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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& #39;ve thought about leaving my job. It has felt incompatible with good mental health and family life. I& #39;ve felt I& #39;m failing my students and seeing them failed. We have brilliant, well-intentioned people at all levels of this university. Let& #39;s do things differently. 12/12
