#academicventing — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #academicventing, aggregated by home.social.
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#ClimateDiary #CollapseDiary #AcademicVenting This week i had to re-interview for the 0.5 fixed term position (teaching environment, politics and society) i had for the past year to do it for another - a particular kind of 2026 moment in itself. Anyway I managed to talk about solidarity prepping in the interview @muellertadzio ! 😊
#SoliPrepping -
#ClimateDiary #CollapseDiary #AcademicVenting This week i had to re-interview for the 0.5 fixed term position (teaching environment, politics and society) i had for the past year to do it for another - a particular kind of 2026 moment in itself. Anyway I managed to talk about solidarity prepping in the interview @muellertadzio ! 😊
#SoliPrepping -
#ClimateDiary #CollapseDiary #AcademicVenting This week i had to re-interview for the 0.5 fixed term position (teaching environment, politics and society) i had for the past year to do it for another - a particular kind of 2026 moment in itself. Anyway I managed to talk about solidarity prepping in the interview @muellertadzio ! 😊
#SoliPrepping -
#ClimateDiary #CollapseDiary #AcademicVenting This week i had to re-interview for the 0.5 fixed term position (teaching environment, politics and society) i had for the past year to do it for another - a particular kind of 2026 moment in itself. Anyway I managed to talk about solidarity prepping in the interview @muellertadzio ! 😊
#SoliPrepping -
#ClimateDiary #CollapseDiary #AcademicVenting This week i had to re-interview for the 0.5 fixed term position (teaching environment, politics and society) i had for the past year to do it for another - a particular kind of 2026 moment in itself. Anyway I managed to talk about solidarity prepping in the interview @muellertadzio ! 😊
#SoliPrepping -
#AcademicVenting Still marking and marking. I do think elite HE institutions may well be particularly exploitative. I am on a 0.5 contract, so in effect I have been asked to mark 153 scripts, a total of around 320,000 words, in 12 working days. This of course on top of usual teaching etc. It is insane! Anyway, better get on with it.
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#AcademicVenting Deep in marking (for one of my part time fixed term jobs). It is all blogs and worksheets. I miss essays!
Essays are such an excellent form of assessment. As a lecturer you can design questions that force the student to read the literature, really think about a topic, develop an argument, write well. I can’t think of a better way of embedding knowledge. Marking fairer and more constructive too.
Here’s to the #Essay!
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#AcademicVenting 🧵 Higher education, certainly in the UK, continues to be in dire straits - here the tally Queen Mary UCU is keeping.
What are we doing about it as academics? I can tell you.
We are talking about opening new MAs (to generate more money) , or closing MAs (to save money).
That’s what 80% of departmental meetings across the country are taken uo by now. I am not even joking. That’s all we have.
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#AcademicVenting 🧵this is a good piece on how #AI “is destroying the university and learning itself” - partly because right now universities are busy embracing AI, spending fortunes whilst letting go of staff
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-destroying-the-university-and-learning-itself
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Unsurprisingly, the 'tone' of #AcademicVenting is more of a problem than what the 'tone' signifies.
More institutional time is spent on 'correcting' tones than resolving the substance the 'tone' is denouncing.
I know what that means in my context. Avoiding details, deliberately. Reminds me of Ahmed's 'Complaint'.
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@piege yes.
Valuable work isn't systematically promoted. Skewed, status-quo/safe work often is.
I'm not dissing those who get promoted for good reason.
I'm noting that from my perspective, there are macchiavellian chancers who get influential posts based on inherited privilege/performative metrics (eg ill-defined 'impact' criteria).
They work back from criteria so short-term 'impact' is captured. This is different to sustained impact which requires time & #AcademicFreedom
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I can't stomach how Trump mirrors-models-normalises #academia 's hollowed-out individualistic promotion-speak:
'I single-handedly achieved X'
'I saved Xn lives'
'I'm the only one who can do X'
'Nominate me for a prize'
'Put in writing how essential I am'Whilst undermining the collective good.
🤮
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#AcademicVenting 🧵and then also the move to online teaching and the reuse of recorded lectures makes us lecturers rapidly redundant. Last nighr a friend told me about how she had to spend hours preparing a new online MSc - all in 6min snippets that had to comply with v strict guidelines (zero ac freedom, critical thinking); this would then be available for 5 years, no further input required from her. And then this morning I read this post by @petergleick
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#AcademicVenting 🧵Then, of course, the world-wide, very serious political onslaught on universities, already manifesting in many ways. Harvard announced last week that they were cutting their PhD programmes by 50-75% across all disciplines! This is so bad.
I dread to think what will happen to UK HE if/when Reform get in.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/10/21/fas-phd-admissions-cuts/
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#AcademicVenting 🧵One thing i am learning (having been at a small, struggling university before): things are not good even within the “winners”. Huge student numbers, staff completely overworked, academic freedom for multiple reasons palpably curtailed, managerial centralisation of support staff wreaking havoc (“we must separate the person from the post” - why must we?) . Morale seems pretty low, even here. Amongst academic and support staff (and students), there are no “winners” at all.
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#AcademicVenting 🧵anyway: with my new vantage point (fixed term, part time) I am now back in universities and so will take up this 🧵again to vent/reflect (discreetly) on my own experiences but also on the whole sector. Which is NOT in a good state! Everyone knows this but i really want to just write about it all again here, along with others (eg @kate @serenissimaj @actualham @inquiline )
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#AcademicVenting #Redundancy #Precarity 🧵good; especially learning wise. I know i am incredibly lucky in so many ways. But it’s hard work, many humiliations (lower grade etc) and also: no central identity. Apart from no time that’s been the main reason why i don’t post here much anymore. So: shoutout here to everyone juggling several insecure jobs: it’s hard, and it really changes, hardens you. Less outward looking, sense of agency, hope. Deeply worrying that majority of us live this way.
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@pvonhellermannn with you on this.
It should be possible to post on #AcademicVenting by anonymising and by using a little poetic licence for literary 'truths' that refer to real people and real situations without all the detail.
Here's mine: I'm familiar with the workings of at least 4 UK unis. #AcademicFreedom across all 4 is seriously compromised.
#ManagementSpeak all sounds the same, same stock phrases out of a textbook, now most-likely AI-generated.
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#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵school, on equity in global health partnerships, and a 0.5 mat cover in Geography at UCL. I am also managing an archaeology project for the Museum of West African Art in Nigeria, on earthen heritage. Altogether earning about same as before at the moment; and each job really enjoyable and interesting. But: it is full on precarity, hard work (too much), and i have no idea what it will all lead to - or rather, realising there will be no “to”. Altogether, it’s been
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#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵so for several months i just kept on applying, for academic and other jobs. Every application, of course, a big effort of selling, reinventing yourself; all pretty draining. None of the non-acadmic applications (the most work) got me interviews. Hard to change sector! The permanent academic ones also no luck so far. But I did get two part time fixed term ones. So this is what I am doing now: a 0.5 mat cover as a research fellow at the Brighton and Sussex medical
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#AcademicVenting #Redundancy #Consultancy 🧵
But whilst I very much thought about “going into consultancy”, it’s not teasy when you don’t have an existing network; i found the permanent insecurity hard; and also kept on hearing stories of consultants, too, really struggling at the moment (AI part of this). Also by spring, more academic jobs were advertised again, and overall i felt I had to prioritise applications for more “permanent” jobs; i simply had no time to focus on consultancy -
#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵so just to state upfront: financially i am doing ok for the time being. I have been very lucky that i got a couple of research consultancy jobs that not only brought in some money but were also really stimulating and enriching: one on race equity and power in global partnerships for the RSPB; one on marine decision-making in Sussex for the MMO. I learned a huge anount, talked to many very impressive people, and really enjoyed both.
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#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵 ok so i haven’t written here in a long time - for various reasons. But now 15 months or so since redundancy (from a “permanent” UK university post i had for 13 years) i want to give a quick update: to explain why i am hardly on #Mastodon these days, and also because perhaps it’s useful for others - far too many of us are going through this sadly. Also just feel this stuff is worth documenting as one little story of our time.
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I imagine it’s because it’s all Microsoft. Everything we use - ootlook, teams, all. I currently have l 4 different uni email accounts because of 4 different part time short term contracts and i have to use microsoft authenticator for everything and i just completed 14 hours of new staff online training in one and now I have dozens of threatening emails that i need to do it all again for the other one. I am so very tired. #enshittification and yes I guess this #AcademicVenting too.
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#FollowTheMoney 🧵 41/n Ok so the reason for the long pause in this 🧵 was being made rdundant in July, by my lovely (not) employer of 13 years, Goldsmiths University. You can read all about it in this long #AcademicVenting 🧵, tracing the whole sorry saga from first rumblings in Nov ‘23 to the bitter end. But of course, #redundancy is all about money, and I think about money all the time now (I have to), so really should write it about it all here a bit
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#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵
Interesting but scary - at this moment of wanting to branch out into the “more-than-Academic” world , and in general - to read about large scale redundancies at Save the Children. The process, language, and comments from affected staff (“It’s a shitshow”) are all too familiar.
A friend of mine was recently made redundant by Mind, the mental health charity. HE redundancies all part of a larger process. Which only makes it scarier.
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#AcademicVenting 🧵#Redundancy But by yesterday afternoon I somehow turned a corner; I am beginning to work out strategies for being an environmental anthropologist in my own right, even without institutional backing. I may have a new book contract; a small consultancy for the RSPB; and some teaching for the wonderful New School of the Anthropocene. No huge earners but all really helping psychologically right now. Here’s to #RegenerativeAnthropology!
#ClimateDiary -
#AcademicVenting 🧵#Redundancy then I spent this last week with two very different but equally misery-inducing aspects of extrication:
a) sorting out future of my PhD students (4 current, 2 that were due to start now) - many conflicting emotions, and it’s all just so sad;
b) battling with the intersection of email, Outlook, Google, Teams, Adobe, Microsoft, etc. The horrors of this really showed how helplessly entangled we all are in all these platforms! (Not asking for tech advice).
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#AcademicVenting 🧵#Redundancy Further twists and turns in the last couple of weeks: AFTER 62 of us accepted enhanced redundancy and 18 took fractional contracts (forced by deadlines), SMT and union struck a deal that the remaining 11 - the ones going for appeal - would be reinstated. Allowing both SMT and UCU to collude on a “no compulsory redundancies” narrative; UCU widely celebrating this as a union victory. A bit galling.
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After more back and forth (a great 0.5 was advertised for us 3 to compete for - same duties, half pay - but none of us applied) and more charming communications from our “Transformatipn Programme team” (always anonymous!) I have now accepted “enhanced redundancy”. Onwards and upwards!
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#AcademicVenting #Redundancy These days I really can’t find the words to recount what’s going on. Let’s just say a lot of back and forth; chaos, incompetence and cruelty; never ending visionless mediocrity that destroys everything.
One thing to report: i have now had the privilege of an ACAS webinar. More competent than anything coming from SMT, but no faces, no in person questions, and a cheery “See you next time” screen at the end. Corporate dystopia, straight from #BlackMirror
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#AcademicVenting #Redundancy Two weeks today and sadly not quite there yet with finding new ways forward - for one, there is just so much to do, get your head around, decisions to make around redundancy process itself. And this past week a physical reaction set in, just sheer exhaustion.
Also want to note once more: it really is unbelievable what is being done to myself and 96 brilliant colleagues. The “how” aa much as the “what”. And to Goldsmiths. It is total vandalism, brutal, traumatic.
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#AcademicVenting 🧵#Redundancy It’s now been a week - what a week, with two historic elections thrown in too!
A HUGE thank you for all the lovely, supportive messages. They have really helped me, hugely. Knowing that others have gone through this (what a total experience), and that there are other possibilities. It’s early days (and there is so much work in the reduncancy process itself), but as so many of you’ve said: other doors may open.
Maybe i will keep this 🧵to share this transition?
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#AcademicVenting #GE2024 #GTTO.
I hate Goldsmiths management. Completely ruining the elections for me and my fellow 96 colleagues made redundant - all brilliant! The very best! - and everyone left behind. I mean, I am super unenthusiastic about Starmer’s Labour but I AM hopeful that they will do something for Higher Education. But it’s too late for us 😭😡😭😡😭
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#AcademicVenting Surreally, I am on my way to a big conference, Anthropology and Education. Doing a panel on regenerative anthropology. But the conference cost an obscene £320, that I only secured at the last second - we don’t have a research budget anymore, but suddenly we did get one now (in June). Meanwhile of course also #redundancy looming. We so desperately need a new everything. #RegenerativeAnthropology, #RegenerativeAcademia, everything.
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#AcademicVenting We now have a GoFundMe for our Goldsmiths #UCU hardship fund, due to 50% salary reductions for marking boycott. If you are in HE and in your union, perhaps you could ask your branch whether they could contribute? Feel awkward about saying this but: every donation welcome.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-goldsmiths-ucu-fight-mass-redundancies
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#AcademicVenting Finally read Jonathan Miller's #DeathSpiral piece, and I wish all SMTs across the country getting rid of all their PRODUCTIVE lecturers (ie, the people actually making money for universities, through student fees and research income) would read it, too. They genuinely don't understand what they are doing!
Please, understand the British Leyland's 1970s coat [*EDIT: this should be cost! I copied a typo! See @rubinjoni
below!* 😅] allocation death spiral -
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 13/n and i have to mention UK universities too, since I am directly affected myself (see #AcademicVenting).
40% of UK universities are in debt, with major reduncancies right now (incl at Goldsmiths). All in arts, humanities and social sciences. All of this is crumbling, with too little money flowing into it. Another industry, another #CommonGood
being eroded. Check out this constantly updated tally. #TheCrumble -
Yesterday we were informed we will have 130 FT redundancies. More with part time staff included. We are 644 so potentially a quarter of us. From 11 departments, including #anthropology.
We don’t know yet who. I don’t know how these decisions are made (it’s related to which programmes or modules will be closed). I feel completely sick the whole time. Far beyond venting, just existential fear.
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#AcademicVenting Now have to share this brilliant article - well, have only read the abstract so far, but: count me in! Here’s to #AdministrativeAbolition!
“we argue for administrative abolition, that is, the elimination of all college presidents, provosts, deans and other top level administrators who we argue form a parasitical group”