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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'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's no established replacement rotation for computers. You'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't. I'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's mostly fine. It's a choice. But, I have junior colleagues and colleagues who haven't learned to be quite so imperious for whom this isn'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't.
This plays out in thousands of ways at ALL levels of the institution. It's how we end up with handshake deals and good ol' boys networks and all that. Brené Brown has a good line about this: "Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind." It's not just unkind, it's unjust and unfair.
I'm officially my department's mentor for junior faculty. So often, someone needs something, and they're afraid to ask. "Go ask," I'll say, but they won't, because they'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 'Carly said you could help me.'"
I'm probably notorious now: Carly keeps telling people to demand things they shouldn't have to ask for. And, fine, I'll be the universal thorn. But, thorns shouldn't be necessary! The processes should be clear, and uniform, and fair. You shouldn't have to know the hidden rules.
There shouldn't *be* hidden rules. In game studies, I teach students how there's always the rules of the game as written and then the social rules of the game -- there's ways to play, within the rules, that might make other players hate you. You're playing in the wrong key.
But, institutional policy shouldn't be a game. The rules shouldn't just change because you believe they don't apply to you! But they do! All the time!
And, in summary, this is why I've been complaining to my dean for 6 years that we don't have a tech replacement rotation, but it's also what's wrong with a LOT of other institutional practices across higher education. The end. #academictwitter
