I am very very fortunate to have a permanent job in academia now, but there was some time post-PhD that was rather soul destroying and I really don’t want any other PhD student or ECR to go through that. Moving your whole life from city to city at a moment’s notice; having to
prepare teaching in your own time to be ready for the start of the semester; the anxiety that creeps in in the Spring when you know your contract is running out and other fixed-term teaching fellowships are going to be advertised and you can’t make any plans because you’re going
to spend ages honing each CV and cover letter and then prepping presentations, sometimes with a ridiculously short turnaround time; that this is the only time you will have to work on the research needed to progress your career, but instead you are giving your all to
prepare for the next job, if you’re lucky enough to get it, which won’t include any research time in the contract; the time spent house hunting in a rush so you have somewhere to live when you (hooray!) get the six or nine month fixed-term contract at the opposite end of the
country. Or in a different country; the loneliness you feel in a new place before making new friends. If you’re fortunate enough to have a post that affords you time to make new friends; relationships breaking up because of the stress and distance; not being able to call anywhere
‘home’ or make future plans or do the things your non-academic friends are doing like having babies because your life is far too unstable and and and... when you’re in post there’s an exploitation that happens not just at a structural level, but at a personal level too. More
senior colleagues unofficially passing their work on to you, or trying to get fixed-term staff to compete with each other by dangling the non-existent carrot of a permanent job in front of you etc. I was fortunate that I did two Teaching Fellowships (6 months and one 9 months)
In two different places, followed by a Postdoc at Edinburgh which led to a lectureship then SL. I watched friends who are amazing academics get tossed out of the system because they had babies and couldn’t keep up with the demands, or because they married and couldn’t drag their
partners all over the place, ruining someone else’s career and social life while aiming for their own academic goal, or because they had times of poor physical or mental health and were unable to meet all of the - unacceptable - demands. My heart breaks for the people who didn’t
achieve their academic dream (although those of us who did know it’s sometimes very far from dreamy!) but I’m also worried about the wellbeing of those who are willing to give everything to achieve it, because the road is so tough. Not only do institutions need to offer kinder
contracts, but academics working with fixed-term staff need to be kinder: not overloading them with work; making an effort to involve ppl who are in a new city & know no one; involving them in non-exploitative projects that will really help their careers; informally mentoring etc
And I’m not trying to get people to do more work. That’s the last thing we need. But please can those of us on permanent contracts be kinder to those who aren’t? I see people on here posting pics of themselves on the picket line and know that they have put fixed-term colleagues
through hell. We’re all overworked but the solution is not to dump the excess work your manager gave you on to the fixed-term people you manage, but rather to expose the overwork to those above and offer extra kindness to those whose jobs are more precarious.
And I didn’t even get to the financial implications eg that short term contracts don’t usually come with any relocation expenses so we pay out of pocket to move ourselves and our posessions; that TF contracts often don’t include summer pay; that we have paid less into our
pension pot and start saving at a much later age because of being a student for so long then having a series of temp jobs. I could go on...
And then there’s the toll it takes on our emotions: the hurt we feel after a couple of job rejections in a row, which is pretty tough when we’re used to being top of the class and getting what we want academically; the worry about finances; the fear that we’ve spent our 20s
working towards something that may never happen; the aching loneliness of prepping teaching at midnight on a Saturday night in some strange new place because there’s so much to get through and the way that we start longing for friends and family elsewhere or for partners we left
in order to chase this academic ‘dream’ (I know I won’t be the only one!)
I really do consider myself one of the lucky ones. My period of precarious work was relatively short and I came out of it fairly ok, emotionally and physically, and I got the academic ‘dream’. Each springtime my heart hurts for all of the people facing the job market once again.
And all of the things they are sacrificing. For dreams dashed each time someone else gets the job and tears shed when you do get it and have to deal with relocation and so much new teaching material to prep. I’m sad to hear how much this thread has resonated with people.
More on the subject of money: I was lucky not have any UG tuition fees and to do my PG studies when there was external funding available, which I got, for both my MA and my PhD. So I didn’t start these TF posts with really massive debt hanging over me , just my student
maintenance loan from my UG days. I then had a wonderful girlfriend at the time who let me live rent free in our home so that I could pursue my dream. I owe her so much. I also spent a short amount of time living for free with my mam and sister. But there was no backup pot. I
grew up fairly poor so didn’t have family money or savings or anything to get me through. I did, however, have people who loved me and believed in me and who were willing to help me to get here. I was very lucky about that too. Students today are having to pay to do their MA and
without much funding available for that bridge to the PhD, so many amazingly bright and creative and talented people are missing out on academia because they can’t afford to do the PhD. We are losing some of the best and the brightest at every step of the way.
And I know there are senior academics who say it’s always been hard and things haven’t changed and we all need to pay our dues but I don’t agree. I know academics who got very far in a research career without having a PhD, back when there were lectureship ads where PhDs were
desirable rather than essential and (especially male) professors who got the title in their 30s because they had a string of external funding that allowed them to concentrate on research back when more funding was available. And I know that, despite it feeling hard for me. I had
it easier than many freshly minted PhDs do today. But even if I had it hard for a moment post-PhD, why on earth would I want others to suffer too? That’s just cruel. Isn’t it better to learn from experience than to keep repeating the mistake of allowing young scholars to suffer?
A couple of people have asked what I’m doing to change things. I’m on maternity leave so can’t strike but, day to day, I try to make ECR lives easier and their futures brighter eg I was Chair of the Exam Board and responsible for allocating marking to colleagues and I changed
the system to make it as fair and transprent as I could. I (hope I!) didn’t dump on fixed-term colleagues and tried to further lighten their load when I knew their contracts were coming to an end so they could focus on the job search. I collaborate (eg networks, publications)
with scholars who don’t have an open ended (‘permanent’) contract to help advance their careers and have, in recent times, taken on a heavier load. I point job opportunities their way and look over CVs CLs etc informally and informally mentor, too. I buy the dinner and drinks etc
There is more I can and will do. I’m always trying to do better. Obviously this is at a personal level and it’s much harder to get change at an institutional level. The section I work in is, however, the fairest for young scholars that I have experienced personally.
Oh and rather than doing 100 hour weeks, I pass great opportunities on to PhD students and ECRs. I ask those I know what they need or would like to do/for their CV and make clear that I don’t want to exploit but rather help and then if I get a request for something that I either
can’t take on or there is an ECR or PhD student who would be a better fit or wants or needs it, I forward the info to them. Never for horrible, exploitative tasks. Only things that most would find enjoyable and career-enhancing is my intention.
Of course one major issue with academia (my experience is in the U.K.) is how classist and racist it is, usually while pretending to be liberal. My white privilege has helped me while my working-class background is clearly been a problem for some at times. Universities need to
hire more POC and working-class people. They need to attract/enable more POC and working-class people to study there.
