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Yesterday at the #UCUStrikesBack rally @ProfMadhuK encouraged us to dare to dream how the university could be different. Here are ten ideas. 1/12
All FT staff to have a workload that could realistically be done in 35 hours/week. Without working at breakneck pace week in week out, or lying about how much we squeeze into evenings (hello marking). So profession isn’t reserved for celibate robots in perfect health. 2/12
Hourly paid staff contracts would be properly thought through. Can ANYONE do that amount of marking in 7 hours a week and meet your deadline? Thought not. Pay more hours. 3/12
This would mean: time to prepare and mark. At the rally yesterday someone said: ‘I can’t prepare a 2-hour seminar in an hour!’ I’ve been forced to do it often. With that little prep, I’m blagging the seminar with no clear idea of what the text actually says. 4/12
And: reduced contact hours. No English student needs 10 contact hours a week. We are making ourselves and our students anxious and ill with overwork. We need to get real about how far our resources and energies go. 5/12
And: far, far more administrative support. We have great administrators in Humanities, who are often stressed and ill. The tasks performed by admin staff a decade ago and now done by academics amount to hours each week, while the demands on administrators go up and up. 6/12
And: time for scholarship and shared decision making. Wonder why people rarely go to School or Faculty meetings? Why I haven’t read a current journal in a decade? Because we are all rushed off our feet. 7/12
Give us teaching infrastructure that works. Rooms with heating, working IT and enough chairs to seat my students. A VLE that allows you to do anonymous marking without a lengthy workaround. Don’t introduce changes until they work: one stop shop, I’m looking at you. 8/12
No more consumer-style evaluations of staff. Stop asking whether we’re enthusiastic and how we could do even better when we’re burnt out trying to perform the impossible. 9/12
Stop treating our research like a glorified hobby instead of skilled labour. I’m sick of being offered only 80% of the money for attending a conference when the university considers it a core function of my job. 10/12
Acknowledge basic human needs for food, rest and social contact. Shared lunch hours and a staff room where we can see each other, instead of being constantly asked to skip lunch and the average 3 days each week when I talk to no one outside the classroom. 11/12
This year I've thought about leaving my job. It has felt incompatible with good mental health and family life. I've felt I'm failing my students and seeing them failed. We have brilliant, well-intentioned people at all levels of this university. Let's do things differently. 12/12
