{"id":1599,"date":"2004-11-17T09:55:01","date_gmt":"2004-11-17T13:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/11\/17\/state-of-academic-work\/"},"modified":"2004-11-17T09:55:01","modified_gmt":"2004-11-17T13:55:01","slug":"state-of-academic-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/11\/17\/state-of-academic-work\/","title":{"rendered":"State of academic work"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

This
\nis a great article from the Guardian in the UK, detailing the work
\nenvironment many of us find ourselves living with in academia<\/a>. 
\nThe situation looks broadly similar in the US, except that one can
\nactually get tenure here (although not at Harvard), which may reduce a
\nfew of the pressures.  But not until one gets tenure.<\/p>\n

This outlines some of the problems rather well:<\/p>\n

“Every job comes with its own internal psychological
\ncontract,” Kinman says. “The deal that most academics make with
\nthemselves when they enter the profession is that they will be trading
\na lower salary for greater autonomy and flexibility.<\/p>\n

“When they discover that not only are the pressures as intense – if not
\nmore so – than in other professions, but that much of their workload
\nhas been reduced to bureaucracy, they feel cheated that the contract
\nhas been violated. They are in effect mourning the loss of the job they
\nthought they had.”<\/p>\n

Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at
\nLancaster University and a leading researcher into work-related stress,
\nsays: “People have this view that academics are people who have long
\nholidays, teach a bit and then play with some research,” he says.<\/p>\n

“People don’t have sympathy for us. They will have sympathy for doctors
\nand nurses. Who trains the doctors? We do. Who trains the nurses, the
\nsocial workers, the teachers? We do. Who trains all the people they
\nworry about? Us. These attitudes add to the problem. We don’t perceive
\nourselves to be valued.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Life as an academic is as hard as any other
\nprofession.  I may only spend 5 hours a week “teaching”, but I
\nhave at least that amount of prep time, grading (more if a big paper
\ncomes in), and a couple more hours a week in student contact. 
\nThen there’s my own research to do.  And I live with another
\nacademic.  <\/p>\n

One of the major reasons I chose the profession was to have the
\nlatitude to do what I want to do, even if there’s a lot of work in
\nit.  If we lose that, we’ll lose many academics.  If I got
\nbogged down in campus bureaucracy, I’d certainly think about finding a
\nnew way to use my doctorate.  And I don’t think I am the only one
\nof my colleagues who feels this way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a great article from the Guardian in the UK, detailing the work environment many of us find ourselves living with in academia.  The situation looks broadly similar in the US, except that one can actually get tenure here (although not at Harvard), which may reduce a few of the pressures.  But not until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ivorytower"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-pN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}