Firstly, I haven’t really written 42 previous posts about what’s wrong with academia – although I probably could have. This is just another one of those posts – that I see quite often on various social media platforms -where an academic is going to have a whinge. It’s an ongoing series, I guess. And let’s face it, there’s plenty of things to whinge about in academia: precarious work, casualisation, people being forced into teaching-focused roles, the poor treatment of professional staff, budgeting, funding cuts, the vagaries of peer review… I could go on. And I will, in one particular case.
Academia rewards a certain kind of individual. That thumping noise is the sounds of thousands of feminist scholars, writers and workers rolling in their graves at the banality of that expression. And yes, of course, gender is a significant part of it, in that, the certain kind of individual that academia rewards is generally male. But we can be a little more precise in our taxonomy, here. They’re not just smart people – everyone in academia is smart, right? Instead, they’re the kind of people who are comfortable and able to put their own interests and needs ahead of others. Now, that sounds like I’m being a little bit nasty, and that’s not what I intend. What I do mean is that, for many people, being in academia is like an industrial handbag. The saying is, of course, is that you fill whatever size bag you have, and of course, that’s true of academia, too – that is to say, you will ‘fill’ your workplan with the activities that you deem to be most important or urgent, or necessary, or whatever criteria you choose to prioritise your work.
And if you’re the kind of person who is a bit selfless, and puts others’ needs before you – in there words, the kind of person who often is a teacher – then you’re likely to fill your industrial handbag with all those terribly administrative tasks that no one likes to do – or those tasks that are so vitally important – like meeting with students – but are often overlooked. And that means you’re not filling it with things like writing grants or promotion applications (because they’re about you, and you put other people first. Which means, of course, that you’re constantly falling behind your colleagues who don’t have the same priorities… And I think that’s not entirely fair.
Of course, I should finish this post by saying #notallacademics, right? I’ve had the fortune to work with a number of academics that are the opposite of what I’ve described. Incredibly talented, successful and clever – but also the first to promote, support and assist others.