To think academics are seriously entitled??

[Bananavibez]

Met a bunch of lecturers at party last night. Dont think ive ever met such an entitled bunch. Nice pay for minimal hours but complaining about how they have to answer loads of emails (??). One of them in their 60s actually admitted they would't meet the qualification requirements for their role if they were applying for it today.
So much bitching and whining and all i could think was "so how come you've stuck with this job for decades then, you could have gone out to work in industry if its so awful"...

My FIL and also a good friend (both college lecturers) have always said this, OP. They both love their jobs but get tired and embarrassed by some colleagues constant whining.

The majority of the general public including most of Mumsnet wouldn’t be able to meet the qualifications in their current role in most industries as the criteria for acceptance is completely different to what it was decades ago. For a lot of even high-quality jobs, you didn’t necessarily need a degree, and sometimes not even good maths and English school grades. You could get into lots of top-tier universities including Oxbridge with much lower A-level grades than you need now. Above all, you could get hired without having much prior experience and they would train you. Nowadays even entry-level jobs require “five years worth of experience” which people obviously don’t have when they are starting off in life.

Academic here. As others have said, the gentleman who opined that he probably wouldn't meet the qualifications for a tenure-track job (if that's what was meant, not clear you understand the difference between TT faculty, lecturers, adjuncts, and admin) probably meant that he wouldn't have a sufficient number of peer-reviewed journal articles, a habilitation book contract, and several prestigious fellowships before being hired for a subsistence-waged job.

The word "entitled" has become overused in everyday discourse and that is the case here.

I think @bathdragon means that they believe lecturers think that teaching (students on their course) is beneath them. Not that lecturers think (school) teachers are beneath them? I may be wrong, it wasn’t the most easily decipherable post. 🤷‍♀️

Either way it’s still a sweeping statement. As a university lecturer I 100% prioritise teaching over research and I love being in the classroom (lecture theatre).

Many PhD's are funded. Most work as graduate teaching assistant whilst undertaking them, sometimes 3, 4, 5 years duration. Not well paid. Lots of job insecurity, short term contracts after years of study. Easy to upset students. Huge workload as in many jobs.
I think you don't know what you're talking about

That would make more sense. I imagine that can be true of some senior staff who are research focussed. I can't say I recognise it from the Profs in my institution. However, there are many that definitely think the admin side of their jobs is beneath them and they create stress and work for those around them!

Hope you can carry the chip on your shoulder.

Academics/lecturers do not ONLY teach your child they have so many benchmarks they need to pass all the time for research, teaching and public engagement - Universities are not set up to just teach, if they were then, yes, there would be a lot of time to spare. Where do you think the majority of new ideas come from, research, innovation and invention - they come from universities, they are not just a ‘higher school’, they are so much more than that. Also, many brilliant people cannot find a position at a good university for a good research or teaching position because there is no money, no vacant positions , also, the pay for the majority is pretty crap - YABU

You know very little about any of this.

They really aren't paid well. Most less than regular classroom teachers.

A PhD isn’t always required, some academics have worked in industry so get the role as a result. My PhD was fully funded and paid, certain ones are though they’re competitive. PhD’s are actually pretty cheap.

I’m an academic and not entitled but I grew up on a council estate so I didn’t have a cushty easy start in life. Some of my colleagues did and they have never known a life outside of academia. I wouldn’t call them entitled but they are severely disorganised and lack common sense entirely. Organising anything with some of them is just awful, I hate it. Amazing bright minds and I love being around them but piss up and brewery springs to mind.

What I will say is you probably shouldn't damn thousands of people based on a small sample.

Absolutely. I’m fortunate to be in a Russell on a secure contract. Many brilliant colleagues in post 92s have been made redundant in recent years.

What a bizarre statement. In nearly 30 years working in universities in the UK and Ireland, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an academic who’d arrived at it having tried and failed to be a school teacher. Apart from anything else, it’s a completely different set of qualifications.

I'm a registrar for an HE institute (we don't have degree-awarding powers yet). There are some academics who work very hard, and there are some who basically repeat the same lecture notes and use the same exam paper every year, so, like anywhere, you have good and bad employees.

Much of the additional admin work on academics (and for us Professional Service Employees) comes from Government and very entitled parents and students.
While I have been a registrar, I have had the following requests from students

• While assisting with graduation, a mother called to ask what her son's head size was because she was ordering the cap and gown for graduation.
• Asking for an extension because they are getting a hair transplant.
• Telling us to ensure that they get an internship at a Premier League football club because it's round the corner from their house.
• Informing me that they can’t come to the exam (scheduled for 3 months' time) because they have a doctor's appointment (they didn’t really).
• Students propositioned me for exam answers.
• Accused of ruining someone's life because I couldn’t give them a certificate as the awarding institution no longer existed (this was due to the Higher Education Act of 1992). They asked who they could complain to, so I suggested John Major.
• A parent asked if I could personally make sure a student was eating properly and not eating too many kebabs.
• I was told that ‘no one told me’ when a student turned up for an exam at the wrong campus, which had been closed for 18 months.

I worked in academia for several years and most of the people I met there were the biggest bunch of work-shy, entitled whingers I've ever met!
TBH most of them wouldn't last 5 mins in the real world of work.
And JFI I have worked in the private sector and the public sector as well as academia.
Academics are by far the most self-pitying and tone deaf.

I was a teacher and now a researcher. Teachers definitely get paid more for the same amount of experience e.g. number of years post PhD or pgce.

You have apparently never taught a class of 19-year-old know-it-alls. I earned every single penny.

When students email starting with 'Sorry to disturb your holiday but could you give me feedback on my 10, 000 word dissertation, deadline for submisdion is tomorrow' just because their term has ended...

Every single academic? Doubt it.

In my faculty most of us HAVE worked 'in the real world of work' and continue to do so as working at a university is still a real job!

There’s an increasing trend in creative writing MAs and MFAs for the student to be working on the third part of a giant fantasy/sci-fi saga for their project, but for them to casually send you the 100,000-word preceding instalment too ‘because otherwise you won’t understand the world building and backstory’.

We now have strict rules for academic advisors and their personal students about how nany words advisors can feed back on, how often and when. Obviously the work can be discussed face to face.

Things have changed massively, like most sectors. Nearly all universities have had several rounds of redundancies over the last decade or so, which has got rid of the vast majority of the dead wood. The lazy academics just wouldn't have survived, certainly not where I work. I've had a chequered career, including several branches of nursing and several other sectors, and while academia provides some flexibility compared to e.g. nursing, the hours are longer, and the comparative pay is worse. And as I said earlier, the range of tasks we are expected to complete means we have a huge number of balls in the air, that can create huge workload peaks.

In my experience most people don't moan that much (certainly no worse than any other workplace) - they are passionate about what they do and want students to have a good experience. And I don't really recognise the widespread ego and entitlement - certainly not compared to consultants in hospitals. There's always a few (and we'll take the piss behind their backs), but generally people just seem to get on with stuff.

A full time academic. Teaching under and post grad is half the workload of a full time core secondary teacher.

Sure, but there’s no onus on secondary teachers to publish and disseminate peer-reviewed research, or ‘contribute to the future of the discipline.’

Yes but teaching is only one aspect of the role. I’m a senior academic with leadership responsibilities. Im
teaching one module this academic year. I’ll still be working far more than my full time hours!

Academics are expected to do research, publish, supervise UG,PG and Doctoral students, carry out significant administrative tasks related to course and module leadership and get involved in a multitude of projects and committees.