My best advice is don't retire. Do what you know to be right and have a bit of fun with the lunatics when the chance arises.Yes, there is so much bureaucratic nonsense in Higher Education - the 'educrats' have taken-over, and govern by 'strategies because they've never taught or written a scholarly book in their lives. Yet I would advise you to persevere with academia, because the current regime is unsustainable.
I've increasingly been tempted to take early retirement, but then think "why should I give up a career I've worked so hard for (and for which I am highly-respected by my students and academic colleagues, both at home and those who work in the same discipline overseas) because of the arrogant, incompetent, swaggering, 'suits' who try to micro-manage and endlessly audit us. If you go for a piss, they want to know what strategy or framework you used, and how your toilet visit provided 'value-added' to the university.
I too increasingly find ways of disengaging from this white noise of managerial nonsense; sending my (insincere) apologies to many of the endless committee meetings and Away-Days, not volunteering for extra activities, 'initiatives' or membership of yet another 'working group' or 'curriculum review', and only replying to university or management emails if I get a follow-up or reminder (most of the time I don't).
I focus on what I enjoy, and am deemed to be good at; teaching, and research (currently working on my 19th book) - which is what being an academic should be about, and why I entered the profession. Problem is that in the 1990s, the 'qualitocracy' began colonising academic registry, and spewing endless jargon-filled documents, form-filling, box-ticking, and report-writing.
It is sometimes claimed that "Those who can, do, and those who can't, teach', to which I always add "and those who can't teach become university managers."
In my Department/Faculty, 60% of student fee income is siphoned-off by management to: a) pay for yet more parasitic managers, and b) cross-subsidise Departments which struggle to recruit students (STEM, basically) but are politically or reputationally too important to close. So we are constantly told that there is no more money for extra staff to teach the increased student numbers, but somehow we can always afford a new Director of Arse-Wiping, Assistant Dean of Paper-Clips, and a pro-Vice Chancellor of Photocopying - all of whom then impose yet more idiotic paperwork on overstretched, burnt-out, academic staff.
Universities have the worst of both worlds; operating as educational supermarkets in a neoliberal, competitive, free-market in which students are viewed as customers paying for a product (degree) supplied by service-providers (academics), but at the same time, managed like the former Soviet Union with its stupid 5-year plans and top-down targets, impenetrable layers of faceless bureaucracy, constant micro-management and monitoring of subordinates, endless command-and-control from the centre, but complete lack of accountability by senior managers who instinctively blame front-line staff for everything which goes wrong.
Yet we know what happened to the old Soviet Union in 1989-90, so my advice to any aspiring young academic would still be to hang-on in there, and don't let these managerial bastards deter you. They cannot be allowed to win, and they won't be around for ever.
Here is some correspondence from today with some bits redacted for obvious reasons:
Them: "We are preparing Period 2 marksheets by downloading available exam marks. We noticed that marking hasn’t been completed, or marks have not been uploaded to (our platform), for (course code) (Question X) & (course code) (Question Y).
In case helpful, please find attached guidance on marking.*
There are 294 marksheets being ratified at academic sub boards in period 2, and your support will ensure students can progress and graduate.
Please don’t hesitate to be in contact if you are experiencing delays with marking. Thank you for your time."
Me: "Hi X. The marking is incomplete because the people marking those questions haven’t marked them yet. I think the first marker is (name) so I am ccing. In case I am wrong, you have a list of markers and second markers that I sent you (I had to upload all the details to a web page - i took me 2 hours). It would make sense for you to check this and chase them direct rather than come through me (same applies to other courses and organizers.) You won’t be able to collate marks if we don’t get the marking done….and we are the only people who can do the marking whereas you are equally if not better placed to do chasing. Seems like a plan! Thanks for sending me the marking guides. I’ll take an hour off this afternoon to give them a good thorough read."
Them (their boss this time): "
Hi (me). Thank you for your email. We really appreciate your engagement with this. With 181 exams and 294 modules being ratified at P2 academic sub boards we are a little reliant on module organizers liaising with their markers. Additionally, we think conversations around marking are best placed between academics and we can be updated on progress. Thank you kindly."
Me: "Thanks (them). I am happy to receive multiple emails as you find that various folk have not done their marking, go through my files to find out which is the unmarked question and look up who the markers are if I can’t remember, and then send an email to the marker, but please note that doing this will take me away from my marking, which may therefore be late.
Regards"
It all went quiet after that. The guide to marking (*above) is a seven page document that includes a statement that is my responsibility as module organizer (MO), (and this module is just one course on a large programme), is responsible for ensuring all the other academics who set and will mark questions get their marking done on time. This is how they justify checking what questions aren't marked then telling me, rather than contacting the responsible marker directly. I think the reason is that other academics who are not running the module but teach and mark on it just ignore chase emails from the academic centre. The assumption, presumably, is my colleagues won't ignore me. Ho, ho, ho.
The reason marking is late is we doubled student intake during covid because we did not anticipate A-level grade inflation and did not up the entry requirement. Add in the new complicated marking (see below), the need not only for second marking, but blind parallel marking, and a need for the final mark to fit on a 2-5-8 framework (no 63% or 74%) AND a need for all marks that differ between the two markers to be resolved by a meeting and discussion, no taking averages, because the average of 52 and 55% is 53.5 %, rounded up to 54% and that is not on the 2-5-8 framework, and you can guess the rest. We have this marks framework apparently because a student (not on my degree course I hasten to add) complained they got 53% and a mate got 54% and they cant understand how the marks differ, and someone decided we had to be able to explain. Oh, we can't explain. So let's use a sort of digital marking scale that leaves out some values. I bit like measuring the height of humans by rounding the measurement up to the nearest 4 inches**. Instead of telling the student to pull up his nickers and make me a cup of tea, the 'college teaching and assessment sub-committee' spent countless hours devising this new system, and forcing all departments from History to Nursing to use it.
Oh and there has been so much exam misconduct (students downloading answers onto exam hall laptops) I am also spending hours dealing with all of that.
I could go on, but it's late. Sufficed to say we WILL be late with marks this year because I am not compromising the integrity of my marking, and if the wankers kick off they will find it will blow up in their faces. Or would, were in not the fact that they have written all these documents that explains that the buck stops with the academics.
**I am now officially six feet four.
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