What I would be doing if I weren’t striking

This is the fourth part in our series on how academic staff spend their time. Throughout the strike, we'll report from the frontline of unsustainable workloads. Have you ever wondered what a lecturer, a postdoc, a teaching fellow does outside of the classroom? Read on to find out...

...it’s frustrating that it takes so much time and effort to ensure access for deaf staff all the time...

It’s a Wednesday. I get up, shower and check emails while eating breakfast. SO MANY. And I still have a backlog of unanswered emails – will I ever catch up? 

I beat rush hour by going in to work early. I sit down to my desk to begin the process of email triage – what are the most important emails I need to get to today? I start making my way through those. At 10am a researcher on my team appears in my doorway. She signs to me in British Sign Language to ask my advice: the BSL/English interpreters who are booked to interpret for that important course that she was booked on for next week (which will be so crucial for her career advancement), haven’t received preparation materials – i.e. notes, draft slides etc the interpreters need in advance to prepare. This is despite her having asked the course organiser for the prep multiple times. Maybe it would help if the request comes from me? I spend time chasing down the organiser of the course – by phone, no luck. I carefully craft an email to the course organiser explaining why the preparation is needed urgently, otherwise this deaf member of staff will not be able to attend this valuable and highly relevant course. As I send that off, a Skype call comes in – it’s time for a research project meeting that I’m chairing. I muddle through the meeting the best I can - unprepared, because I had planned to spend the hour before the meeting preparing for the meeting, but I spent it instead redoing work that my deaf researcher had already done without success. So it’s not a very productive meeting. I jot down notes and remind myself to write those up later.

After the Skype meeting, I check my emails to see what has come in. No response yet from that course organiser. Instead, I have an urgent email from one of my other deaf colleagues. It turns out that a committee meeting in a different department was arranged for today but the notice about it didn’t go out til yesterday and he only just found out about it this morning. Of course it’s impossible to get interpreters for a same day booking – what should he do? I consider options. This is a really important meeting and someone from our unit should be there. Why was it organised so last minute?? I check my diary – I have a meeting with an undergraduate student at that time so I can’t make it. I phone a few of my hearing colleagues – can you please go to this committee meeting? No? I decide the committee meeting is more important than the meeting with student that I already have in my diary. I respond to my deaf colleague – I will go to the meeting in your place. Then I email the student I had planned to meet to apologise and postpone to another day. I hope the student is ok. I check the clock – it’s time to go to the next meeting – this one in a different building. 

After the meeting, I stop off for a quick lunch, then back to my office. I attend to the most  urgent of the emails from this morning, and a few others that had come in since. That student whose meeting I needed to postpone earlier replied to ask if a later time today is ok instead, and I agree to meet him at 5pm. At 3pm I rush off to that committee meeting that I agreed this morning to cover in place of my deaf colleague. I try my best to address issues raised at the meeting but my deaf colleague would have been able to do this so much better! As he knows the full background. At 4pm I rush back to my office to meet with a postgraduate student about her project. It’s a great project and one that I really enjoy supervising. Time flies and then it’s 5pm, time to meet with that undergraduate that had been postponed. After that I check emails again – finally, a response from the organiser from that course. The lecturer of the course has provided preparation to the interpreters at last. This means my researcher will be able to attend and have access to this all important course. Whew! It is a relief, though it’s frustrating that it takes so much time and effort to ensure access for deaf staff all the time, and even worse that most of the workload falls on them. I am glad that I was able to do my part to help this time. 

I spend the next few hours doing some of the work I had actually planned to do today - reading and commenting on a draft of an essay from a student, doing some reading for that paper I’m working on with a colleague, and making a bit of progress on that next grant application in preparation. It’s hard work and I’m exhausted but it’s important (and it’s what I really enjoy!) so I make the time for it. At 8pm I finally pack up and meet up with husband for dinner nearby. We head home, an hour of telly, then fall into bed. Ready to do it all again tomorrow.

Two good deeds you could do today!

Sign this petition asking the Provost for a clear public statement that UCL supports a rapid resolution to the disputes.

Write to the Provost demanding that UCL staff on outsourced contracts who are not contractually entitled to sick pay are paid fully during any leave taken to self-isolate because of contagion/potential contagion. Similarly in case of university closures to mitigate contagion.

Student Occupation of the South Cloisters

As of 9 March, a group of students who are strongly supportive of our strike are occupying the South Cloisters. The occupied space will be used for talks, discussions, workshops, and film screenings centred around the theme of activism, change, and dissent.

You can find out about the occupation and the planned activities by following these social media accounts: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LiberateTheUniversity/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liberate.the.university/

What does an unmanageable workload look like?

Unreasonable workloads are one of the key disputes of our strike, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what ‘unreasonable’ looks like - especially in academia. This is something we talk about a lot on the picket line, and really it seems that everyone feels overworked in a different way. Often, these differences can become sore points, or even points of conflict, between colleagues: “So-and-so can’t be overworked because they’re always available for school pick-ups” while “People without kids don’t know the meaning of overwork!” At the same time, knowing that someone else might be worse off makes struggling staff members reluctant to speak up about their own overwork: “I can’t complain really, at least I have a permanent contract/get home by 6 most nights/am getting some teaching experience”

Our series on “What I would be doing if I weren’t striking” gives you some idea of these issues, as well as some insight into issues around pay inequality and precarious working conditions. But one thing you might not realise is how little these issues are talked about within universities. In fact, many striking staff members have been surprised - and heartened - to hear they are not alone in feeling overwhelmed. Research, and even teaching, can be very isolating pursuits and no one wants to be the first to admit that they aren’t managing as well as their colleagues. The picket line has been a place to share our struggles, get tips on coping, and be reassured that we’re not alone. 

So, with these thoughts in mind, here are a few ways in which overwork manifests itself in Chandler House and in departments across the UK. All are valid and none of them should be considered normal in a place of higher education. 

• regularly forgoing sleeping or eating in favour of working
• not having time or energy to buy and prepare nutritious food
• missing out on spending time with your kids
• working like you’re “sitting a timed exam for 35 hours a week, 46 weeks of the year” in order to have time to spend with your kids
• wondering whether it’s even responsible to have kids (or a pet) when you don’t have any time for them
• working when you’re not getting paid to work
• feeling guilty for not working more than you’re getting paid to work
• feeling guilty for not working more than the hours you’re working when you’re not getting paid to work
• just getting it done (marking, drafting papers, writing letters of reference, applying for funding), rather than taking time and care over it
• never having time to read current research in your field, except incidentally 
• not having time to take part in scholarly activities in your department (talks, seminars, reading groups…)
• putting off or saying no to opportunities that would benefit you (training, talks, networking, mentorship,,,), because you have to spend your time dealing with urgent matters now
• not having time or energy to socialise
• not having time or energy to contribute to your community (by volunteering, chatting with a neighbour, stopping to support a neighbourhood market…)
• not having time or energy to do the things that make life worthwhile for you (yoga, camping, macrame, flint-knapping, kazoo-playing…)
• having to ignore your body’s signs that you’re overworked (back problems, eye problems, skin problems…)
• never feeling like you’ve done ‘enough’
• not having time to think creatively, which is really at the heart of the academic enterprise
• not having time to support colleagues when they’re struggling

Students and staff alike can feel these pressures, and unreasonable staff workloads contribute to a worse experience for students. UCU members are fighting to address unsustainable workloads not just for themselves, but for the students who will benefit from staff members who are able to keep up with research in their field, to take care over their marking and teaching prep, and to lead fulfilling lives outside of the office. We’re also fighting to help students who want to become staff members, so that universities can attract people who can’t or don’t want their job to take over their life. Remember: our working conditions are your learning conditions!

What do we spend our time doing?

This is the third part in our series on how academic staff spend their time. Throughout the strike, we'll report from the frontline of unsustainable workloads. Have you ever wondered what a lecturer, a postdoc, a teaching fellow does outside of the classroom? Here is a look at one linguist's typical weekly to-do list (with commentary):

I am lucky if I spend one hour a week reading something new.

Emails:  Right now, there are over 100 emails in my inbox that require some sort of action or significant response. I received the oldest of these two years ago (!). The list is ever-growing. On a typical day, 30 new emails needing a response or action will be added. If I spend just 2 minutes on each email on average, it takes an hour of my day just to keep from falling further behind (though many take more than 2 minutes).

Teaching:  This is my light term, so I am only in the classroom teaching 3 hours per week. In my heavy term, it would be 8 hours per week. A lecture I have taught before takes 1-2 hours to prepare; a new one takes about a full working day to prepare.

Student projects:  I need to urgently help students prepare experiments for their projects, else they won't finish in time. I prioritise this over my own research. In the past, I have had up to 12 student projects to supervise at one time (I try to meet with each student an hour every two weeks), though at the moment I have fewer.

Student meetings:  On average, I spend around 6 hours per week in meetings with students (at certain times of year, this will be more like 10-12 hours), including PhD students, students in my modules, students I am supervising, students in the degree programme I run, personal tutees, academic misconduct panels, prospective students, etc. 

PhD supervision: I normally meet my PhD student on a weekly basis. Right now, they are waiting on my feedback on a draft of a thesis chapter. This will take at least a full working day to do properly.

Programme administration:  I am in charge of a degree programme, which carries its own workload. Right now, we are in the midst of the annual review (mandatory for every degree programme). We review survey data (NSS, PTES, etc.), other student feedback, and Faculty priorities, and develop a detailed plan of programme changes for the next year. The process and expectations for the review change each year, so each year's review requires significant work. Throughout the year, each week contains several hours of additional work related to programme administration, though the tasks vary from week to week (admin meetings, emails, open days, talking to prospective students, giving tours, admissions decisions, plagiarism cases, handling extenuating circumstances cases, meeting with students who are struggling, etc.). 

Administrative meetings:  Often at least one admin meeting occurs in a given week, including departmental staff meetings, departmental teaching committee meetings, divisional teaching committee meetings, faculty teaching committee meetings, departmental exam board meetings, divisional exam board meetings, faculty exam board meetings, SSCC meetings, etc. These last between 1 and 2 hours. In many cases, the content of these different meetings largely overlaps, but we are usually expected to attend them all, so we tend to hear the same information many times.

Marking: Between September and May, there is almost always some amount of marking (or second marking) waiting to be done. A standard written assignment will take around 20-25 minutes to mark per student (including giving proper feedback). More in-depth essays take closer to an hour per student. Dissertations take well over an hour per student. Right now, I have only a little marking to do, but at some points in the year, I have 120 essays to mark at a time in the span of a few weeks. Marking 120 essays in three weeks takes up almost my entire workload for those weeks, even if I take no breaks and do zero other work during that time period (which is impossible, of course). Those periods are very stressful.

Mandatory surveys, training, etc.:  We seem to live in an age of endless surveys -- as students surely also feel -- and staff are not immune from this. Usually, the claim is that they take 'only 5 minutes', but it tends to be more like 15. Every part of the university seems to have its own survey now; a couple are sitting in my inbox right now. A few times a year, there is mandatory training that needs to occur. These are almost always important issues, so I understand the need to do them, but they are time-consuming nonetheless.

Recommendation letters:  I need to submit recommendation letters for half a dozen students in the coming few weeks. One of these students notified me less than a week ago, but I will fit them in. One student is applying to 8 universities. A letter takes me about an hour to write, and each application takes about 10 minutes once I already have a letter written (they ask for extra information for each students than just the letter itself). Overall, I write dozens of letters each year.

Reviews:  I have two reviews to do for journals. We get no pay or recognition for these (even though many journals make lots of profit for publishers), but the peer review process is important for the field. It takes me about a full working day to do a decent review. One of these is overdue and the editor has started to pester me about it. What can I put off to get this done?

Grant writing:  The university places high priority on securing external grant funding. I am aiming to submit two grant proposals in the coming year. A grant proposal takes weeks of work to put together. An unsuccessful proposal (the vast majority of them are unsuccessful) gets no credit in our workload, as if the work was not done at all. Only successful ones are acknowledged. I usually only get around to working on these on the weekend.

Research:  I have 8 ongoing research projects at various stages. One of these projects started 7(!) years ago, and I have still not been able to finish it. I am meant to spend 40% of my work time working on research, but I feel lucky to get more than a couple of hours during the work week. Mostly, if I want to have solid time to work on research, I have to spend my evenings and weekends. For academic staff, research (and grant funding) is by far the most important aspect of our work when it comes to professional advancement, but I spend the least time on it because other tasks (students, teaching, administration) end up taking priority.

(Self-)Marketing:  In today's academic world, it is not enough to just output quality research; you are also expected to market yourself (and your research, and the field) to the world. These activities include things like maintaining a personal website, maintaining other profiles (e.g., Google scholar), maintaining social media accounts, contributing to blogs, giving conference and (especially) invited talks around the world, volunteering time to teach summer schools (usually without pay), seeking out media opportunities, contributing to initiatives promoting the field, talking about the field in schools, volunteering for national societies, etc. Most of these things are considered extra-curricular, to be done in our 'spare' time. I do some of these, but find it overwhelming to do others. I am regularly chided by some colleagues for not maintaining an active Twitter account. 

Professional development and learning:  When I was a student, I had the view that academics spent a lot of time reading books and articles, thinking, and using that knowledge to generate new ideas. In practice, I am lucky if I spend one hour a week reading something new. The list of articles I need to read to keep up with the field grows longer and longer. I also want to develop some new technical skills to push aspects of my research forward. If I want to do reading or pick up a new skill, I usually have to spend my evenings and weekends doing it. If my academic discipline were my only hobby and I had no family, then this might be fine, but it isn't my only hobby and I do have a family.

My to-do list only gets longer over time, and I am one of the lucky ones. Many university staff members have it far worse than I do.

New Instalment: What I would be doing if I weren't striking

This is the fourth part in our series on how academic staff spend their time. Throughout the strike, we'll report from the frontline of unsustainable workloads. Have you ever wondered what a lecturer, a postdoc, a teaching fellow does outside of the classroom? Read on to find out...

I rush back to Chandler House well past 1pm for a talk which I am supposed to be organising

It’s Wednesday morning. I get up at 7, and after a shower and some breakfast soon hop on the tube where I get in a good 20 minutes of reading my book; if I’m lucky I even get a seat. I get to Chandler House around 8.30, and after making a cup of tea, start the working day with going through my inbox, sorting through what needs doing right away and those emails that can wait. I reply to a few student queries, and schedule some meetings later this week with the various project students I co-supervise. 

Then I work through some administrative work from the teaching I did yesterday; I had two back-to-back teaching sessions from 1 to 5pm, meaning I had no time to sort this out before leaving work yesterday evening. After finishing all this, I have about 30 minutes left to start taking a look at some of the marking that has come in earlier this week, before making my way to the main campus for a two hour lecture from 11am. 

I am not the only one having to come to the lecture theatre from further afield: the majority of the students have lectures across campus right before this one, so my lecture starts 15 minutes late to give people time to actually make it to the building. Even though I started later than scheduled I try to squeeze in all the material. It’s a topic I really enjoy teaching, but my schedule these past few days meant that I didn’t have the time to prepare as much as I would have liked to; regardless, students seem to be reasonably happy. 

I end up staying behind to answer some student questions about the upcoming coursework assignment before rushing back to Chandler House well past 1pm for a talk which I am supposed to be organising. Normally I help the speaker set up before their talk and chair the questions, but today someone else was kind enough to take this on, knowing I wouldn’t be able to make it in time from main campus. After an interesting talk I am off to my last teaching slot of the day at 2pm, where I teach a three hour long session for master students. It’s only a small group so the sessions themselves are very interactive, which is a lot of fun and makes for very satisfying teaching, but it’s also very exhausting. 

I end up staying late to finish up the administrative work after the last lecture, going through my inbox to check for urgent emails that I might have received since I last had time to look at my email 8 hours ago, and doing some preparatory work for my meeting at 10am tomorrow morning, knowing I won’t have time to manage all of the preparation between 8.30 and 10am otherwise. I leave, knowing that despite really enjoying all the teaching I do, my never ending to-do list will be similarly packed tomorrow. 

Strike School 2 - Week 2

Here is the programme for the second week of the strike school.

It is linked from the top of the page and here, but you will need to check back frequently as this an evolving programme. If you are unsure where a particular event is taking place, you can always come to the picket in front of Chandler House before 12:00 and we will know where to go.

Please share this information widely and check back regularly for updates.

• Monday, March 09 2020: 12:30 at The Place (London School of Contemporary Dance, 17 Duke's Road, WC1H 9PY). Kriszta Szendrői will talk about "On the nature of pervasive change: the story of Hasidic Yiddish." (Bring your own lunch.) The slides are here.
• Tuesday, March 10 2020: 12:30 at The Place (London School of Contemporary Dance, 17 Duke's Road, WC1H 9PY). Tim Pritchard will give us some insights into "Telling the truth to deceive."  (Bring your own lunch.) 
• Wednesday, March 11 2020: 12:30 upstairs at the Lamb. John Harris will talk about "Roots and routes: the linguistic legacy of colonialism in Atlantic contact Englishes."
• Thursday, March 12 2020:  12:30 upstairs at the Lamb. Tommy Liu will present on "Language laws: Why the restaurant name 'KFC' and the 'Stop' sign are illegal in Quebec."
• Friday, March 13 2020: Our Future Not For Sale: March for education and the earth. Assemble from 12 at Malet Street. March on Parliament at 1.

Here is the pretty flier!