'One of my supervisors warned me: academic work is a 24-hours-a-day job'

Published on Tuesday 20 May 2008 20:18

AS PART of my PhD research, I have been interviewing academics across Scotland. One of the surprising topics that has come up repeatedly has been labour exploitation in academia.

Many academics put up with conditions that would seem insane applied to other occupations. Most of us keep going because we love our work, because we care about our research projects and our students – but does that make exploitation acceptable?

One of my supervisors warned me that academic work is a "24-hour-a-day" job. It is considered normal to work during evenings, weekends, and holidays, especially for junior lecturers, postdoctoral researchers, and (perhaps especially) PhD students. The myth of carefree summers could not be further from the truth – the break from undergraduate teaching is prime time to catch up on research, writing, and fieldwork. Semester time is packed with teaching, preparation, and student support. Growing class sizes and shrinking contact hours increase the pressure on individual lecturers, often meaning that teaching-related work overflows into time set aside for research.

Meanwhile, the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) judges academic departments on their publications and determines funding eligibility. Departments with publications in the most prestigious journals receive high scores, while those with fewer or less prestigious publications rank lower. In a perverse feedback loop, a high RAE score attracts funding, which allows for the hire of extra researchers who can produce publications without worrying about teaching. In departments that score lower on the RAE, publications must be produced by teaching staff.

Adding to the stress of unlimited hours and constant pressure to publish are short-term contracts, which are becoming the norm in academia. Gone are the days when scholars could reasonably expect permanent employment within a few years of earning their PhDs . Instead, contracts for research projects and lecturing jobs usually last between six months and three years, forcing untenured academics to scramble for scarce funding when they could be focusing on their work. Academics accept this lack of job security as a matter of course – although, as I'm discovering in my interviews, few are happy about it.

In many ways, the situation in academia reflects the larger pattern of a neo-liberal economy. Downsizing, outsourcing, turning employees into endlessly interchangeable independent contractors – the now-familiar patterns of manufacturing and other industries are creeping into higher education at just the time when innovation, creativity, interdisciplinary co-operation, and long-term thinking are most needed. The social and environmental crises we face cannot be solved through six-month contracts, yet those in a position to develop solutions are hampered by a system that values profitability above all.

So what is the answer? I wish I knew. But I do know that we need to start by asking what universities are for, then figuring out how they can best fulfil that role.

&#149 Myshele Goldberg is a PhD student at the University of Strathclyde. Her website is www.myshelegoldberg.com