14% - just my presence reminding all the suited men that women are not just wives supporting their careers is important.

I know Raging but I don't want all that. I want to do my research. That's the only thing I ever wanted to do... I don't mind teaching, but research is what I live for.

@whiskyowl standing ovation from me.

Although I can't get the pension link to work: my laptop tells me it's an insecure site. But I know just from doing calculations a while back after a big move of job to a far far more expensive town and thus having to take out a humungous (to me, one income etc) mortgage which will have to be paid off beyond retirement age, that my pension will drop around 25% under the proposed changes. And that's on a relatively high academic salary, paying everything I can into the scheme - extra 1%, AVCs everything.

I know Raging but I don't want all that. I want to do my research. That's the only thing I ever wanted to do... I don't mind teaching, but research is what I live for

And you don't think I don't want that? I'm in this job for the research.

Maybe think about who facilitates your research? And how they do it? What volunteer time is given over to enable you to do your research?

And if you don't like the system, what are you doing to have a say?

neverever - But here's the thing, your research relies on institutional support, and those institutions don't run themselves. Research isn't a purely individual endeavour.

I'm not saying that everyone should do absolutely equal amounts towards running things - some people like management and admin, others don't. But everyone has to do their bit and pull their weight. Otherwise you get an exploitative system developing where some are relying to an unfair extent on the labour of others.

My DH 'just wants' to do research too. But he's spent the last 10 years having his research career take a hit because of huge admin responsiblities and the need to provide large amounts in the way of grant income - the kind of projects that yield this do not allow the deep, theoretical engagement that he is good at. It is reaching a point where this is becoming a real problem in terms of his future options.

That's not to say that we shouldn't look at how we can reduce the ridiculous admin burden on everyone, mind. Just that collegiality means recognising that power relations and 'hidden' labour are part of even apparently 'private' tasks of research and writing.

All that said, I do sympathise with what you say about there being a route for people who 'just' want to write. I'm like you, but I reckon more junior. I am not very ambitious in the way of institutional position, which is not because I disagree with anything raginggirl has said, but largely because I don't think I'm personally any good at it - I am too sensitive and too easily upset and destroyed by things, which are weaknesses in my character of which I am ashamed. But I do think there's a balance between being a good colleague and being able to defend some time/space for the things I really want to do, and the 'being a good colleague' part does involve being switched on to the institutional pressures/landscape these days, which means sometimes taking on stuff that is annoying or anxiety/panic-inducing!

Actually I don't do more than my fair share of stuff, and I don't "volunteer"... But the crucial thing is that I'm on a part-time contract. If I take on any more stuff at all that is "good for career progression" I will really not have any more time for research. And I am not willing to do that. I'm happy to be stuck in my lowly position and say no to everything I don't fancy. It's a bit selfish but I'm tired of being anything else. (I am striking though.)

We have a workload model (!) and I do do admin, just to be clear. I'm just not doing more than I should.

@whiskyowl, I'm still applauding your posts - and like your DH, I've been doing admin now - and facilitating other people's research - for about 15-20 years now (as well as running 3 large funded projects in that time).

I want to say how much I've enjoyed, nodded at, and applauded your posts. But ... you know - it's easy to say stuff like this: I am too sensitive and too easily upset and destroyed by things, which are weaknesses in my character of which I am ashamed

I too sometimes feel I'm "too sensitive and easily upset" - indeed, I am. And I have no domestic/emotional support - the sacrifice I've made which most of my male colleagues have not had to make, is that being seen as an 'alpha female' (just doing my job, actually) is like the opposite of catnip to potential [male] partners. Plus the 12 hour days.

I'd like to have the luxury of being upset. Indeed, I get very upset, but I just have to get over myself. And help facilitate other people's careers.

See, this is what I mean by supporting those of us who do those academic leadership jobs and try to make them work, and try to shield others from the worst of the system. Instead, I get responses like that of @EmyRoo upthread, and the implication that if I'm doing jobs which facilitate other people's research it's because a) I'm not passionate about my own research; or b) I have a hide of a rhonocereos.

I think it would help id other women at least appreciated what women like me do. Sometimes. Just occasionally.

I agree with every word you say raginggirl. And I am in awe of what you have achieved. I don't think I can even imagine how tough it is to be a pathbreaker like that.

I totally accept that being sensitive isn't an excuse. I have probably, in my shame, understated quite what a mess I actually am. Without wanting to say too much and certainly without wanting to be self-pitying, there is quite a toxic link in my past between childhood abuse (of all kinds) and academic achievement. But I am working on it. I have a great counsellor, who is wonderful. I have fantastic personal support from DH, though like many academic men, he could be a bit better at understanding the need for some career balance between us. And I have been lucky enough to find academic mentors like yourself, who are supportive and who have been enormously generous to me, beyond my deserts. I really have no right to complain, and no-one to blame but myself for my reactions to things. I ought to be able to do much better, and after years of being completely paralysed and not working at all, I am trying to put myself out there more and take more on. I don't know why I am so afraid by things that others can do. It is humiliating and embarrassing and I do feel like I am letting people down most days if I am honest. But that is not an excuse not to try, is it? I am hoping that every day I do try makes the next one just a bit easier and that I can gradually go on like this, doing more and getting better.

@whiskyowl what a beautiful post - I realise my general irritation about some assumptions in this thread rubbed off on you.

I'm really not a path breaker - my academic mentors were (academics in the 1970s) and I've just been a typical "good girl" high achiever people pleaser, and set my feet on the path they cleared for me. I think it's easier in the humanities.

But I've had to learn to speak up. I no longer need to take a deep breath and calm myself with my "It'll be OK" mantra before I open the door to walk into a committee meeting or the like.

I wish there were some proper training for academic women. Not the crap about dressing for success stuff that gets dished out.

About how to deal with a Head of School who tells you that you talk too much and it irritates people (yes, really!)

I'm lucky that I've moved to a university which is much more humane and open to senior women. I know not everyone's in that situation - I've worked at a big civic run by macho psychopaths.

Anyway, good luck @whiskyowl I hope it gets better and better!

And sorry for the slight derail of the thread ...

You ARE a pathbreaker. All those women like you who have achieved position, recognition, and power at a time when this made them a distinct minority are pathbreakers!

Isn't this, in a way, part of the problem that the feminist movement has faced? We tend to lionize women at one remove - so it's always the generation before the one currently at the top of their mature game, never those actually in position! Partly because lionization tends to remove quite a lot of the difficulty, the complexity and all those problematic "grey areas" that real women have to negotiate!

(In wider society, this seems to happen too but at a wider temporal remove. The number of people I know now lauding the suffragettes who I am sure would have absolutely despised them at the time they were campaigning is quite amusing).

I agree about training for academic women, but I would widen it to say we also need some training for men that aims at egalitarian culture change along gender lines. And it needs to have teeth. I don't think some men are fully aware of the ways in which behaviours that are convenient for them are discriminatory and exclusive to women because of wider gender inequalities. Or at least, if they are aware, the culture allows them conveniently to forget it, and training that acts as a reminder would be useful. I would like it to incllude some of the literature on the hidden work of social reproduction (coming out of the debate over wages for housework) so that we are talking about gender relations in a wider social context, and not just in the academy, because the two things seem inseparably connected to me!

Anyway, I'm really derailing the thread now! Apologies. To get things back on track, Sam Dolan has written an interesting thread on Twitter summarising what we know at present on the status of the employer survey that seems to be at the heart of the revaluation:

twitter.com/etymologic/status/970052552292274178

I am really confused why my comments would lead you to those conclusions RagingGirl because I have not directed anything at you or made any implications along those lines.
In my department I am one of the people who facilitates other people’s research, because I am (by default) here. It is difficult for me to travel. I am not saying it is easy for other people, just that since the birth of child with SN, and being a single parent, it is difficult for me.

Most of my comments, with the exception of one which was following user, have been reflections on how I feel and what I am trying to understand.