/2020

#censure #UK #Angleterre #enseignement #anti-capitalisme #capitalisme #liberté_académique #libertés_académiques

Octobre 2021:
English schools must not teach ‘#white_privilege’ as fact, government warns

▻https://seenthis.net/messages/934327

Coronavirus UK: Universities face £2.5bn tuition fee loss next year

Capping student numbers will not avert financial catastrophe, report warns.

Capping the number of students who can attend each British university will not stave off the financial catastrophe that institutions face following the coronavirus outbreak, a report from the University and College Union (UCU) warns.

The report forecasts the sector could lose around £2.5bn next year in tuition fees alone, along with the loss of 30,000 university jobs, based on gloomy predictions of international and domestic students staying away if Covid-19 continues unchecked.

The government is negotiating with the university sector to limit the number of students each institution can admit in September, in the hope that it will help some avoid cutthroat competition and possible bankruptcy if their student intake slumps.

But the report, commissioned by UCU from London Economics, says a cap could be ineffective if more students are prepared to sit out next year. The consultancy’s forecasts show even the likes of Oxford and Cambridge seeing falling numbers of undergraduates entering from the UK and abroad.

“Our world-renowned universities are doing crucial work now as we hunt for a [Covid-19] vaccine and will be vital engines for our recovery both nationally and in towns and cities across the UK. It is vital that the government underwrites funding lost from the fall in student numbers. These are unprecedented times and without urgent guarantees, our universities will be greatly damaged at just the time they are needed most,” said Jo Grady, the UCU’s general secretary.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow education secretary, backed the call for greater government support. “UK universities must be valued as part of the frontline response to the coronavirus pandemic, supplying students to the NHS and conducting world-class research into the virus,” she said.

The report suggests that universities could lose £1.5bn in international student fees, more than £600m from UK-based students, and £350m from students from the EU, based on surveys of students’ intentions, including one conducted for Ucas, the admissions service.

Gavan Conlon, a partner at London Economics, said the pandemic will result in a “very substantial loss” in enrolments and income, requiring significant government support.

“The proposed student numbers cap will not be enough to avoid an overly competitive market for the remaining pool of applicants, with the impact of this actually being worse for some institutions than the effect of the pandemic itself,” Conlon said.

But Nick Hillman, the director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said he thought the report’s forecasts for students numbers – particularly a 16% drop within the UK – were overly pessimistic.

“I do not want to underestimate the severe impact of Covid-19 on higher education. But, given the diversity of our higher education sector, we must ask if it is right for modelling to assume every single institution will face a recruitment crisis across the board,” Hillman said.

London Economics’ forecasts did not include the £790m lost in accommodation, catering and conference income identified by the Universities UK group of vice-chancellors in its recent submission to UK governments calling for at least £2bn in bailout funding.

“The union is absolutely right to warn of the knock-on impacts this would have for jobs, regional economics, local communities and students,” said Alistair Jarvis, the chief executive of UUK.

“Government must take urgent action to provide the support which can ensure universities are able to weather these very serious challenges, and to protect students, maintain research, and retain our capacity to drive the recovery of the economy and communities.”

▻https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/23/coronavirus-uk-universities-face-25bn-tuition-fee-loss-next-year

Universities brace for huge losses as foreign students drop out

Call for a government bailout worth billions to help sector survive the crisis.

Some universities are already expecting to lose more than £100m as foreign students cancel their studies, with warnings that the impact of coronavirus will be “like a tsunami hitting the sector”.

Several organisations are now planning for a 80-100% reduction in their foreign student numbers this year, with prestigious names said to be among those most affected. The sector is already making a plea to the government for a cash injection amounting to billions of pounds to help it through the crisis, as it is hit by a drop in international student numbers, accommodation deals and conference income.

Universities are already lining up online courses for the start of the next year, but academics are concerned about the impact on first-year students new to university life. Many institutions have recently borrowed heavily to pay for attractive new faculties, often designed to attract overseas students. It comes against a backdrop of declining numbers of university-age students in the UK and the previous uncertainty around Brexit.

Andrew Connors, head of higher education at Lloyds Banking Group, said the crisis has felt “less like a perfect storm and more like a tsunami hitting the sector”. Banks have not had urgent requests from universities, as big financial hits are expected later in the year. However, he said that “while the immediate impact we are seeing in the sector is slower, the overall impact of Covid-19 is potentially deeper and longer”.

In a blog for the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) published today, he writes: “Many institutions are modelling reductions of between 80% and 100% in international student numbers. Every university we have spoken to expects to be impacted and for some the potential loss to income is projected to be greater than £100m. And that is before you factor in that losing new students has a multi-year impact.”

He adds that he expects banks to offer UK universities loans where needed, given their significance in the economy. He warns, however: “I worked through the financial crisis of 2007/08 and it does not compare in my experience to what we are witnessing now – this crisis has touched everybody in some shape or form and many previously viable businesses are now in a fight for survival.”

The Office for Students, the independent regulator of higher education, has already streamlined its rules in the wake of the crisis, calling for universities to sound the alarm if they fear they’ll run short of cash within 30 days.

Universities UK, the industry body, has proposed a series of measures to the government to double research funding and offer emergency loans to troubled institutions, as well as placing a cap on the number of undergraduates many institutions can recruit in 2020-21.

Nick Hillman, Hepi’s director, warned that universities only had limited options to cut their costs. “There are things they can do to mitigate the impact, such as doing all they can to ensure international students keep coming, pausing the development of their estates, doing less research, looking at their staffing and persuading home final-year students to stay on for postgraduate study. But some were in financial difficulties even before the current crisis.

“If international student numbers are down a lot, we have a big problem. The ones with lots of international students could still potentially fill their places with home students (who pay lower fees) but that just leaves a problem lower down the tree.”

▻https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/11/universities-brace-for-huge-losses-as-foreign-students-drop-out?CMP=Sha

#universités #étudiants_étrangers #trésorerie

Another perfect storm? The likely financial impact of Covid-19 on the higher education sector – by Andrew Connors, the Head of Higher Education at Lloyds Bank

It does not seem very long ago that those involved in the higher education sector talked about the perfect storm. The colliding forces were a consistent decline in the number of 18-year-olds in the UK, turbulence surrounding Brexit and the resulting potential impact on the number of EU students alongside the policy challenges of a minority government.

As we entered 2020, however, if felt like the sector was weathering that storm with a majority government, certainty around the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and the number of UK 18-year-olds forecast to start growing again from 2021.

All this has changed due to the impact of Covid-19, which has felt less like a perfect storm and more like a tsunami hitting the sector.

Over a dynamic and fast-moving few weeks, higher education institutions have sent students home, moved to online tuition and, as the short and medium-term implications of Covid-19 become clearer, they have been assessing their immediate and ongoing liquidity requirements. The discussions we have been having at Lloyds Bank with institutions up and down the country suggest that a great wave of liquidity is likely to be necessary to support institutions through these most challenging of times.

The UK’s higher education institutions are, though, facing into different challenges to much of the rest of UK Plc. Many sectors have been hit immediately and extremely hard by Covid-19 with trading halted and businesses closed overnight, necessitating workforce redundancies or furloughing.

All UK banks are dealing with a significant and urgent volume of liquidity requests from their customers, the likes of which we have never seen before. To help meet these challenges the Government has made dramatic interventions to support companies in the form of the Job Retention Scheme (JRS), the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), the Coronavirus Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF) and now the pending launch of the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS)

I worked through the financial crisis of 2007/08 and it does not compare in my experience to what we are witnessing now – this crisis has touched everybody in some shape or form and many previously viable businesses are now in a fight for survival.

Financial Impacts

The dynamics in the higher education sector are different to a lot of UK Plc. At Lloyds Bank we have not seen urgent requests for liquidity from the sector over recent weeks and nor would we expect to have given the crisis timeline looks very different to the one a large portion of companies are facing into.

Yet, while the immediate impact we are seeing in the sector is slower, the overall impact of Covid-19 is potentially deeper and longer. The cost of lost commercial contracts in the summer alone is believed to be approaching £600 million and, as we look towards the 2020/21 academic year, annualised international student fee income of around £6 billion is at risk.

Over the last few weeks, we have had many conversations with higher education institutions who know they will have a significant reduction in income over the summer term and are scenario planning potentially dramatic reductions in international students for 2020/21. That simply would not have been imagined a few short weeks ago.

The discussions we are having suggest impacts on the current financial year that range from minimal to tens of millions of pounds for some institutions. Significant lost income has come from the waiving of accommodation fees for students for the summer term while many are committed to nomination agreements with other accommodation providers. Catering income alongside hotel and conferencing facility income have disappeared, with no expectation that summer schools will take place. This is likely to lead to some immediate cashflow implications for some, who will be carefully reviewing the Office for Students’ recent guidance around new reportable events, including the new short-term financial risk reporting requirement around the need for thirty days’ liquidity.

As we look into the next academic year, the most significant concern is that potentially dramatic drop in international students. Many institutions are modelling reductions of between 80% and 100% in international student numbers. Every university we have spoken to expects to be impacted and for some the potential loss to income is projected to be greater than £100 million. And that is before you factor in that losing new students has a multi-year impact.

Banks and Funding

It is not surprising, therefore, that all universities are urgently looking at their short and medium-term liquidity needs. These discussions at Lloyds Bank have fallen into three buckets:

Those looking to access one of the government schemes.
Those looking for medium-term funding from their banks – most commonly three to five-year revolving credit facilities.
Those looking to secure longer-term funding – through their banks – or more commonly the bond or private placement markets although this is less common at this time.

Fortunately, given the wave of liquidity discussions we (and other banks) are having, the banks enter this crisis having transformed their balance sheets from 2007/08 driven by lessons learned and underlined by EU and government regulation.

The banks have done this by repairing capital and liquidity ratios, transforming their loan to deposit ratios and significantly increasing their liquid assets. All this means that there should be plenty of liquidity available for UK Plc – and that is before adding in the recent cancellation of bank dividends and the impact of the Bank of England’s new term funding scheme.

Given the significance of the higher education sector to the UK economy and its world-class track record, I would expect the sector to be able to access liquidity where needed. At Lloyds Bank our stated purpose is to ‘Help Britain Prosper’ and that’s just what we’re working to do with this sector.

Government support

What of the Government schemes? While the Government have, to date, made no specific announcements around support for the higher education sector, there are no obvious exclusions within the already announced schemes.

To access the CCFF, for example, the Bank of England sets out the need to make a material contribution to the UK economy as being essential for access. At Lloyds we have been signposting those clients who wish to discuss access to the CCFF to the Bank of England. This has included confirming their Investment Grade credit rating, which is key to accessing the scheme.

The newly-announced CLBILS scheme, likely to launch around the 20 April, could also be a real support to smaller higher education institutions who have a need for under £25 million of liquidity repayable over the medium term at preferential rates.

We know a number of universities that are already using the Job Retention Scheme to furlough colleagues – particularly those with hotel and conferencing facilities.

Lessons Learned

Given the potential wave of support needed, it is clear that both the Government and financial sector have critical roles to play. For those like me with long memories, I have been reflecting on some lessons I learned from the actions the best companies took during the financial crisis of 2007/08 which I would sum up in the phrase: plan for the worst and hope for the best. That philosophy should lead to the following critical actions:

Ensure you have timely and good quality financial information, including forecasts which should include a worst-case scenario alongside your base case. The test is to ask yourself, what would be the most severe outcome in every situation?
Ensure you have sufficient liquidity in place to meet the downside risks.
Seek professional advice where necessary.
Be relentlessly challenging on expenditure and costs.
At these times, you cannot over-communicate to colleagues and other key stakeholders, including your advisors and funders. Ensure your funders are invested in your institution and on the journey with you.
And finally, some companies thrived during the financial crisis because, of course, even in the toughest of times there is opportunity. Be open to the opportunity to transform your operating model, to grow your people and to future proof your institution.

There is no doubt that, by the time this Covid-19 outbreak is over, it will have had a significant impact – on individuals, on businesses and on society. But there is clear guidance and support available and never before in peacetime has it been truer that we are all in this together. For universities and businesses more generally, there is great commitment from government and lenders to do everything we can to help you navigate through the interruptions.

We will get through this and, for those that need it, support is available to ensure higher education institutions emerge healthy.

▻https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/04/12/another-perfect-storm-the-likely-financial-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-higher-

Here Come the Furloughs

Sharp reductions in revenue and potential increases in expenses are spurring colleges to furlough or lay off employees while they wait for the coronavirus outbreak and the uncertainty it brings to subside.

First came the hiring freezes. Now come the furloughs.

Several colleges announced furloughs and layoffs this week and warned of potential additional staff reductions in the weeks to come. As colleges field unexpected expenses and lost revenue due to the coronavirus outbreak, paying employees — especially those who are unable to do their jobs remotely — is becoming more difficult.

MaryAnn Baenninger, president of Drew University, announced via video message on Sunday that a group of about 70 employees would be furloughed through at least the end of May. A smaller group will be laid off permanently. Furloughed staff members were notified Monday.

“I can’t guarantee that some of these furloughs won’t transition to permanent layoffs in the future,” Baenninger said in the video. According to the Drew website, furloughed employees will be updated by May 26 on the status of their furlough.

Staff reductions had been on the table for weeks while the Drew virtual team — the group appointed to bring Drew online and weather the outbreak — considered how to balance the needs of the university and what was best for employees.

The decision was, in part, an equity issue, Baenninger said.

“There were people who were working harder than they ever worked … and there were people for whom we wanted to have work, but we didn’t,” she said.

The financial picture Baenninger painted for Drew is similar to those at many other colleges and universities. She cited lost revenue from events, conferences, catering, summer camps and other operations, diminished endowment returns, and reduced giving from alumni and donors.

“On the expense side,” she continued in the video, “we will need to be prepared for potential changes in student financial aid, likely increases in health insurance costs, and we have had significant unexpected increases transitioning to a virtual environment, responding to the myriad changes brought on by COVID-19 and the potential need if called upon by the state of New Jersey to prepare our campus to house first responders and displaced medical patients.”

When colleges are forced to consider budget cuts, administrative costs such as travel and expense funds are typically the first to go, according to Ken Rodgers, director at S&P Global. Hiring freezes come next, which result in “a reasonable amount of savings,” he said. If that’s not enough, pay reductions, furloughs and layoffs become viable expense-saving options.

Baenninger and her team are considering salary reductions.

“We were pretty certain that salary reductions wouldn’t preclude a furlough, but maybe a furlough would prevent some salary reductions,” she said in an interview.

Drew had already experienced financial struggles in recent years. But it is not alone in feeling increased pressure that forces furloughs amid the coronavirus.

The University of New Haven — which is expecting a $12 million to $15 million in revenue loss due to issuing student refunds and credits — announced across-the-board pay reductions for faculty and staff two weeks ago. Last week, the university announced that some employees would be furloughed.

Furloughs are sometimes used as defensive measures, Rodgers said. They can better position colleges should their financial situations get worse, “i.e., this fall, if it turns out that students, for whatever reason, don’t come back.”

Guilford College in North Carolina has furloughed 133 people, more than half of its nonfaculty employees.

“Many of the jobs that we were looking at were really the jobs that couldn’t be done from home, because they involved direct contact with students,” said Jane Fernandes, president of Guilford. “We decided that just to help — not to solve anything — but to help our budget get to the end of the year, we would furlough staff.”

Marquette University announced Wednesday it would furlough approximately 250 employees beginning in mid-April. Bob Jones University, a private evangelical university in Greenville, S.C., also announced Wednesday that about 50 employees would be furloughed, with the potential for more down the road.

The furloughs don’t appear to be cutting into faculty ranks at this time, although faculty numbers are likely to be affected by already announced hiring freezes, reductions in pay and other actions at colleges and universities around the country.

The first round of furloughs and layoffs is typically operationally easier on colleges, Rodgers said.

“Those initial layoffs and furloughs typically are — you have to be careful when you say this — not too difficult for the university to administer,” Rodgers said. “If you get into the situation where a lot of students choose not to come back to campus and you have to implement a more broad-based reduction, that would be more challenging for any university to implement … because then you have to cut into core programming.”

Employees who work on campuses for third-party vendors that contract with colleges are also being laid off. Bon Appétit Management Company, which provides dining services to many colleges around the country, has furloughed many of its employees. Contract workers are not usually considered employees of the college they work at, and they face an uncertain future until students return to campus.

Colleges are borrowing money to bolster their cash positions, but not to support recurring operations, including payroll, Rodgers said.

“We view unfavorably any organization that borrows money to support recurring operations, including for payroll purposes,” he continued.

June is likely to be a key decision point on future furloughs and layoffs, Rodgers said, because the June 30 end of the fiscal year will be approaching. Colleges will be working out their budgets for the new 2021 fiscal year.

“They’re trying to see how this is going to impact their fiscal ’21 budget,” he said. “They’re having to make assumptions that may be very difficult to make as far as what enrollment to anticipate under scenario one, scenario two, scenario three.”

▻https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/colleges-announce-furloughs-and-layoffs-financial-challenges-mount
#USA #Etats-Unis

How to study at home during coronavirus – by online students and tutors

Here’s how to study effectively from home, according to those who have been doing it all along

For Dafydd Evans, 21, who studies media production at De Montfort University, online teaching has got off to a good start. “I didn’t think the new systems would cope, but they have,” he says. “We have contact with academics as normal and I really don’t think there’s much I’m missing out on.”

Others, however, say it’s been an uphill struggle. “The sites are crashing and lecturers are struggling to turn face-to-face interactions into online discussions,” says Isabel Thomas (not her real name), who studies international development at the University of Sussex. “We don’t all log on at the same time as some don’t have stable enough internet connection for live chats. Everything is slower.”

Scott Henderson, who studies esports at Staffordshire University, feels he’s missing out on valuable experience. “A big part of what we were doing this year was running a live event and we obviously can’t go forward with that,” he says.

Although UK university learning has been moving online for a while in light of the coronavirus crisis, this wasn’t the experience most envisaged. For others, though, it was their first choice. We asked online learners and tutors for their tips on how to make it work.

Create a study area …

Although you may be competing with others in your household, try to mark out a work space. “Even if this is temporary each time you use it, place some physical objects around you to customise it. Make it comfortable,” says Martin Weller, professor of educational technology at the Open University. Set boundaries with others. If your study space is now the kitchen table, try to get an agreement that it is yours alone for a set time period.

… and keep it tidy

It’s hard to be disciplined to work at home, and even harder if the place is cluttered. “If you have piles of dishes or laundry around you it can be difficult to focus. I like to set a timer for 15 minutes and do a quick blitz of a room. It makes for a calmer environment,” says Kimberley Lowe, who studied Spanish and English at the Open University.

Keep socialising

Although you may miss campus and socialising in person, reaching out and connecting with staff and other students can maintain a sense of community. Use the online systems to maintain social contact. Stephane Bignoux, senior lecturer in management at Middlesex University, says although it can feel lonely, posting on discussion boards and reading other student’s posts can help. Set up informal discussions via Skype or FaceTime if you can.

Reach out for help

Not everyone has access to a laptop and reliable wifi. Some students are relying on mobile data to connect to their online lessons and many are missing physical resources such as the library and laboratories. Get in touch with your university if you don’t have access to the right equipment. “We are telling staff to make content easy to view and interact with on smartphones. It needs to be much more inclusive,” says Neil Morris, dean of digital education at the University of Leeds.

Manage your time

Recognise that different tasks require different levels of concentration. Watching a video can be easier than reading a complex text and taking notes. Divide your work in to manageable time slots and take proper breaks.

Plan your day

The fact that you can put off watching recorded lectures until later can be dangerous. Make sure you devote your full attention to the recording – don’t squeeze it in while eating or listening to music. Set a routine to use time efficiently, says Jack Yarrow, 28, a final year engineering student at the Open University. “If you’re tired or not feeling great don’t just sit there – go tidy up, and when you’re feeling more awake, apply yourself then.”

Be clear when messaging colleagues

As with other social media platforms, a simple misunderstanding in writing can quickly escalate. “What may have been intended as an ironic comment can be misinterpreted,” warns Weller.

On discussion forums you may find that some who don’t speak up in class have more to say – which is a good thing. “My course generally don’t interact that much in lectures, but the interaction with online teaching has been constant,” says Evans. “It seems hiding behind the screen brings out confidence in our generation.”

▻https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/mar/26/how-to-study-at-home-during-coronavirus-by-online-students-and-tutors

VIRTUAL NOT VIRAL

NO PANIC IN THE #PHDPANDEMIC
curated links to helpful resources and strategies

▻https://www.virtualnotviral.com

Tips for Learning During Disruption
– Google presentation (turn on speaker notes!)

▻https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15RAiWCVoCQV90V3lj4CbOkfONs_KDaRMmx0oGSpEC8A/edit#slide=id.p

Some Advice for PhD Students and Their Mentors in the Time of Coronavirus
View all posts by Meghan Duffy →
13-17 Minuten

This blog post started as an email conversation between Dana Turjeman and Meghan Duffy. Dana turned her initial outline into a twitter thread (starting here). We decided it would be fun (and hopefully helpful!) to turn this into a blog post that expands on these ideas. So, here are the perspectives of a PhD student and a faculty member who are trying to figure out how to maintain mental health – and also hopefully some productivity, but that definitely comes second to physical & mental health – while social distancing.

First, this assumes that you are not going about your normal routine, but, rather, trying to stay home as much as possible. This is strongly encouraged! If you aren’t sure of why, please read this.

Here’s our advice:

Most importantly: your health and the health of your loved ones comes first.

There has been advice on how to stay productive while working from home, and we understand the motivation behind this. But we think it’s important to note that this is not business as usual. Things will be different, and it’s important to emphasize that physical and mental health come first. This should always be true, but it’s especially important right now.

Maintain a routine – plan out your working hours, exercise, sleep, eating regularly, connections with others, work breaks, etc. (Note: this should also include keeping a sense of weekends, taking some days off from work.)

Maybe you already were a routine kind of person – if so, great! Keep it up, adjusting your schedule to accommodate the new reality. Maybe you are not a schedule person. Take a growth mindset and give it a shot now! A lack of structure can be tough for mental health. Create structure as much as possible.

If you can, try to get outside every day, to non-crowded places with fresh air. This might not hold to those who must stay in strict isolation (which is different from social distancing) and cannot get closer to others. But, to the extent possible, try to get sunlight and fresh air, even when indoors.

Make sure you keep up other aspects of your normal routine. Meghan remembers how, when she was writing up her dissertation and her advisor was in a different state, she was thinking that she could just stay home all the time. At that time, she got advice along the lines of: “You need to come in at least for lunch or else first you’ll stop getting dressed, then you’ll stop showering, then you’ll stop brushing your teeth”. He had a point. So, while we aren’t going to gather in person for lunch now, it is still important to keep up normal routines!

At the same time, be flexible. Modify your plans. Experiment with new approaches.

We’re all going to be learning on the fly. You will misjudge how much you can do. Your initial routine may end up not working well for you. You will realize things work differently than you thought they would. This is all normal. Be flexible, and be kind with yourself and others as everyone figures out how to adjust.

Arrange virtual coffees or lunches with colleagues, even if you didn’t have those before. Start with some small talk. (Bonus points if some of the small talk is not about coronavirus!)

Social distancing is important, but really it’s physical distancing that we need, not social isolation. So, to the extent possible, try to connect with folks virtually.

Stay connected, but not too connected.

The internet helps a lot with maintaining connections with people (which is good!), but it’s also easy to get sucked in in ways that are not helpful. There are real downsides to anxiety scrolling through social media and constantly checking the news. Set limits on where you get your news and how often you check it (e.g., something like: “I will only check X sites, and I will only do that for 15 minutes four times a day” or “I will not check social media or news within 1 hour of bedtime”.) If you feel you check the news in ways that harm your mental health or productivity, and need an external boundary, try using “website blockers” on PC/Mac, and/or one of the many iPhone/Android apps. Some examples: WebsiteBlocker, ColdTurkey, HeyFocus.

If a partner / housemate is staying with you at home, make sure to respect each other’s work time and routine. Try to get a break from time to time – by sitting in another room or, contrary to that, arranging fun games together to reduce the working stress. Being together more than you’re used to might cause stress and tension.

Coming back to a common theme: we’re all trying to figure out new ways of working and living. Be kind, be compassionate, and communicate clearly and regularly.

Find an accountability partner – someone you “promise” to show measurable progress of work to, and who will nudge you gently in the right direction if you’re not holding up to your promises.

This may be a lab mate or a friend or someone else in your grad program or a colleague or a mentor. At first, it might help to check in pretty frequently – maybe three times a week or every week day. Keep the check in format short. One that Meghan has used (modified from resources from the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity) has: 1) My goals for yesterday were ; 2) I accomplished ; 3) My goals for today are . Depending on who you are checking in with, it might also make sense to explicitly check in about non-work stuff (e.g., are you maintaining connections with folks? Taking breaks from work? Getting sleep and exercise?)

If progress on a project is paused or delayed because you’re unable to collect data / run studies in the lab etc., try to think of all the things you can do otherwise – literature review, writing introduction of a paper, ideation for another paper etc.

In Meghan’s group, as of last week, the only lab work going on is: 1) maintaining cultures (which cannot be frozen, unfortunately) and, 2) finishing up one experiment (the last block of an experiment that is the last chapter of the dissertation of a student who is finishing this summer). Everything else is on hold, and all but three people in the lab have been told to work from home, and we’ve discussed how even those two things that are currently going on might need to stop. The folks staying at home are analyzing data, planning for future experiments, and working on literature reviews and meta-analyses. It will be interesting to see if there’s a notable increase in lit reviews & meta-analyses in the next year!

For the PIs/advisors/mentors, some things to keep in mind as you think about where people should work should include things like how they would get there (e.g., would they need to take public transit?), what other responsibilities they have (remember that many schools are closed now), their health, their comfort levels with being out (some people will not feel safe coming in and that should be respected), and possible impacts on their careers. For the last one, though, the bar has to be in a different place than it normally would – productivity is going to be impacted by this.

We were really impressed with the leadership shown by Tom Finholt, the Dean of UMichigan’s School of Information, as summarized here:

Communicate clearly and regularly

Information vacuums cause a lot of stress. Do your best to avoid them.

For the advisors: make sure you are in regular contact with everyone in your lab. Check on them. Keep them up to date on the status of things. Make sure they have opportunities for informal conversations where they can ask questions. You should be in touch with your lab several times a week (but also should allow for them to be on their own schedules – everyone’s solution to the current situation is going to be different!)

One idea Meghan heard that she liked is to set up frequent (three times a week or more) virtual lab hours where people from the lab can gather online to check in and chat with each other. Bonus: this increases the number of opportunities for seeing everyone’s pets!

For the students: If possible, update your advisers and co-authors more than you are used to. Schedule weekly meetings – even short ones – as much as possible, while recognizing that they have other things to focus on, too. Find measurable results of analyses / writing to present each time. Send short email updates to them, with small chunks of your progress. If things are requested from them, make sure to allow extra flexibility, and find things that you can do even without their feedback, so that they won’t feel obliged to respond if unable to. For example: “Hi, I did these analyses. Below you may find the results, and a draft of the text I will put in the manuscript. I would love to hear your feedback whenever you have time. However, no rush. I understand things might be busy on your side too. Therefore, meanwhile, I will be working on the literature review for the other part of the paper. “

For everyone: It is especially important to keep up with regular check-ins right now!

Schedule meetings with people you wanted to meet offline / online anyways – such as fellow PhD students / faculty from other places. Many conferences are cancelled (and more cancellations are surely coming), and networking will be lacking. Try being proactive in fixing this. Example: email seminar speakers who were supposed to come, or people you hoped to meet in (now cancelled) conferences, and ask to meet them online instead.

Some people will be too busy with childcare, moving courses online, etc., but others will be excited to have a chance to connect and to have a welcome distraction from all the other chaos!

Take advantage of the reduced commute time, and learn something fun and new – cooking, art, meditation…whatever can be done indoors (or away from others) in a healthy, respectful way.

Yes, for some people, just getting the bare minimum done will be all they can manage. But also consider whether this is an opportunity to try something new. Maybe it’s time to pick up a long neglected instrument, or to finally download that meditation app you’ve been considering, or to perfect your croissant-making techniques. (Meghan admits to having been tempted to finally get a new dog, but, sadly, concluded this is not the time.)

Recognize that people are making hard choices, dealing with difficult circumstances, and doing the best they can.

Your advisers, peers and colleagues might not be as responsive as you’d like. This will likely be even more so if they face health concerns or familial obligations. Remember that lots of people have things going on right now, some of which you will not know about (e.g., worrying about loved ones who are far away). Try to be understanding, and find other routes of support, as needed. Everyone is adjusting to a new situation, and lots of folks are extremely stressed and anxious right now.

Your work matters, even if it isn’t directly linked to coronavirus or health.

People who are not doing research directly linked to epidemiology, medicine, or something that feels pretty close to the pandemic might feel a sense of unworthiness. However, once things settle down, the impact of that work will become clear again!

Again, remember that the wellbeing of you and your loved ones comes first. Some people are talking about how productive they will be because of this, ignoring that people will be sick and worried and that some people have family responsibilities that need to come first.

There have been waaaaaay too many tweets noting how much Newton did in the year he was isolated as a result of the plague. This is our favorite take on those:

Work isn’t going to be perfect, parenting isn’t going to be perfect. Again, we need to be compassionate (with ourselves and others) and be flexible.

But what to do? One common suggestion has been to set a routine. (Meghan’s 4 year old helpfully set an alarm for 6AM – perhaps he is trying to keep us on schedule? Dana, on the other hand, hopes her toddlers won’t wake her up before 6AM.) This schedule has been going around social media:

https://dynamicecology.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/covidschedule.jpeg?w=584&h=584

schedule of different things to do during a typical day, from waking to bedtime

That particular routine might not work for you & your family, but trying some sort of routine seems like a good plan. (And, for those who do follow it, here’s hoping for lots of days where the kids earn 9PM bedtimes!)

If you have a partner who is also working from home, discuss your plans for sharing the load – for example, maybe one person takes the lead on childcare/homeschooling in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Another option is 3 days for one, 3 days for the other.

Your children’s school may have given some assignments for the coming weeks. If not (or if you want to supplement), other resources are available, such as Khan Academy and Scholastic Learn at Home. For more, here’s a list of education companies offering free subscriptions due to school closings.

Finally, Amy Cohn (a UMich Engineering Prof & the Associate Director of the Center for Healthcare Engineering & Patient Safety) shared her thoughts in this twitter thread:

Which ends with this advice:

We’re interested in your thoughts, too! What advice would you give? What have you been doing that’s been helping? What are you trying to figure out? We’re hoping people will share their thoughts, questions, and experiences in the comments!

About the authors
Dana is a PhD student in Quantitative Marketing at Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where she is also the wellbeing and research productivity chair in their PhD forum. Meghan, as regular readers of the blog know, is a Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Michigan and Chair of the Rackham Graduate School’s Task Force on Graduate Student Mental Health.

Additional resources that might be of interest (please share others in the comments!):

From Active Minds: Coping and Staying Emotionally Well During covid-19 related school closures

From Gina Baucom & her lab: How to Science During a Pandemic

From UMich’s Center for Academic Innovation: Adjusting your study habits during COVID, which includes these tips for working with a group or team:

https://dynamicecology.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/screen-shot-2020-03-14-at-10.08.34-am.png?w=584&h=447

▻https://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2020/03/15/some-advice-for-phd-students-and-their-mentors-in-the-time

Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure
By Aisha S. Ahmad
9-12 Minuten

Among my academic colleagues and friends, I have observed a common response to the continuing Covid-19 crisis. They are fighting valiantly for a sense of normalcy — hustling to move courses online, maintaining strict writing schedules, creating Montessori schools at their kitchen tables. They hope to buckle down for a short stint until things get back to normal. I wish anyone who pursues that path the very best of luck and health.

Yet as someone who has experience with crises around the world, what I see behind this scramble for productivity is a perilous assumption. The answer to the question everyone is asking — “When will this be over?” — is simple and obvious, yet terribly hard to accept. The answer is never.

Global catastrophes change the world, and this pandemic is very much akin to a major war. Even if we contain the Covid-19 crisis within a few months, the legacy of this pandemic will live with us for years, perhaps decades to come. It will change the way we move, build, learn, and connect. There is simply no way that our lives will resume as if this had never happened. And so, while it may feel good in the moment, it is foolish to dive into a frenzy of activity or obsess about your scholarly productivity right now. That is denial and delusion. The emotionally and spiritually sane response is to prepare to be forever changed .

The rest of this piece is an offering. I have been asked by my colleagues around the world to share my experiences of adapting to conditions of crisis . Of course, I am just a human, struggling like everyone else to adjust to the pandemic. However, I have worked and lived under conditions of war, violent conflict, poverty, and disaster in many places around the world. I have experienced food shortages and disease outbreaks, as well as long periods of social isolation, restricted movement, and confinement. I have conducted award-winning research under intensely difficult physical and psychological conditions, and I celebrate productivity and performance in my own scholarly career.

I share the following thoughts during this difficult time in the hope that they will help other academics to adapt to hardship conditions. Take what you need, and leave the rest.

Stage No. 1: Security

Your first few days and weeks in a crisis are crucial, and you should make ample room to allow for a mental adjustment. It is perfectly normal and appropriate to feel bad and lost during this initial transition. Consider it a good thing that you are not in denial, and that you are allowing yourself to work through the anxiety. No sane person feels good during a global disaster, so be grateful for the discomfort of your sanity. At this stage, I would focus on food, family, friends, and maybe fitness . (You will not become an Olympic athlete in the next two weeks, so don’t put ridiculous expectations on your body.)

Next, ignore everyone who is posting productivity porn on social media right now. It is OK that you keep waking up at 3 a.m. It is OK that you forgot to eat lunch and cannot do a Zoom yoga class. It is OK that you have not touched that revise-and-resubmit in three weeks.

Ignore the people who are posting that they are writing papers and the people who are complaining that they cannot write papers. They are on their own journey. Cut out the noise.

Know that you are not failing. Let go of all of the profoundly daft ideas you have about what you should be doing right now. Instead, focus intensely on your physical and psychological security . Your first priority during this early period should be securing your home. Get sensible essentials for your pantry, clean your house, and make a coordinated family plan. Have reasonable conversations with your loved ones about emergency preparedness . If you have a loved one who is an emergency worker or essential worker , redirect your energies and support that person as your top priority. Identify their needs, and then meet those needs.

No matter what your family unit looks like, you will need a team in the weeks and months ahead. Devise a strategy for social connectedness with a small group of family, friends, and/or neighbors , while maintaining physical distancing in accordance with public-health guidelines. Identify the vulnerable and make sure they are included and protected.

Get Fast Advice for Your Academic Life

Sign up to get our Quick Tip newsletter : Twice a week, we’ll send you fast advice to help you thrive. It’s free to receive, and you’ll get a mix of small suggestions designed to help you succeed in your job and your academic life.

The best way to build a team is to be a good teammate, so take some initiative to ensure that you are not alone. If you do not put this psychological infrastructure in place, the challenge of necessary physical-distancing measures will be crushing. Build a sustainable and safe social system now .

Stage No. 2: The Mental Shift

Once you have secured yourself and your team, you will feel more stable, your mind and body will adjust, and you will crave challenges that are more demanding. Given time, your brain can and will reset to new crisis conditions, and your ability to do higher-level work will resume.

This mental shift will make it possible for you to return to being a high-performance scholar, even under extreme conditions. However, do not rush or prejudge your mental shift, especially if you have never experienced a disaster before. One of the most relevant posts I saw on Twitter (by writer Troy Johnson) was: “Day 1 of Quarantine: ‘I’m going to meditate and do body-weight training.’ Day 4: just pours the ice cream into the pasta” — it’s funny but it also speaks directly to the issue.

Now more than ever, we must abandon the performative and embrace the authentic. Our essential mental shifts require humility and patience. Focus on real internal change. These human transformations will be honest, raw, ugly, hopeful, frustrated, beautiful, and divine. And they will be slower than keener academics are used to. Be slow. Let this distract you. Let it change how you think and how you see the world. Because the world is our work. And so, may this tragedy tear down all our faulty assumptions and give us the courage of bold new ideas .

Stage No. 3: Embrace a New Normal

On the other side of this shift, your wonderful, creative, resilient brain will be waiting for you. When your foundations are strong, build a weekly schedule that prioritizes the security of your home team , and then carve out time blocks for different categories of your work: teaching, administration, and research. Do the easy tasks first and work your way into the heavy lifting. Wake up early. The online yoga and crossfit will be easier at this stage.

Things will start to feel more natural. The work will also make more sense, and you will be more comfortable about changing or undoing what is already in motion. New ideas will emerge that would not have come to mind had you stayed in denial. Continue to embrace your mental shift. Have faith in the process. Support your team.

Understand that this is a marathon. If you sprint at the beginning, you will vomit on your shoes by the end of the month. Emotionally prepare for this crisis to continue for 12 to 18 months , followed by a slow recovery. If it ends sooner, be pleasantly surprised. Right now, work toward establishing your serenity, productivity, and wellness under sustained disaster conditions.

None of us knows how long this crisis will last. We all want our troops to be home before Christmas. The uncertainty is driving us all mad.

Of course, there will be a day when the pandemic is over. We will hug our neighbors and our friends. We will return to our classrooms and coffee shops. Our borders will eventually reopen to freer movement. Our economies will one day recover from the forthcoming recessions.

Yet we are just at the beginning of that journey. For most people, our minds have not come to terms with the fact that the world has already changed. Some faculty members are feeling distracted and guilty for not being able to write enough or teach online courses properly. Others are using their time at home to write and report a burst of research productivity. All of that is noise — denial and delusion. And right now, denial only serves to delay the essential process of acceptance , which will allow us to reimagine ourselves in this new reality.

On the other side of this journey of acceptance are hope and resilience . We will know that we can do this, even if our struggles continue for years. We will be creative and responsive, and will find light in all the nooks and crannies. We will learn new recipes and make unusual friends. We will have projects we cannot imagine today, and will inspire students we have not yet met. And we will help each other. No matter what happens next, together, we will be blessed and ready to serve.

In closing, I give thanks to those colleagues and friends who hail from hard places, who know this feeling of disaster in their bones. In the past few days, we have laughed about our childhood wounds and have exulted in our tribulations. We have given thanks and tapped into the resilience of our old wartime wounds. Thank you for being warriors of the light and for sharing your wisdom born of suffering. Because calamity is a great teacher.

Aisha Ahmad is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and the author of the award-winning book Jihad & Co: Black Markets and Islamist Power (Oxford University Press, 2017). Her Twitter is @ProfAishaAhmad.

▻https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-You-Should-Ignore-All-That/248366?cid=wcontentgrid_hp_1b

Aisha Ahmad’s personal website: ▻https://www.aishasahmad.com/about

Subscribe Quick Tip Newsletter:
▻https://www.chronicle.com/page/Get-The-Quick-Tip-Newsletter/713

Rédiger sa thèse en confinement : tips, outils, méthodes
▻►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FTTB5MYfdY

SOS Téléthèse : continuer sa thèse en plein #CoronaCrisis ?
▻►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I32FN6JjIl0

singalé par @mad_meg

Staying Grounded & Connected to Academic Work in the Time of COVID-19 - The Dissertation Coach

Alison Miller, PhD, Owner of The DIssertation Coach & Kathryn Peterson, PhD, Dissertation Coach
8-10 Minuten

https://www.thedissertationcoach.com/wp-content/uploads/BLOG-COVID-19.jpg

When we imagined the world in 2020, we didn’t conceive of this very strange and frightening reality of COVID-19. But here we are, living in some kind of dystopian existence, where our world has been turned upside down by a global pandemic.

Just a little while ago, we were unfamiliar with terms like social distancing [sic #terminology —> physical distancing, smart distancing or distant socialising] , shelter in place, safer at home, or flattening the curve. Few of us have ever experienced empty supermarket shelves, toilet paper and hand sanitizer shortages, or scrambling to recalibrate our lives to work online. Many of us are having to make countless small and large adjustments. You may be teaching online, changing your routines and suddenly coworking with others, becoming homeschool teachers overnight while schools are shut down, or caring for others who cannot leave their homes at all.

Even in the face of our new reality, we know it is important to maintain some sense of #routine and #normality. We also know that many of you still want to make progress on the path to earning a graduate degree. We are all needing a way to manage the #stress and #uncertainty of our new reality, yet still be able to #focus, #concentrate, and complete academic tasks. To that end, we want to offer you a few #ideas of how you can support yourself to stay grounded, productive, and connected to your academic work during this unprecedented time.

PRIORITIZE

To start, it can make a big difference to clarify your priorities . In terms of your academic work, we encourage you to consider what deadlines you have or goals are you seeking to meet. What work would it feel really good to (realistically and humanely) accomplish today, this week, this month? Take into account what can reasonably be accomplished given what is happening in your household, changes to your work or childcare responsibilities, and the stress of living through this pandemic. We recommend writing down the academic and life priorities you have over the next few weeks to set the stage for making progress and being able to care for yourself and loved ones. Each evening, write out your priorities for the next day and give yourself specific writing or other research tasks that can be completed in shorter intervals of time. For example, instead of a directive to “write chapter 2,” it may be more helpful to identify small subsections in chapter 2 to write in a given day.

STRUCTURE YOUR DAY

A great way to feel connected to your work is to set up a structure for your day that includes some academic zones , periods of time when you will commit to only doing academic tasks (and truly take a break from your phone, email, social media, and the news). This is especially important if you are not used to working from home. It can be very helpful to map out a plan for the day that includes when you are writing or doing other academic tasks, when you are exercising, and when you are managing other work and personal responsibilities with space to unwind and even do nothing. Alison closes out each work day by mapping out the next day on a yellow pad of paper and uses that written plan as a roadmap for how to move through her day including her own writing projects, phone calls and meetings, administrative tasks,etc. She often plans 1-2 hour blocks of phone and email free time for writing projects. Alison has learned from experience how vital it is to build in time to rest, eat, connect with her family and unwind so she can better focus and concentrate when it is time to work. Inside your academic work zones, you may find it especially helpful to use the Pomodoro Technique , where you work in 25 minute increments (check out Spotify’s Pomodoro Playlist) or virtually co-work with others via Skype or Zoom.

FIND VIRTUAL COWORKERS

Virtually #coworking with others can be a great way to feel more accountable and supported while also reducing the #isolation of only being able to work at home. We offer virtual writing boot camps for our clients and many of them tell us that coworking is the only way they can focus and make meaningful progress during this pandemic. Coworking can make a surprising difference in your productivity. Here is a suggested coworking strategy:

Find one or more people to schedule a coworking call. Open the call with a 5-10 minute meeting to get connected and declare your work goals for the first work session. We find that using Skype or Zoom with video can be very helpful.
Agree to a set amount of time you will all work and then turn off the video and sound during the work session. Set an alarm or timer so you know when to return to the call at the agreed upon time.
Take a 5-10 minute break and share what you were able to accomplish. Support and encourage each other as needed and declare your goals for the next work session. Alison typically co-works with others for 1.5 to 2 hour blocks of time, checking in about every 40 minutes or so. Other people prefer the pomodoro method mentioned above, where they work for 25 minutes and check in for 5, doing between 2 and 4 pomodoros in a row.
Close out the co-working session by acknowledging your accomplishments and anything you want to do to make future work sessions more effective. Schedule another coworking session.

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

We are all facing challenges and uncertainty at this time. Many of us are experiencing that our bodies are flooded with adrenaline and cortisol leaving us in a chronic flight, fight, or freeze state. You may be losing track of time and feel like your brain is not fully functioning. If you feel like your IQ has dropped or you are struggling to remember, think, or write clearly, you are not alone. What we are experiencing with COVID-19 is pushing us into survival consciousness where the reptilian brain (more primitive part of the brain) takes charge, and the neocortex (where higher order functioning takes place) gets limited to rehashing the past or trying to control the future. Thus it becomes harder to think clearly and make thoughtful, conscious choices. We are more likely to be in a reactive mode. So please be gentle with yourself and keep focusing on what is in your control. None of us can control how long this pandemic will last, whether others will practice social distancing [sic] , or when life will feel more normal again. Yet we can all practice being kind and compassionate toward ourselves and others. We can stay informed while also maintaining a healthy boundary with news and social media, find enjoyable activities and do things like connect with loved ones virtually, engage in activities that help us unwind from stress, and practice social distancing [sic] and other recommended behavior. Believe it or not, some of you may find working on your dissertation to be a helpful refuge from the world . Also, don’t forget to take time to create a peaceful, organized workspace so you have an environment that feels good and is conducive to productivity..

A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT DEADLINES

Some of you may work in healthcare or other fields that are seriously impacted by COVID-19 or now have children at home who require your attention and care. If your professional or parenting responsibilities are making it very difficult to meet external deadlines, we encourage you to be in communication sooner rather than later. Most likely, faculty and administration will be flexible and grant extensions to students given this pandemic. Communicate this message in a positive way that demonstrates your commitment to meet existing deadlines with an alert that you may need to ask for an extension. In our experience, it is better to communicate early and provide a proactive warning that you may not be able to meet deadlines .

We are here rooting for you to put one foot in front of the other, taking it one day at a time, maybe one hour at a time. From all of us at The Dissertation Coach, we hope you and your loved ones stay healthy and safe.

▻https://www.thedissertationcoach.com/blog/staying-grounded-and-connected-to-academic-work-in-the-time-of

Senior UK academics protest over pay and working conditions

Professors refuse to act as external examiners, potentially disrupting students’ results.
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f577f9af03596a66eddb4bc2cde72cec8d6037df/0_45_1400_840/master/1400.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=d6a9abbc77ccb62944d311

Senior academics are refusing to act as external examiners – a vital part of higher education assessments – in protest at pay and working conditions in UK universities, and are urging colleagues to join them, potentially disrupting this year’s results for students.

British universities rely on external examiners to independently validate the results of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, meaning that mass resignations would cause headaches for universities in the setting and marking of exams.

A letter to the Guardian signed by 29 professors said they were resigning as external examiners and refusing to take on new contracts because of pension cuts and insecure contracts throughout the sector, as well as gender and ethnicity pay gaps, heavy workloads and stress.
Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you
Read more

“We are refusing to act as external examiners because although we believe that this role is crucial in underpinning the quality of education provided to students, so too is the need to provide fair pay, pensions and job security for those who work in universities,” the letter states.

“It is long past time for universities to address these festering problems, and we believe we have a responsibility to staff at the start of their careers to make a stand now. Please join us by resigning external examiner posts and refusing to take on new contracts until universities take action to address these issues.”

Phil Taylor, a professor of work and employment at the University of Strathclyde, said he had signed the letter because he was “fed up” with universities treating their staff with contempt.

“Someone starting now is likely to have to deal with one insecure contract after another, face cuts in their pension, spiralling workloads, unrelenting pressure, soaring stress levels and pay inequality. Universities must start to value staff more or they will lose what little goodwill that is left,” he said.

Another signatory, Natalie Fenton, a professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, said British universities boasted about their global reputation while treating staff as second-class citizens.

“It is really important that senior academics on established contracts make a stand in support of less fortunate colleagues. I will be refusing any invitations to act as external examiner for degree courses until universities address these issues,” Fenton said.

External examiners are experienced academics such as professors or senior lecturers, who give independent assurance that a university’s assessment system is fair and help to maintain rigorous academic standards.
Thousands of UK academics ’treated as second-class citizens’
Read more

The external examination boycott comes during industrial disputes at many British universities, with the University and College Union leading a strike at 60 institutions last year and more strike ballots being held this month.

“External examiners resigning their positions, and refusing to take up new ones, are very serious steps and demonstrate the huge levels of frustration that exist,” said Jo Grady, the UCU general secretary.

“External examiners are vitally important both to protecting educational standards and to the sector’s academic reputation but they want to support colleagues who face pension cuts, insecure contracts, spiralling workloads and pay inequality.

“Universities must now recognise the strength of feeling that exists across the workforce and make substantial changes in the way they treat staff or they will undoubtedly face not just further industrial action, but also more withdrawals of cooperation.”

A spokesperson for the Universities and Colleges Employers Association said the protest “does not seem to reflect accurately the issues” in the current industrial disputes.

“Many universities have also been in dialogue with their unions over the wider employment issues that have been packaged in to one of these disputes and it is wrong to assert that there is any unwillingness within universities to discuss and address these issues,” the association said.

A spokesperson for the industry body Universities UK said: “It is right that university staff should expect good working conditions, fair pay and an attractive pension. This is what universities are striving to provide.”

▻https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/22/senior-uk-academics-protest-over-pay-and-working-conditions

Picket Line Perspectives: UCU pickets across the UK

Sixty universities across the UK are taking part in the current UCU strike action over pay, pensions, and poor working conditions. On day 4 of the 8-day strike, six striking historians give us the view from picket lines across the country.

Royal Holloway, University of London

Emily Manktelow – Senior Lecturer in Colonial and Global History

One of the nice things about Royal Holloway’s big Founder’s Building clock is that you can arrive “on the stroke” of things. As such, I arrived on the stroke of 8am Monday morning to join the picket lines of the Egham Campus. The rain was both mizzling and persistent, but I like to think the picket I was on was buoyed by the presence of my dog Teddy, one of the many #dogsonpicketlines up and down the country that morning. Not being a fan of the rain, his big brown eyes really got across the pathos of inequality, low pay and casualisation. Standing at the pedestrian crossing gate opposite student halls, we got a lot of support from students, some encouraging car honks and a round of applause from a passing nurse. We also got shouted at by a man leaning out of his van at the traffic lights. “Get a f***ing education”, he yelled with somewhat pleasing irony. I guess he could have been saying “Give a f***ing education’, but that seems unlikely.

https://i1.wp.com/www.historyworkshop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/rhul-strike-dogs.jpg?resize=620%2C465#.jpg

On the picket line the main talk was of equality: fair pay and casualisation were definitely the issues that resonated most with staff. Whereas during the last strikes the focus was very-much on the pension cuts, this time around there was a certain amount of discomfort with our ‘USS Pension Strike’ signs. This discomfort resonates more widely with the dominance on social media of the second part of the industrial action ballot: pay and working conditions. While RHUL is proud of its roots in female education – indeed, the sports teams’ colours are the suffragette colours and our new library is in the brand-new Emily Wilding Davison building – we have the 7th worst gender pay gap in the sector (24.9%). Our Surrey campus, meanwhile, is much too white for its proximity to Hounslow, Acton and Staines. As staff members and departments these are issues we have been trying to face with student-led BAME initiatives and projects to diversify our curriculum, but both the national and local picture remain alarming at best, and indicting at worst. The national gender pay gap is 15% (2018) while the ethnic minority pay gap in Russell Group institutions is an astonishing 26% (2018). Closer to home for we historians the Royal Historical Society’s ‘Race, Ethnicity and Equality Report’ found that only 11% of history students nationwide are from BAME backgrounds and that 96.1% of university historians are white.

https://i1.wp.com/www.historyworkshop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/rhul-students.jpg?resize=620%2C465#.jpg

Casualisation, meanwhile, is also stark. RHUL relies upon 62% casualised labour. Nationally the figure stands at 68% with many institutions even higher. At last year’s Modern British Studies Conference forum on early career casualisation I was struck not only by the devastating figures, but even more so by the feeling of ECRs on the panel that their work wasn’t valued: that their teaching was underpaid and unstable, and even more so that their research was considered pointless or trivial. This really felt like a punch in the gut, and in a stupidly tone-deaf and rambling question I prattled on about imposter syndrome without really interacting with the structural issues that these academics were so eloquently describing. Yes, we all have moments of feeling that we don’t belong. These young colleagues were being both told and shown that they didn’t by university structures and leaderships that relied upon their work at the same time as marginalising their existence. This is deeply shameful, and absolutely worth striking for.

I don’t know if these issues have got worse since the last strikes, but I do know that their importance has magnified. Colleagues and I have been trying to work out why that is. Our suggestions are undoubtedly only part of the wider picture, but tended to circle around greater visibility through social media and more attention to mental health issues in academia (particularly after the tragic death of Dr Malcolm Anderson at Cardiff University earlier this year). Moreover, for me at least, the last round of strikes burnt up my goodwill towards universities as institutions. I love my job, and I am extremely fortunate to be one of the lucky ones in a permanent position. I joined RHUL in August 2018 and have been extremely happy there so far, with great colleagues, a vibrant department, and enthusiastic and engaged students. But in 2018 university leaderships across the country certainly demonstrated that we are only numbers on a spreadsheet in the corridors of power. Our goodwill is lost in a vacuum of number-crunching, pound signs and recruitment figures.

Universities rely on our commitment to research and teaching in order to exploit us. They rely on our gratitude for having a job to overwork us. They rely on our commitment to get the job done to cut our pay by nearly 20% in real terms since 2009. They rely on casualised staff who are chronically underpaid, live in a world of instability and insecurity every day, and internalise the sector’s exploitation as a narrative of insufficiency. The money is there: for pensions, for fractional and permanent contracts, for redressing the pay gaps and investing in eradicating student attainment gaps. We don’t need new halls charging exorbitant rent to already over-squeezed students. We don’t need recruitment targets, TEFs, REFs and KEFs. We need equality, security, fair workloads and fair pay. Is that so much to ask?

University of Cambridge

George Morris – PhD Student in History

As in the last strike, the solidarity shown by undergraduate students, and the presence of postgrads on the picket lines, has been of huge value, not just in boosting numbers and morale – and providing sustenance in the form of tea and cake – but in showing the strength of feeling, and the deep care and support, on which the university runs. The practical solidarity shown between staff and students (and, here in Cambridge, a visiting Billy Bragg) is an expression of more everyday solidarities, which function despite the pressure of poor working conditions. If it seems like the strike offers an alternative idea of the university, it is because of this; people gathering, meeting, and talking in ways we don’t have time to otherwise.

At many universities, students have been misleadingly told that they aren’t allowed to join the picket lines. The fact is that staff and students care about one another more than VCs care about either. Despite the cynical co-option of a language of care, more or less direct threats to discipline students, particularly those who might fall fowl of visa restrictions, suggest the limits of management’s feeling for students affected by the strike.

https://i0.wp.com/www.historyworkshop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/the-crowds-at-cambridge.jpg?resize=620%2C465#.jpg

Though the issues at dispute have now broadened, this in basically a continuation of the last wave of strike action, the longest in the history of British universities. The strike proved to be effective, to have the support of students, and to have highlighted working conditions in a sector too easily dismissed by observers as a world of ivory towers. Though the methods of the dispute are traditional ones – pickets, student occupations, Billy Bragg – the realities of university employment differ radically from the workplaces for which such tactics were devised. This doesn’t mean that universities are out of touch; on the contrary, these dispersed institutions, in which employees are expected to work for love not money, have much in common with seemingly very different occupations in contemporary Britain.

Everybody on the picket lines is fighting for pensions, fair pay and an end to precarity. But, as was the case last time, they’re fighting for the future of universities too. For those of us who are doing graduate work, and who look ahead to a future of precarious employment, it may well be that our biggest ‘contribution to the field’ is the fight for the future of higher education.

University of Bristol

Will Pooley – Lecturer in Modern European History

This is What Winning Looks Like

I’m fortunate to work with many colleagues who recognize the importance of the union, and of this strike.

But before the strike began, I spoke to several colleagues who weren’t members, and weren’t planning to join us. One of them told me, ‘I don’t think we can win this fight.’

I’ve been thinking a lot about this on the first few days on the picket.

No one is pretending that the issues are simple. Different union branches are on strike on either one of two different grounds – pensions and pay – or on both. The ins and outs of the pension dispute are hard even for staff to understand, let alone members of the public and students. And the pay dispute is not just about stagnating pay or pay devaluation, but also covers pay inequality, job insecurity, and rising workloads.

https://i0.wp.com/www.historyworkshop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/bristol-historians-on-strike.jpg?resize=620%2C465#.jpg

Resolutions to all of these disputes are unlikely to be simple or quick. Precarious employment practices and unsafe workloads are so ingrained in how modern universities work that undoing them is going to take sustained work over the long term.

But if victory is a process, not a moment, then there are signs that we are already winning.

Winning is recognition in national media coverage that the current system is broken.

Winning is the incredible support our students have shown us.

https://i1.wp.com/www.historyworkshop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/bristol-students.jpg?resize=620%2C465#.jpg

Winning is our democratically-elected representatives coming down to the pickets to hear directly from staff about the strike.

Winning is the creativity and camaraderie of the picket.

Those of us who were also on strike in 2018 remember how uplifting it was to just spend time talking to our colleagues and students. In our current broken system, who has time for that?

Winning is the Vice-Chancellor of our university coming out on to the pickets and the marches to speak to staff, and even to listen to our concerns. (When I heard him, he was being roundly criticised by hourly-paid teachers about their working conditions.)

And winning is the growing group of Vice-Chancellors speaking out to support greater pension contributions from employers.

Of course the fight is not over.

Vice-Chancellors talking to picketers, or even publicly declaring their sympathy is not the same as Vice-Chancellors taking concrete steps to address our concerns. Some of the fixes could be a lot faster than university ‘leaders’ sometimes pretend. I’d like to see my own employer adopt the approach to pay gaps championed by the University of Essex. To close their gender pay gap among professors, they simply increased all female professors’ pay.

We can hope, can’t we? My overwhelming memory of the 2018 strikes is anger. But what I’d like to say to my pessimist colleague – and indeed to any other colleagues who have not yet joined – is something about how hope is replacing my anger.

We are slowly winning this, and it’s never too late to join us.

University of Edinburgh

Fraser Raeburn – Lecturer in Modern European History

Last time around, striking felt liberating. The picket line seemed to be the first space capable of overcoming the atomisation of academic life, a place where conversations could happen spontaneously, unhurriedly and across subject borders and hierarchies, the kinds of conversations most of us became academics to have. The result was a sense of solidarity that felt exhilaratingly unfamiliar, an emotional high that pushed people through a long series of strikes to their successful conclusion.

This time, that exhilaration seems to be gone. Not because there are fewer people out, or because there is no solidarity to be found – quite the contrary. Part of the reason, inevitably, is the sheer awfulness of Edinburgh’s November weather, which has had a quite literal numbing effect. I also suspect that the novelty for most participants has worn off somewhat – the sense of giddy surprise at the power of the picket as a human space was never going to be fully recaptured. Perhaps above all though, we are all tired. This has been a long, difficult semester, perhaps only incrementally more difficult than the last one (which was only a little more difficult than the one before) but we are all reaching or approaching the end of our tethers. We are simply exhausted.

This exhaustion is why we’re striking. Many of us – particularly those of us on temporary, precarious contracts – feel like we’re being pushed to breaking point, working unsustainable hours, pushing through illness and lack of sleep to deliver teaching on a scale that seemed unimaginable a generation ago. Exhaustion, on this picket line, is not weakness, it is determination: we can’t go on like this, and the only option we have left is to challenge the system itself.

https://i2.wp.com/www.historyworkshop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/edinburgh-strikers.jpg?resize=620%2C465#.jpg

Pensions were a strong rallying point, as they affected our collective futures so tangibly, and the deal being offered was so transparently, unnecessarily cruel. It became clear during that strike, however, that this was the tip of the iceberg when it came to structural issues in UK academia. The ambition of this strike is, well, striking. We are attempting not just to address the lingering issue of pensions, but the much wider problems of workload, precarity and the pay gaps along the lines of gender, race and disability.

These are issues that require different conversations than last time around. Much of the debate around pensions was technical – what can really be afforded, how to calculate contributions and risk, what assumptions are built into the models. This time, we need to communicate truths that are more personal and emotional, lifting the curtain not just on what is happening behind the scenes of our universities, but what is happening behind the facades we put up in the classroom as we perform our roles as enthusiastic, engaged and energetic teachers. These are facades we’ve often built up just a little too well – we are good at our jobs, after all – but if we want students to understand why we’re striking, they need to come down.

University of Cambridge
Elly Robson, Research Fellow
.
The mood on the pickets in Cambridge has been buoyant – bolstered further by celebrity visits from Ai Weiwei and Billy Bragg. No one wants to be on strike, but there is widespread recognition among students and staff that the future of higher education is at stake. The tripling of tuition fees under the Lib Dem-Tory government in 2009 accelerated a restructuring of the university sector along highly marketised lines. This same trend has profoundly degraded the conditions, pay, and pensions of workers in the university – those whose labour is the very lifeblood of these institutions. This strike poses the question of who and what the university is for. It also widens the terms of the struggle to highlight how the young and precarious, women, BME and disabled academics and staff are hit hardest by pay freezes, short-term and zero-hours contracts, and escalating workloads.

https://i1.wp.com/www.historyworkshop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/IMG_6344.jpg?resize=620%2C465#.jpg

What cabinet ministers, university managers and pension actuarialists failed to factor into their calculations was the potential for these shared struggles to converge. This week, I have watched horizontal solidarities, forged in the 2018 strikes, deepen and grow on the picket lines in Cambridge. The picket is a radical pedagogical space, in which learning takes unexpected forms and militates against the hierarchies of the classroom. We stand to learn a huge deal from the energy, organisation and vision of the students supporting the strike. The strike doesn’t just demand that “another university is possible”, but brings it into being at the level of practice: in tea-runs and teach-outs, creative placards and the political education of collective action. And there is so much that can be brought back into, and enrich, the classroom from this shared experience. Most strikingly, as Billy Bragg reminded our large rally yesterday, activism is the antidote to cynicism. Without it, we are lost.
.
.
.
University of Manchester
.

Misha Ewen – Research Fellow in Political Economy

I joined the University of Manchester last year and this is my first experience of the picket line. What I’ve witnessed so far is solidarity. Solidarity between students and staff, with students also recognising that the casualisation of academic labour impacts the education that they receive. With the rise in tuition fees, it seems to me that students are also frustrated with the increasing marketisation of university education, and with a general election looming it feels like both on and off the picket line there’s a chance for real change.

https://i0.wp.com/www.historyworkshop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/manchester-pickets.jpg?resize=620%2C465#.jpg

I also see the strike as an opportunity to educate students about the realities of academic labour, pay and conditions: some academic staff, who teach their courses and supervise their dissertations, are on precarious contracts, might not receive the same pay as colleagues doing equivalent work, and do work (including teaching) that is not in their contracts and goes unpaid. In this highly competitive job market, Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are often made to feel that they should be grateful for any employment and experience that strengthens their CVs, even when the conditions they face are unethical and exploitative. So, for me, fighting for fairer pay and conditions is deeply personal. I’m proud to say that over the past two days senior staff, ECRs and students have stood side-by-side in the rain (it’s Manchester, what did we expect?), but it hasn’t dampened the feeling that we’re all in this together.

▻http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/picket-line-perspectives-ucu-pickets-across-the-uk

University employers say union demands on pay are unaffordable

Employers appeal to union to go back to members with latest revised offer in hope of averting strikes

Union demands on pensions, pay and conditions are unaffordable and will put vulnerable institutions that are already in deficit at even greater risk, university employers have said.

Speaking before strike action planned for this week on 74 campuses across the UK, the employers said many institutions that had already reported shortfalls were being asked to go beyond what they could afford to meet union demands.

They appealed to the University and College Union, which represents lecturers, librarians, technicians and other academic staff, to go back to their membership with the latest revised offer in the hope of breaking the deadlock between the two sides.
Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you
Read more

UCU members are due to go out on strike on Thursday for the first of 14 days of industrial action in what is being described as the largest wave of strikes ever seen on UK campuses. It is expected to impact on more than a million students, many of whom are now veterans of university industrial action.

It is the third time higher education staff have taken industrial action since 2018, most recently before Christmas when 40,000 staff at 60 universities went out on strike for eight days over the same issues. Staff at a further 14 universities subsequently voted in favour of industrial action after being re-balloted by the UCU, taking the total number of institutions up to 74.

Mark E Smith, vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton and chair of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) said employers had moved a long way to meet the demands of union members, particularly on casualisation, gender pay and workload.

“We know that in many institutions they are at the edge – or beyond – what they can really afford. If you look at the number of institutions that have reported deficits this year, it’s a very difficult position for them.”

Universities pay more than half of their overall income on staff costs. “Therefore if your major cost is inflating further, the logical conclusion is those institutions which are under financial pressure will be under increasing pressure,” said Smith. “I would not want to be as alarmist as to say some will go under, however you can join the dots up and see where the logical conclusion of that lies.”

Smith called on the UCU to go back to their members with the detail of the final offer.
“The employers have moved a long way on this, but according to the negotiating team of the union it’s not enough, but that’s their view,” he said. “We don’t know what their members think.”

Students, meanwhile, are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact on their studies, with many launching petitions urging universities to address what they see as legitimate staff concerns and others demanding compensation for lost tuition.

A UCU spokesperson said: “The reason staff are walking out and education is being disrupted from Thursday is because universities have failed to move the conversation forward and address the concerns of staff.”

▻https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/feb/18/university-employers-union-pay-demands

The Senior Management Survey: auditing the toxic university

Our thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed seven major themes:

Dominance and brutality of metrics
Excessive workload
Governance and accountability
Perpetual change and loss of institutional memory
Vanity projects
The silenced academic
Higher education work as a mental health hazard

▻https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/02/17/the-senior-management-survey-auditing-the-toxic-university

#université_toxique

En 2021:
UK university staff back strikes over pay and conditions
►https://seenthis.net/messages/935584