4 ms·

This is a sample size of 1, but my wife is currently averaging about 70 hours per week at a Russell Group university. That's the average number of hours, it is

by buro9 11y ago

This is a sample size of 1, but my wife is currently averaging about 70 hours per week at a Russell Group university. That's the average number of hours, it is frequently higher. She works every evening and nearly every day of the week ( only seldom taking a full day off on a weekend). As an early career lecturer in the UK she is currently (this term): * teaching 60 students (this definition means marking the essays of 60 students, 11k words = 660k to be marked at end of this term) * convening two modules (researching, writing the module materials, etc) * lecturing 6 times per week to at least 50 students per time (including prepping all of the material for that) * running large lectures for 300 students 2 times per week She is also: * writing and publishing 4 papers this term * working on her book proposal (initial chapter from her PhD) * working on a trip later this year for which she has received a research grant * completing teacher training, this is supposed to be 160 hours of work this term that she has to find, no work has been removed from her to make time for this * presenting 2 papers, 1 of those at Cambridge * working in the local community, every Monday she works with a local group and this is required as the University measure "impact" * mentoring students and having to make herself available for student consultations, this takes up at least 12 hours per week (not including the waiting time between students which is context switching and difficult to utilise) Somewhere in here she still has to read and consume enough information in her field to be able to have ideas on where to take these things next term. She is so very close to quitting academia after three years of sustaining these hours with only 2 weeks off per year (that's all she can afford to take). We had the conversation again yesterday, about what she might like to do instead. She does love researching and her field, but she is being absolutely crushed by the workload. On top of all of this, she needs to look to me to pay (fully) for her vacation as her salary is barely £30k (though if she sticks it out another two years she'll qualify for a £600 pay rise!). All I want is for her to be happy, but it's been a long time since she's been happy in academia. The unbelievable workload is killing her love of the subject. This comment on the original article sums it up: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/how-many-hours-week-should-academics-work#comment-6147 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/how-many-hours-wee... Hours are not measured, only "student satisfaction", "papers published", "impact"... output is the only thing measured, and the required output does not fit into less than 60 hours per week, and if you actually want any career progression or to do a quality job then the hours it takes is much higher.

pjc50 11y ago
.. and this is all metrics-driven through mechanisms like the RAE. I'd almost prefer a reversion to naive Taylorism, when you had men with stopwatches standing around working out how much coal could be moved in an 8-hour shift. At least there was a shift limit. The modern application of metrics to complex jobs just ends up ratcheting up the demands without looking at how much time the work actually takes. See also the junior doctor's strike at the moment.
arethuza 11y ago
One of my abiding memories of academia is how truly appalling managers everyone seemed to be. Has your wife tried telling her line manager (if she has such a thing clearly defined) that she is finding the workload difficult? It could be that more senior staff have dumped stuff on her without actually considering what other stuff she has on. Either that, or given the potential for viciousness in academic politics, maybe she is seen as a threat and is being overloaded to try and make her fail?
- buro9 11y ago
  Her line manager is useless. And appealing to the head of department has achieved nothing. Essentially, you get what you're given and that's it. She has lots of support amongst her peers (other lecturers), students and those in her field... but the University operates very much like a business and really does not care for the lecturers, just whether their REF ( http://www.ref.ac.uk/ http://www.ref.ac.uk/ ) targets are met.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
_delirium 11y ago
Lecturer in the U.K. seems worse than most places, even the relatively high-pressure U.S. standards. As far as I can tell from the outside (though with some good colleagues who work there), U.K. universities seem to want the research output and grant funding of U.S.-style "tenure-track research faculty", but without being willing to give the relatively low teaching loads that U.S.-style research faculty have, instead having teaching expectations more akin to what in the U.S. are called lecturers or teaching faculty, or just regular faculty at universities not considered research universities (these faculty in the U.S. don't have particularly high research/grant expectations). And to sweeten the pot, they also offer fairly poor pay. The one big advantage seems to be that job security comes much quicker. The U.S.-style "tenure clock", where you have six years to either be promoted or leave, is pretty stressful. While it seems that many Lecturer positions in the U.K. turn into permanent positions relatively quickly, and don't have the same up-or-out pressure.

by buro9 11y ago

pjc50 11y ago

.. and this is all metrics-driven through mechanisms like the RAE. I'd almost prefer a reversion to naive Taylorism, when you had men with stopwatches standing around working out how much coal could be moved in an 8-hour shift. At least there was a shift limit. The modern application of metrics to complex jobs just ends up ratcheting up the demands without looking at how much time the work actually takes. See also the junior doctor's strike at the moment.

arethuza 11y ago

One of my abiding memories of academia is how truly appalling managers everyone seemed to be. Has your wife tried telling her line manager (if she has such a thing clearly defined) that she is finding the workload difficult? It could be that more senior staff have dumped stuff on her without actually considering what other stuff she has on. Either that, or given the potential for viciousness in academic politics, maybe she is seen as a threat and is being overloaded to try and make her fail?

buro9 11y ago
Her line manager is useless. And appealing to the head of department has achieved nothing. Essentially, you get what you're given and that's it. She has lots of support amongst her peers (other lecturers), students and those in her field... but the University operates very much like a business and really does not care for the lecturers, just whether their REF ( http://www.ref.ac.uk/ http://www.ref.ac.uk/ ) targets are met.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

_delirium 11y ago

Lecturer in the U.K. seems worse than most places, even the relatively high-pressure U.S. standards. As far as I can tell from the outside (though with some good colleagues who work there), U.K. universities seem to want the research output and grant funding of U.S.-style "tenure-track research faculty", but without being willing to give the relatively low teaching loads that U.S.-style research faculty have, instead having teaching expectations more akin to what in the U.S. are called lecturers or teaching faculty, or just regular faculty at universities not considered research universities (these faculty in the U.S. don't have particularly high research/grant expectations). And to sweeten the pot, they also offer fairly poor pay. The one big advantage seems to be that job security comes much quicker. The U.S.-style "tenure clock", where you have six years to either be promoted or leave, is pretty stressful. While it seems that many Lecturer positions in the U.K. turn into permanent positions relatively quickly, and don't have the same up-or-out pressure.