to ask what lecturers, students & parents think - precarious employment in universities

[morningtoncrescent62]

I've just read this report claiming that universities are using a 'Sports Direct' model to employ lecturers, and the most prestigious universities are the worst. Are the percentages to be believed? The claim is that more than 50% of the staff at Russell Group universities are on precarious contracts which sounds like a huge proportion, and scandalous if it's true or anywhere near true. My DDs finished university before the £9,000 tuition fees (thank goodness!) but if I was a student or a parent now I'd be outraged if I or my children were being taught by people on rubbish pay and conditions which surely can only cost a fraction of the current tuition fees. Or am I being hopelessly naive?

Yeah, the temporary contract thing isn't that new in science. But I think it's getting worse - more and more people are applying for advertised postdocs that request only a PhD with 8-10 years of postdoctoral experience.

I know someone who was on fellowships for something like 15 years (and this was a long time ago) before getting her first permanent position. I think if you get one of those early fellowships you are then elligible for follow-on ones. I don't think it's possible, though, to get something like 2 regular postdocs then apply for a fellowship? Or maybe you can but just aren't as competitive as the person who's had 10 years worth of fellowship time being an independent PI.

RE: PhD students, what is meant by 'teaching'? Only on super-rare occasions does a PhD student give a lecture here, and that's usually because that student has some very specific expertise and/or is using it to gain teaching experience for their career (DH did this when he was a PhD student - humanities - and now that he's gone on to start his own business they still pull him back in to give that one lecture). But we regularly have PhD students as tutors for practicals and tutorials. I thought that was pretty normal? But I'm from the US where this is how PhD students earned their salary and worked something like 20 hours a week at it. Here we actually struggle to get enough tutors because the science students all have stipends and while they want a bit of experience, they don't want to spend too much time away from their studies.

Royal Society University Research Fellowships: to be eligible you need between 3-8 years postdoctoral years.

Marie Curie Research Fellowships - no limits on how many years post PhD

EPSRC Career Acceleration - soft limits on how many years postdoc before you apply.

Leverhulme ECRs.

Etc etc.

But actually by research fellowships I included postdoctoral positions associated with grants where typically no hard limits of years postdoc apply.

I don't see why it's shocking that PhD students teach undergraduates - it depends on how and what they are teaching. If they are e.g. helping running lab sessions, fine. If they are helping administer marking for a course (typing scores into spreadsheets, check additions of marks), fine. If they are lecturing a course, not fine. But I have never known PhD students do the latter in my subject in any UK university.

I don't think it's possible, though, to get something like 2 regular postdocs then apply for a fellowship? Or maybe you can but just aren't as competitive as the person who's had 10 years worth of fellowship time being an independent PI.

It has been normal for decades for successful Royal Society URFs to have 2 regular postdocs under their belt in my area. However, such fellowships are clearly permanent track in that a UK university will offer a permanent contract at the end of it.

For other shorter fellowships, you are not usually more competitive simply because you have more research experience. Panels would ask why you don't have a permanent job and would be more likely to award the fellowship to a more promising person earlier in their career.

But I think it's getting worse - more and more people are applying for advertised postdocs that request only a PhD with 8-10 years of postdoctoral experience.

This is true, but again this is personal choice. People do have to take responsibility for themselves and their own careers. Somebody who doesn't have a permanent job 5 years post PhD has to ask themselves honestly how likely they are to get a permanent job and what they can do to improve their chances. If their chances look very slim, then they should move into another field.

In my field it varies from fellowship to fellowship.

med, what's wrong with PhD students teaching undergrads? PhD students need teaching experience to be competitive in a job market, so it seems unfair not to train them and give them practice. And why shouldn't they be any good?

I'd say a university that doesn't find its PhD students any teaching is doing them a disservice.

The answer why most people don't have a permanent job in my subject after five years is glaringly obvious: we have vastly more PhD's than openings.

It is simply not true that a failure to secure one speaks of an inability to do the subject as well as those who do secure a permanent post: I'm seeing talented people leave more and more. Academics remain studiously silent about those, and mumblings are heard about them "not having what it takes." That's a pretty big error of logical thinking given the current climate.

Of those that do secure permanent posts or a good fellowship that should lead to one, it's not unusual to somehow have an "in" with someone somewhere. This is another myth: Academics like to talk about things being solely on merit, but like many other sectors, who you know has a role to play. Dare to be from a non-traditional environment, a woman, or disabled, and you have even more hurdles. But no-one likes to acknowledge that relatively wealthy, white, men are largely running the show.

This is the reality in my discipline. One that is supposed to prize logical thinking and individual merit, but often falls short of its own ideals.

As usual the Guardian has completely misrepresented the data. In actual fact less than 5% of full time equivalent academic staff are on hourly rate contracts.

The 50% in the Guardian is a headcount figure and includes for example students employed for a few hours at open days, visiting speakers, waitressing staff hired to cover a conference dinner.

See here: HESA

I didn't mean to imply that PhDs teaching would be obviously terrible (sorry), I was instead very very surprised because I thought Brit unis inherently never did that, even as tutors.

But Come to think of it, I was fairly terrible at teaching (why I never wanted to be a lecturer. I think I gave a few terrible lectures to MSc students when I was a PhD student, 23 yrs ago). My experience as an u-grad of PhD students being my tutor was, actually, they were at best mediocre at it, too. Lecturers at our Uni now have mandatory teaching training, which is a good thing.

You guys sound glued to the model of PhD->postdoc -? fellowship -> lecturer as the only career path. It's so boring to read that again. I'll skip out on thread now because the topic of whether lecturers should be treated as cannon fodder is a very valid issue, but nothing to do with people like me.

But no-one likes to acknowledge that relatively wealthy, white, men are largely running the show.

Isn't this the whole point of Athena SWAN? Athena SWAN isn't perfect but at least it aims to bring this issue into the open, collect reliable data and take actions to improve diversity.

Some of the most terrible lecturers that I encountered as a student were fully tenured professors. When they bothered to turn up, sometimes drunk, they would show some slides of field trips accompanied by a meandering commentary about what was on the screen.

They had their favourites, young men in their own image, who were clearly being trained up for the PhD, fellowship and lectureship openings. Female graduates were lucky to get any patronage at all.

From what GodStopper says, and what I've seen recently in academia as a Fellow, there just hasn't been the necessary shift in order to change these fundamental barriers.

Ok, med, sorry if I offended you by being 'glued' to a model. I didn't think I was ... it's just been my experience. But then, not quite sure why I or anyone else has a duty to entertain you on this thread.

And yes, UK universities have included PhD students as teachers for ages. Ten years ago my undergrad dissertation was supervised by a PhD student, and I don't feel done down by it at all.

At my uni (northern RG one), it is quite common for PhD students to take first year seminars (but not deliver the associated lectures). This can be good training. They usually don't have involvement in courses that count towards the final degree result (first year marks don't matter beyond passing).

I did a fair bit of seminar teaching and did wonder if they thought: "Why am I getting a PhD student instead of famous professor?", but I never (openly anyway) encountered any hostile attitudes. I had mostly good feedback, and a strong teaching evaluation.

I was never overwhelmed by the preparation. My rule of thumb was: prepare no more than a diligent student - because you'll know more than them anyway from even a cursory reading of the material. My role wasn't to go in and start spoon feeding topic x, but to be the conduit through which discussion flows. There's no need to go crazy anticipating everything someone might say: it's o.k to say "I'll get back to you" if especially puzzled (and then do).

Bit different now I'm doing lecturing though!

Yes, our dept. is in the process of applying for an Athena Swan award, and is considered to be one of the more progressive in our discipline (Oxford is generally considered the worst!). Change is occurring, but very slowly. People in my position (from poor background, disabled) do face significant challenges. Hanging in there for now, otherwise the status quo will never change.

You guys sound glued to the model of PhD->postdoc -? fellowship -> lecturer as the only career path

I think that's because we're talking about the people working in Universities? For a lecturer/prof, that is the path that the vast majority do take. I know a handful who did a few years in industry after their PhD, but I think very few people who go to industry or elsewhere actually want to come back. I could be wrong, but in my experience the end point of standard academic mostly got there that way.

But there are a lot of other career paths for PhDs. My husband has left academia to run a business, for example. A large number of people in our grant support office have PhDs. Particular for my field, a good proportion of the people I trained with now work for industry. I also know many peers now in publishing, for some reason. I haven't had that many PhD students yet, but one of my graduates now works for industry. We have a lot of training to support the bizarrely called "alternate" careers (bizarrely, since in my experience the majority of people go into them - I guess it's alternate because it's not what the people training them are doing?).

Hmm, I didn't get the impression that British Unis didn't have PhDs as tutors, but I have only very limited experience with them. We also have staff members running tutorial groups, but these are a different programme - they are outside any particular class, whereas the PhD students usually are involved when a class requires 12 people to simultaneously look after 96 students, for example. So there will be one academic staff member running things, and 12 PhD students guiding 8 students each through the exercise.

I was a Teaching Fellow throughout my PhD (in top research university department in the arts/humanities). I was lucky - it was a full-time salaried post, back in the mid-80s. There were several of us, but I do t think tbe posts exist any more. Cutbacks etc. But I taught, mostly 1st years, although in my 4th year, I worked on a lecture course with my supervisor.

PhD students have always taught - I remember as an undergraduate in the late 70s, early 80s being taught by Doctoral students in seminars. Lectures were always by lecturers, e en famous Professors!

But you know, when I was an undergrad, I didn't realise who was s famous Professor, and who was a PhD student. It didn't make that much of a difference.

Yes, I left University teaching over rubbish hourly pay. The final straw was being asked to supervise a postgraduate thesis and then being refused payment by Human Resources. Apparently no-one could remember asking me to supervise the student and then it was decided I was doing it on an honorary basis without pay . It took me two years to get paid and I had to seek legal advice. My union support was hopeless. And all during this I continued to supervise the student because I felt it was morally the correct thing to do.
The treatment of teaching assistants/postdocs is scandalous.

In my discipline, philosophy, the only reason to do a PhD is to pursue an academic career. The recent push to recruit more students has driven up PhD numbers beyond what the market can sustain, but I am not too sure what career options other than academia require a philosophy PhD. If you can think of anything, preferably paying loads of money, let me know!

The treatment of teaching assistants/postdocs is scandalous.

I have several postdocs on 3 year contracts paid at 40k per year. They research and do not teach. They will build up their research portfolio hoping to get a permanent academic position, but will have plenty of time before their contacts end to look for alternative positions too. Why is this treatment scandalous?

In my discipline, philosophy, the only reason to do a PhD is to pursue an academic career.

In many academic disciplines the PhD research itself won't be relevant to alternative careers but the skills acquired during the PhD are - independent research, argumentation, teaching, communication etc. I have known philosophy PhDs move into the civil servant, public policy, work as ethics officers in healthcare etc etc.

For a lecturer/prof, that is the path that the vast majority do take.

The previous poster works as a long-term researcher and has claimed on many threads that this would be an option for lots academics. (Others like me completely disagree with this, as there simply doesn't seem to the possibility to be a long-term researcher in our research areas. But apparently she knows lots of people who are long-term researchers in many different research areas.)

I wonder if I've heard of you Booboostwo ...

I wouldn't recommend doing the subject to anyone at PhD level unless they have academic aspirations. I think that's true for most humanities subjects.

Alternative options I'm considering are analyst type jobs. I'm not having to seriously consider that yet, but it's foolish for anyone doing a PhD in the subject to think they will somehow be the exception to the rule. Chances are, they won't.

User I'Vevey had to write a reference for a philosophy PhD for MacDonalds. Not sure where are these philosophers are with these great jobs but I don't know any.

Godstopper probably not, although my mother reads my books so they don't go entirely unnoticed! Feel free to PM me, happy to tell you who I am!

I have been an hourly paid lecturer at a UK university for over ten years now.

At the start, my job seemed like a privilege. Now I just feel exploited.

My hours were recently reduced from 5 hours a week to 3. My contracts have gone down, over the years, from 12-months to 9-months to (now) 5-months contracts at a time. Every time I have to reapply for the job I've been doing for over ten years, every single year I have to bring my passport in to prove I'm not an illegal worker, and every year my pay is several months late because of the red tape in HR. Yet HR have always been alert enough to make sure Ive never worked for four years continuously, which would force them to give me some employment rights.

I have two other jobs (both education related, both part-time) and for the last five years I've also done freelance work in addition. So I make ends meet. But I feel exploited by a uni where the vice chancellor earns three times more than the prime minister.

I've long ago given up on getting a permanent contract. They have tried to get me to become an Associate fellow of the HEA, not for my career development, but to make their stats look better. Don't think I'll do it now.

Want to see gross inequality and labour exploitation in action? Come to a UK university.

I teach postgraduates, by the way. At least three of the lecturers who teach the MA students on this course are hourly paid, like me.

I do it and I feel completely exploited, like Tulips. I work for 3 universities, with one I have rolling contracts, the others are Sports Direct model. I'm teaching undergrads and postgrads.
I know I'm much better at teaching and supervising than some of the permanent lecturers. But they have research time and I don't. So I'm stuck. It's shit.

Tulips - Yet HR have always been alert enough to make sure Ive never worked for four years continuously, which would force them to give me some employment rights.

hi Tulips when you say four years continuously, do you mean having to reapply every year for the same job? Is that not continuous. It's never occurred to me but I've been teaching for about 6 years now and never thought it might entitle me to some employment rights

My experienceis somilar to Tulips and Fafoutis. Most recently Ive been on a rolling 6month contract so can only plan my life 6months ahead. I feel exploited but at the same time I'm complicit in it because I love my work. I maintain this is the case with most academics/researchers. luckily my dh has a secure well paid job.

I used to love it. The workload in order to get paid enough is too high to love it now.