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Something I would like to see actual institutional responses to is how much people are rewarded for just playing chicken with institutional policies that seem immovable?
I hear this discussed in context of teaching: On average, first-generation students, women, and students from underrepresented groups are less likely to ask for extensions or negotiate their grades.
That& #39;s a tiny example. But, it happens across pretty much all organization levels as far as I can tell. I grew up working class. I went to a fancy college. I had a couple professors who REALLY looked out for me, and I came to understand this, in general, pretty early: just lunge.
But, teaching individual people to lunge at policies with their fangs snapping only helps individual people, when the reality is this is a hidden and grossly unfair set of policies and standards that screws people over. Badly.
I work at a small university. There& #39;s no established replacement rotation for computers. You& #39;re just supposed to ask for what you need. But, guess what? The people who feel entitled to what they need ask for it, and other people don& #39;t. I& #39;ve seen this happen again and again.
I ry to make my computers last as long as I can due to my own personal ethics around environmental impact and whatnot. That& #39;s mostly fine. It& #39;s a choice. But, I have junior colleagues and colleagues who haven& #39;t learned to be quite so imperious for whom this isn& #39;t a choice.
When I served on the research council, I suggested small internal grants -- like, $500-$2000 -- to fund research. I was told "Oh, your dean should just find that for you." What? Why would anyone know that? How would we know that process was fair? We can& #39;t.
This plays out in thousands of ways at ALL levels of the institution. It& #39;s how we end up with handshake deals and good ol& #39; boys networks and all that. Brené Brown has a good line about this: "Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind." It& #39;s not just unkind, it& #39;s unjust and unfair.
I& #39;m officially my department& #39;s mentor for junior faculty. So often, someone needs something, and they& #39;re afraid to ask. "Go ask," I& #39;ll say, but they won& #39;t, because they& #39;re terrified to. Literally, every time, these are VERY minimal, reasonable requests.
Sometimes I go deal with the ask myself because I can and if I can fix things, I will. But, other times, I say "Just go ask, and say I told you to. Say & #39;Carly said you could help me.& #39;"
I& #39;m probably notorious now: Carly keeps telling people to demand things they shouldn& #39;t have to ask for. And, fine, I& #39;ll be the universal thorn. But, thorns shouldn& #39;t be necessary! The processes should be clear, and uniform, and fair. You shouldn& #39;t have to know the hidden rules.
There shouldn& #39;t *be* hidden rules. In game studies, I teach students how there& #39;s always the rules of the game as written and then the social rules of the game -- there& #39;s ways to play, within the rules, that might make other players hate you. You& #39;re playing in the wrong key.
But, institutional policy shouldn& #39;t be a game. The rules shouldn& #39;t just change because you believe they don& #39;t apply to you! But they do! All the time!
And, in summary, this is why I& #39;ve been complaining to my dean for 6 years that we don& #39;t have a tech replacement rotation, but it& #39;s also what& #39;s wrong with a LOT of other institutional practices across higher education. The end. #academictwitter
