Sunday, October 14, 2018
Impossibly lucky
I'm very, very lucky. This post is simply to acknowledge this fact. At the moment, I'm spending some time at the University of Sydney (where I also spent a month last summer). I'm here to work on a project with Kristie Miller and Sam Baron. This means that I get to hang out in Sydney, which is just spectacularly cool.
Today sees me working on a book chapter, having been for an outdoor swim this morning, spend a bit of time chatting with Kristie, and then heading out to dinner with Sam later. And this is my job--the thing that I am paid to do. (To be sure: I also have to keep up with UoN stuff, but it's still the middle of the night in the UK, so.....) As with all jobs, there are downsides, and I work quite hard. But even so: as upsides go, this is simply wonderful, and I'm enormously grateful that I'm able to come and do this kind of thing.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Woo-hoo!
Today I am a Professor!
I am quite unreasonably excited by this. I realise that, for the most part, this makes no difference at all. My job remains largely unchanged: teach, research, collaborate outside HE, admin.
But it does feel like quite an important day. I've been targeting reaching the rank of Professor since I was doing my PhD. I finished that in 2005, so it's fair to say that this has been a goal for at least 13 years. It's really nice to realise a goal like that.
Anyway, there are lots of Professors in the world, so I'm far from unique, and, I know, it doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, I achieved something that I set out to 13 years ago, and this pleases me.
I am quite unreasonably excited by this. I realise that, for the most part, this makes no difference at all. My job remains largely unchanged: teach, research, collaborate outside HE, admin.
But it does feel like quite an important day. I've been targeting reaching the rank of Professor since I was doing my PhD. I finished that in 2005, so it's fair to say that this has been a goal for at least 13 years. It's really nice to realise a goal like that.
Anyway, there are lots of Professors in the world, so I'm far from unique, and, I know, it doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, I achieved something that I set out to 13 years ago, and this pleases me.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Running & learning
I think that this might be the first post here about my hobbies. Look away now if you can't face the excitement.
I run. Or, I used to. I used to clock up between 50 and 65 miles per week, with my normal long run in a week being between 15 and 25 miles. Sadly, last September I managed to overcook it and I've been suffering with an achilles problem ever since. This has been most frustrating (it's also kept me off the rowing machine); I simply can't run at all.
There have been upsides, downsides and enlightening sides. The downsides? I love running and I can't do it. Physio's orders. I run the risk of rupturing it.
The enlightening side? I've always thought of myself as essentially adaptable: there is no thing in my life that I couldn't be without, be that object or pastime. Turns out, running's pretty central to my self-conception in a way that I hadn't realised. And boy do I miss the feeling of running and the feeling of having run.
The upside? Swimming and cycling have become a part of my life. For someone who didn't swim and really didn't ride, this has been a broadly positive experience and I swim and/or cycle most days. (If this actually interests you, go find me on Strava.)
But the most significant upside has been rediscovering how to learn to do something. Most of the time, as an adult, I don't learn new skills. I've basically learned how to navigate the world: what need have I of new skills? Well, in both cases, swimming and cycling, quite a bit. I've been having swimming lessons to improve my front crawl, and working really hard on the bike to actually be able to do it. From nowhere, in both cases, I'm now passably competent. I've swum a little over 2 miles non-stop and my normal commute on the bike is anything between 20 and 30 miles per day.
That's been great. Learning and getting better at something is massively satisfying, and hard work (the former because the latter, I would guess). It's been a nice reminder that learning, and getting outside my normal comfort zone is a good thing. This is a lesson I need to keep in mind.
Of course, I'm hoping that the achilles improves so that I can run again. But, if I do, I don't think that the other things will disappear; I'm getting too much out of them. Instead, and following the excellent forays of my colleague Joseph, I suspect that a triathlon may have to take place at some point. We shall see!
I run. Or, I used to. I used to clock up between 50 and 65 miles per week, with my normal long run in a week being between 15 and 25 miles. Sadly, last September I managed to overcook it and I've been suffering with an achilles problem ever since. This has been most frustrating (it's also kept me off the rowing machine); I simply can't run at all.
There have been upsides, downsides and enlightening sides. The downsides? I love running and I can't do it. Physio's orders. I run the risk of rupturing it.
The enlightening side? I've always thought of myself as essentially adaptable: there is no thing in my life that I couldn't be without, be that object or pastime. Turns out, running's pretty central to my self-conception in a way that I hadn't realised. And boy do I miss the feeling of running and the feeling of having run.
The upside? Swimming and cycling have become a part of my life. For someone who didn't swim and really didn't ride, this has been a broadly positive experience and I swim and/or cycle most days. (If this actually interests you, go find me on Strava.)
But the most significant upside has been rediscovering how to learn to do something. Most of the time, as an adult, I don't learn new skills. I've basically learned how to navigate the world: what need have I of new skills? Well, in both cases, swimming and cycling, quite a bit. I've been having swimming lessons to improve my front crawl, and working really hard on the bike to actually be able to do it. From nowhere, in both cases, I'm now passably competent. I've swum a little over 2 miles non-stop and my normal commute on the bike is anything between 20 and 30 miles per day.
That's been great. Learning and getting better at something is massively satisfying, and hard work (the former because the latter, I would guess). It's been a nice reminder that learning, and getting outside my normal comfort zone is a good thing. This is a lesson I need to keep in mind.
Of course, I'm hoping that the achilles improves so that I can run again. But, if I do, I don't think that the other things will disappear; I'm getting too much out of them. Instead, and following the excellent forays of my colleague Joseph, I suspect that a triathlon may have to take place at some point. We shall see!
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Difficult cases of a lack of knowledge
I'm going to start this post by (I'm guessing) alienating everyone who reads it. Yes, I'm going to quote Tony Blair.
“The single hardest thing for a practising politician to understand is that most people, most of the time, don’t give politics a first thought all day long. Or if they do, it is with a sigh…., before going back to worrying about the kids, the parents, the mortgage, the boss, their friends, their weight, their health, sex and rock ‘n’ roll…. For most normal people, politics is a distant, occasionally irritating fog.”
I'm not all that interested in the political/voter case. I'm interested in a similar case. The case of institutional politics. Let me paint a picture (it's full of oversimplifications).
All institutions have leaders; probably a small team whose job it is to oversee the running of the institution. If it's a large institution, it will likely then have some middle managers, and also some folks who I shall grossly unfairly call the 'rank and file'.
Over the last couple of years, there's been quite a bit written about one particular kind of institution--Universities--and how their upper management are 'out of touch' with what life is like for the rank and file. (Or, if they are in touch, that they are deliberately and callously making life worse for the rank and file.) That issue has been aired enough and I've no intention of re-hashing it here.
What I see written about far less is a different kind of case: that those in senior management positions know an awful lot about the external environment and aspects of the internal environment of a University, that the 'rank and file' know nothing about. An example? How about the apprenticeship levy. Or, if you fancy something a bit more research oriented, how about the UK industrial strategy white paper. These are both pretty complex. They'll both have knock-on effects. How a University, as a whole, will respond to these challenges will be a function of many things: budget, budget projection, appetite for risk, existing connections and networks, where its preponderance of research lies, staff time and morale, and so on (and there's an awful lot under the 'so on').
Two things to note. First, that means that in order to properly assess a decision, we need a lot of information. Stacks of it. And, probably, a decent background in decision making and an understanding of how strategic decisions normally play out in the medium-long term. For obvious reasons, most (clearly, not all) 'rank and file' will lack both of those things.
Second, it will also require a willingness to learn about such things. Now perhaps it's unfair of me, but most of the time I don't detect that willingness--indeed, I detect a preference for not finding out about it. How many of you reading this were aware of both of the above and also the upcoming revision to the UK Quality Code?
It seems to me (and let me be clear that I am a long way away from being a University leader!) that unless we have a good grip on what's going on in that external environment, it's pretty tough for us to have an informed position on how our University should plot its route forward. Very roughly--and to return to the quote from Tony Blair--if all of these things are a distant, occasionally irritating fog, then it doesn't seem that we have a good epistemic basis for being involved centrally in the decision making process. It's akin to a case of voter ignorance.
I accept entirely that the point cuts both ways: those 'at the top' need to know what life is like for the rank and file. That piece of information is hugely important. But my sense of it is that while we rank and file are often quick to champion the point that 'the management are out of touch' we're far less open the criticism that we, too, lack hugely important pieces of information. A little epistemic humility might go a long way.
“The single hardest thing for a practising politician to understand is that most people, most of the time, don’t give politics a first thought all day long. Or if they do, it is with a sigh…., before going back to worrying about the kids, the parents, the mortgage, the boss, their friends, their weight, their health, sex and rock ‘n’ roll…. For most normal people, politics is a distant, occasionally irritating fog.”
I'm not all that interested in the political/voter case. I'm interested in a similar case. The case of institutional politics. Let me paint a picture (it's full of oversimplifications).
All institutions have leaders; probably a small team whose job it is to oversee the running of the institution. If it's a large institution, it will likely then have some middle managers, and also some folks who I shall grossly unfairly call the 'rank and file'.
Over the last couple of years, there's been quite a bit written about one particular kind of institution--Universities--and how their upper management are 'out of touch' with what life is like for the rank and file. (Or, if they are in touch, that they are deliberately and callously making life worse for the rank and file.) That issue has been aired enough and I've no intention of re-hashing it here.
What I see written about far less is a different kind of case: that those in senior management positions know an awful lot about the external environment and aspects of the internal environment of a University, that the 'rank and file' know nothing about. An example? How about the apprenticeship levy. Or, if you fancy something a bit more research oriented, how about the UK industrial strategy white paper. These are both pretty complex. They'll both have knock-on effects. How a University, as a whole, will respond to these challenges will be a function of many things: budget, budget projection, appetite for risk, existing connections and networks, where its preponderance of research lies, staff time and morale, and so on (and there's an awful lot under the 'so on').
Two things to note. First, that means that in order to properly assess a decision, we need a lot of information. Stacks of it. And, probably, a decent background in decision making and an understanding of how strategic decisions normally play out in the medium-long term. For obvious reasons, most (clearly, not all) 'rank and file' will lack both of those things.
Second, it will also require a willingness to learn about such things. Now perhaps it's unfair of me, but most of the time I don't detect that willingness--indeed, I detect a preference for not finding out about it. How many of you reading this were aware of both of the above and also the upcoming revision to the UK Quality Code?
It seems to me (and let me be clear that I am a long way away from being a University leader!) that unless we have a good grip on what's going on in that external environment, it's pretty tough for us to have an informed position on how our University should plot its route forward. Very roughly--and to return to the quote from Tony Blair--if all of these things are a distant, occasionally irritating fog, then it doesn't seem that we have a good epistemic basis for being involved centrally in the decision making process. It's akin to a case of voter ignorance.
I accept entirely that the point cuts both ways: those 'at the top' need to know what life is like for the rank and file. That piece of information is hugely important. But my sense of it is that while we rank and file are often quick to champion the point that 'the management are out of touch' we're far less open the criticism that we, too, lack hugely important pieces of information. A little epistemic humility might go a long way.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Jobs in philosophy
'Jobs in philosophy' is a lively topic. There are rightly worries about whether the market is fair (probably not), whether it's worse now than it ever has been (probably) and how to get a job. With a full disclaimer that I'm no expert, I have views.
When I was HoD at Nottingham, I oversaw 7 permanent hires and a number of temporary ones, too, as well as being a committee member on a range of others before and since. I've also chaired hiring panels around the University, in other Schools and Departments (at UoN we always require an independent Chair on each interview panel to ensure that everything is above board). I've also been involved in a couple of hires in Italy.
I'll focus here on full-time, permanent jobs (roughly the equivalent of tenure in the US). Please bear in mind I'm talking about, and only about, my experience of being on a hiring panel
I might write something about interviews another time, but let me just now speak to the CV/cover letter/teaching portfolio. With that said, and keeping in mind the narrowness of my experiences hiring, what are hiring panels looking for?
READ THE ADVERT. It will tell you.
In none of the cases I've ever been involved in has there been a secret agenda. We write, in the advert, what we're looking for. Your job, in applying, is to demonstrate that you are what we're looking for. I should also explain/clarify that at every stage prior to interview, the only people assessing your application to us will be academic members of staff within the Department. It's not the case that 'the administrators' are selecting for us, telling us what we need to do. Aside from checking that we're selecting against the criteria (that we decide in advance), they play no role.
In general, an advert will ask you to have an AoS--an area of research specialism. You need to demonstrate, convincingly, that you work in that area.
An advert will also ask you for a publication record 'appropriate to stage of career', or something similar. What does this mean? Well, if you're pre-PhD, it might mean that one good output would be enough to get us looking more closely. If you're 3 years out, we'll want quite a bit more. Of course, if you've been on a teaching focused contract for 2 or 3 years, that might lower our expectations a bit.
The point here is that there's no hard and fast means of calculating how many papers you need to have, or at which journal, in order to get an interview. Each person is different; each search is different. What you do need to do, though, is explain/demonstrate that, given your circumstances, your record is appropriate to stage of career. (Aside: this might be a part of what's going on when we don't interview x, who has 3 papers at good journals, and is 2 years out, but do interview y, who has 2 papers at good journals, and has yet to submit.)
It's also really really important to be aware that having a good publication record has been a necessary, but eye-wateringly far from sufficient, condition for getting an interview. As HoD I got a fair bit of correspondence from applicants (or their supervisors--stay classy folks) saying things like 'but I've got more publications than the person you hired, you asshole' (Top tip: don't call the HoD an asshole when there's a non-zero chance that they might be advertising another post in your area, that you then end up applying for.....that was fun). The point is that each of the conditions we specify as essential criteria, are essential. Fail to demonstrate that you meet them and we can't, legally, hire you.
Similarly, we'll ask about teaching excellence. Note: not 'have you taught'? But: 'are you good at teaching?' I've lost track of the number of applicants we've had to reject because they fail to address this; they just tell us that they've taught courses on the philosophy of .... I have shouted at the screen on more than one occasion. I am a bad person.
What counts as good, here, and what kinds of evidence you choose to use is difficult to specify. Really, I'd advise candidates to make the case that their evidence shows that they are an excellent teacher. For instance, suppose that (worries about teaching evaluations to one side) you're pleased with your teaching evaluation scores and think that they show you in a good light. Suppose that score is 4.5/5. If you write 'my teaching scores were 4.5/5'; well, that's something.
But it's not great. First, I don't know what that the question was that this was scored against (was it 'Instructor turns up on time'?). Second, I've no context. If the mean score in your locale was 4.7, you're not impressing me. If it was 3, then you really are. And if you don't tell me,... well, you're inviting me to read-in the worst.
So, whatever evidence of your excellence you're going to use, explain it. Make it clear to us that it shows that you're excellent at teaching. And for the love of goodness, show us, don't tell us. By all means tell us about your teaching awards, too, but again contextualise: how significant is it? How does one win the award?
I can go on. There will be many criteria that we're selecting against. You need to show us how you meet each.
Now there's an obvious problem for applicants here. If you're applying to 100 jobs this year (or more) you might not feel that you have the time to produce something bespoke, but might think that I'm advising you to do so. What should you do?
Of the applications I've read (across all of those hires, that's well over 2000), the best were ones that were to some degree made bespoke. I'm sure, though, that we interviewed people who didn't. But, if you don't, you take risks. So, I think that you need to do whatever you can.
Really what it comes to is simply this. Read the advert; through your materials, show us how you satisfy the criteria we've described. Stop. Submit.
Is this a pointless piece of advice? I'd hope so. But I don't think that it is. I'd guess roughly 75% of applicants fail to follow it.
When I was HoD at Nottingham, I oversaw 7 permanent hires and a number of temporary ones, too, as well as being a committee member on a range of others before and since. I've also chaired hiring panels around the University, in other Schools and Departments (at UoN we always require an independent Chair on each interview panel to ensure that everything is above board). I've also been involved in a couple of hires in Italy.
I'll focus here on full-time, permanent jobs (roughly the equivalent of tenure in the US). Please bear in mind I'm talking about, and only about, my experience of being on a hiring panel
I might write something about interviews another time, but let me just now speak to the CV/cover letter/teaching portfolio. With that said, and keeping in mind the narrowness of my experiences hiring, what are hiring panels looking for?
READ THE ADVERT. It will tell you.
In none of the cases I've ever been involved in has there been a secret agenda. We write, in the advert, what we're looking for. Your job, in applying, is to demonstrate that you are what we're looking for. I should also explain/clarify that at every stage prior to interview, the only people assessing your application to us will be academic members of staff within the Department. It's not the case that 'the administrators' are selecting for us, telling us what we need to do. Aside from checking that we're selecting against the criteria (that we decide in advance), they play no role.
In general, an advert will ask you to have an AoS--an area of research specialism. You need to demonstrate, convincingly, that you work in that area.
An advert will also ask you for a publication record 'appropriate to stage of career', or something similar. What does this mean? Well, if you're pre-PhD, it might mean that one good output would be enough to get us looking more closely. If you're 3 years out, we'll want quite a bit more. Of course, if you've been on a teaching focused contract for 2 or 3 years, that might lower our expectations a bit.
The point here is that there's no hard and fast means of calculating how many papers you need to have, or at which journal, in order to get an interview. Each person is different; each search is different. What you do need to do, though, is explain/demonstrate that, given your circumstances, your record is appropriate to stage of career. (Aside: this might be a part of what's going on when we don't interview x, who has 3 papers at good journals, and is 2 years out, but do interview y, who has 2 papers at good journals, and has yet to submit.)
It's also really really important to be aware that having a good publication record has been a necessary, but eye-wateringly far from sufficient, condition for getting an interview. As HoD I got a fair bit of correspondence from applicants (or their supervisors--stay classy folks) saying things like 'but I've got more publications than the person you hired, you asshole' (Top tip: don't call the HoD an asshole when there's a non-zero chance that they might be advertising another post in your area, that you then end up applying for.....that was fun). The point is that each of the conditions we specify as essential criteria, are essential. Fail to demonstrate that you meet them and we can't, legally, hire you.
Similarly, we'll ask about teaching excellence. Note: not 'have you taught'? But: 'are you good at teaching?' I've lost track of the number of applicants we've had to reject because they fail to address this; they just tell us that they've taught courses on the philosophy of .... I have shouted at the screen on more than one occasion. I am a bad person.
What counts as good, here, and what kinds of evidence you choose to use is difficult to specify. Really, I'd advise candidates to make the case that their evidence shows that they are an excellent teacher. For instance, suppose that (worries about teaching evaluations to one side) you're pleased with your teaching evaluation scores and think that they show you in a good light. Suppose that score is 4.5/5. If you write 'my teaching scores were 4.5/5'; well, that's something.
But it's not great. First, I don't know what that the question was that this was scored against (was it 'Instructor turns up on time'?). Second, I've no context. If the mean score in your locale was 4.7, you're not impressing me. If it was 3, then you really are. And if you don't tell me,... well, you're inviting me to read-in the worst.
So, whatever evidence of your excellence you're going to use, explain it. Make it clear to us that it shows that you're excellent at teaching. And for the love of goodness, show us, don't tell us. By all means tell us about your teaching awards, too, but again contextualise: how significant is it? How does one win the award?
I can go on. There will be many criteria that we're selecting against. You need to show us how you meet each.
Now there's an obvious problem for applicants here. If you're applying to 100 jobs this year (or more) you might not feel that you have the time to produce something bespoke, but might think that I'm advising you to do so. What should you do?
Of the applications I've read (across all of those hires, that's well over 2000), the best were ones that were to some degree made bespoke. I'm sure, though, that we interviewed people who didn't. But, if you don't, you take risks. So, I think that you need to do whatever you can.
Really what it comes to is simply this. Read the advert; through your materials, show us how you satisfy the criteria we've described. Stop. Submit.
Is this a pointless piece of advice? I'd hope so. But I don't think that it is. I'd guess roughly 75% of applicants fail to follow it.
Sunday, April 8, 2018
The joys of travel
Having waffled on earlier about some of the slightly less good aspects of work travel, I though I'd better redress the balance a little.
Today, I (mostly) had a day off. So, with time on my hands, I did what I like to do most in a city I don't know: I walked around it. This is my default anywhere new. Walk. So far as I can tell, there's no better way to get a feel for a city than to walk its pavements (in KL, that also seems to mean roadsides, roads, crumbled tarmac falling into the road, etc.).
Hot and humid it may be, but I still covered around 15 miles on foot. The botanical gardens were lovely; large, green and mostly deserted. Even so, it's hard to lose the impression of being in a large, sky-scraper dominated city.
Next up was a wander around, which saw me take in the Eco Forrest, rope bridges and all. From there, I swung down into a seemingly ethnically Indian section of the city. This was possibly my favourite section of the wander. Having not (yet) visited India, this to me was the part of the city that felt most 'other'. I loved it for that. The street food was great and the people all very friendly.
Re-fuelled, I walked on to the Petronas towers and all that comes with it. It's a corporate and shopping driven section of the city, with big name brands in the shops and very expensive cars on the roads. It's nice enough, but not my favourite part of town to wander through. The towers are quite striking, though.
A decent walk. I don't think KL is my favourite city in the world. This is my second visit and, though I quite like it, for me places like London, Sydney and Singapore are still a little way ahead in my personal ranking.
However, I did see this place on my travels--that nearly swung it....
Today, I (mostly) had a day off. So, with time on my hands, I did what I like to do most in a city I don't know: I walked around it. This is my default anywhere new. Walk. So far as I can tell, there's no better way to get a feel for a city than to walk its pavements (in KL, that also seems to mean roadsides, roads, crumbled tarmac falling into the road, etc.).
Hot and humid it may be, but I still covered around 15 miles on foot. The botanical gardens were lovely; large, green and mostly deserted. Even so, it's hard to lose the impression of being in a large, sky-scraper dominated city.
Re-fuelled, I walked on to the Petronas towers and all that comes with it. It's a corporate and shopping driven section of the city, with big name brands in the shops and very expensive cars on the roads. It's nice enough, but not my favourite part of town to wander through. The towers are quite striking, though.
A decent walk. I don't think KL is my favourite city in the world. This is my second visit and, though I quite like it, for me places like London, Sydney and Singapore are still a little way ahead in my personal ranking.
However, I did see this place on my travels--that nearly swung it....
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Travel woes: a first world problem
I'm currently visiting the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. I'm staying in Kuala Lumpur. I'm here all week. The week after I'm in Lund for a couple of days on a research trip. A couple of weeks later I'm visiting L'Aquila in Italy, and in June I'm off to Seoul. Busy and very exciting times.
Let's get one thing out of the way: I'm enormously fortunate to have a wonderful job that allows me to travel the world. No argument. But here's something that I don't see discussed often enough for my liking. When I travel, there are two knock-on effects. The first of these is that all domestic responsibility falls to my wife (the long-suffering @katetallant--for those of you twitter-minded). We have a daughter and a fair few commitments at home. So, that's not easy. If not for Katherine being prepared to look after our home and daughter, I wouldn't be able to do this. Second, I don't get to see my wife and daughter for extended periods of each year. That's not so nice--at nearly 8, I find myself especially missing the kid. At a rough count-up, I'm away from them for around 3 weeks each year, and that seems to be rising. It also seems to cluster: nothing for months, then a whole run of commitments.
Now, of course, I travel as much (and only as much) as I'm prepared to. I could say 'no' to more travel than I do. And this is hectic period having not travelled since the early Autumn. But it's a balancing act. To do my job well, there's some non-zero pressure to travel. To network. To do the things that travel permits. And sometimes I can take the family with me! So, I'm not blind to the upsides and alternatives.
But it strikes me as odd that we don't talk about the emotional cost more than we do. We academics face many of the same pressures. But almost never do I hear anyone talk about the 'yes, it's lovely, but it's hard on me and the family'. That's.... well, I think that the cost should be acknowledged more than it is. I certainly hear friends and family who work outside academia have that conversation. (Maybe I just have massively atypical friends in academia/outside academia.)
If nothing else, I would prefer balance. Yes, by all means, we should celebrate how fortunate many of us are to be able to do what we do. And whilst I don't thinking complaining about the down-sides is the right way to think about it or to go about it, acknowledging those downsides is important. It's tough being away from the ones you love, and this job, if it doesn't actually require it, certainly puts a degree of pressure on us to travel.
(For what it's worth, I think that the only place I've seen anything like this discussed is in fora where single-parent academics discuss or seek support for better provision as well as the professional costs of not being able to travel so much. Their situation is clearly much tougher than mine. I have it relatively easy. But a cost is a cost and we should be prepared to talk about them.)
While I'm here, I should also note that things are much easier for me (now) than they are for early career colleagues who may face all of the above, but who will need the opportunities travel affords more than I do, but who may also face financial barriers, or network barriers (it's who you know, after all....) to being able to do so. I do not mean to make light of their situation by not discussing it in particular. My focus here is simply on the emotional/domestic challenge that we can face in trying to do this job.
Let's get one thing out of the way: I'm enormously fortunate to have a wonderful job that allows me to travel the world. No argument. But here's something that I don't see discussed often enough for my liking. When I travel, there are two knock-on effects. The first of these is that all domestic responsibility falls to my wife (the long-suffering @katetallant--for those of you twitter-minded). We have a daughter and a fair few commitments at home. So, that's not easy. If not for Katherine being prepared to look after our home and daughter, I wouldn't be able to do this. Second, I don't get to see my wife and daughter for extended periods of each year. That's not so nice--at nearly 8, I find myself especially missing the kid. At a rough count-up, I'm away from them for around 3 weeks each year, and that seems to be rising. It also seems to cluster: nothing for months, then a whole run of commitments.
Now, of course, I travel as much (and only as much) as I'm prepared to. I could say 'no' to more travel than I do. And this is hectic period having not travelled since the early Autumn. But it's a balancing act. To do my job well, there's some non-zero pressure to travel. To network. To do the things that travel permits. And sometimes I can take the family with me! So, I'm not blind to the upsides and alternatives.
But it strikes me as odd that we don't talk about the emotional cost more than we do. We academics face many of the same pressures. But almost never do I hear anyone talk about the 'yes, it's lovely, but it's hard on me and the family'. That's.... well, I think that the cost should be acknowledged more than it is. I certainly hear friends and family who work outside academia have that conversation. (Maybe I just have massively atypical friends in academia/outside academia.)
If nothing else, I would prefer balance. Yes, by all means, we should celebrate how fortunate many of us are to be able to do what we do. And whilst I don't thinking complaining about the down-sides is the right way to think about it or to go about it, acknowledging those downsides is important. It's tough being away from the ones you love, and this job, if it doesn't actually require it, certainly puts a degree of pressure on us to travel.
(For what it's worth, I think that the only place I've seen anything like this discussed is in fora where single-parent academics discuss or seek support for better provision as well as the professional costs of not being able to travel so much. Their situation is clearly much tougher than mine. I have it relatively easy. But a cost is a cost and we should be prepared to talk about them.)
While I'm here, I should also note that things are much easier for me (now) than they are for early career colleagues who may face all of the above, but who will need the opportunities travel affords more than I do, but who may also face financial barriers, or network barriers (it's who you know, after all....) to being able to do so. I do not mean to make light of their situation by not discussing it in particular. My focus here is simply on the emotional/domestic challenge that we can face in trying to do this job.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Using myself as an example
Earlier on today, and in the context of discussing the recent
strike action, Jo Wolf tweeted something
that caught my eye and made me think. To quote the relevant-to-this-post bit:
"What mattered to me as a
student was whether teachers were clear, insightful, enthusiastic and engaged.
Even if we had keep coats on because rooms so cold." What’s under discussion here is the extent to which University
management may have tried to spend their way to better NSS scores. The Article
Jo is commenting on is this
one.
Jo’s remark brought me up short, because my immediate response was
to think about students generally. If you didn’t already know, I should say
that Jo’s a Professor of Philosophy. To the extent that he enjoyed his degree, and pursued a further degree , and made his career out of
the subject, and now in fact teaches
and researches it, I think it’s fair to say that Jo would be the exception,
rather than the rule! (If he’s not, the that was one hell of an UG student
cohort.)
As I say, what brought me up short was the fact that, at least
dialectically, Jo appealed here to his own experience of being a student to
seemingly draw a general conclusion. “He’s clearly
atypical!”, I thought.
Problematically, so I am (though less exceptional than Jo!—more’s
the pity…), but I also use my experiences of being student to work out what I
think ought to happen.
I think I should stop. I think that most (all?) of us should. A
few salient points. When I was an UG student (1998-2001), we didn’t really use
the internet. Not much, anyway. There weren’t powerpoint slides. There
frequently weren’t handouts. I had to use hard-copies of anything I wanted to
read. None of these things are true for most of our UG students.
More, School has changed. I lack the data to assess ‘for the
better’ or ‘for the worse, but given the pervasiveness of the internet and
social media, it’s clearly different.
So, the students coming in have different skills and different expectations to
the ones I had.
As soon as I stop and think about it, it’s clear that I need to be
more cautious than I have been in
thinking through those differences and where those differences might be
telling. I really need to stop appealing to my own experiences of being a
student.
A much better contrast would be my experiences of being an
academic. And am I so different from my students? In some ways, no. Like many
of them, I prefer to use electronic resources, rather than go to the library.
Like at least some of them, I’ll leave work closer to a deadline than I should.
Like at least some of them, I’m sometimes
prone to irritation if I have to read through pages and pages of guidance
before I can do something (For essay writing guides & module sign-up, see
REF or TEF policy; I can recognise the import and value of such things, whilst
still wishing they were otherwise).
In closing I should be clear that I’m not meaning to have a pop at
Jo here. His tweet had a particular context that means that I don’t think we
can be at all confident in reading in to it that he would disagree with me on any of this. The framing is simply autobiographical; his tweet was what made me
reflect on my own practices, which I then found wanting.
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Striking times
I tend to avoid politics and the like on here; echo chamber and all that, but also because there are people who are far better at it than I am, and who are far better informed. I read, and think about, what others have to say (and learn a great deal from it), but mostly do not think that I have anything useful to add. But this, about the strikes, seems to me that it is worth saying. YMMV,
I am not (here) interested in discussing the vices of the various different potential agreements and I am not interested (here) in discussing the approaches taken to negotiation, or the transparency provided by any particular group. Nor am I (here) interested in discussing what a fair pension looks like. See above: I am less able than others to work my way through it, and I am less well informed. I have nothing to add. I commend Mike Otsuka's work to you, as what seems to me very insightful discussion and data.
What I have seen on social media, and elsewhere, is people being deeply unkind and spiteful to, and about, senior managers at their respective institutions. And that makes me sad and angry.
What sits at the bottom of all of this is that I think people should be civil to one another--at absolute bottom; kind, would be my strong preference. Numbers of people are falling well below that standard. This makes me sad and I do not think that they should do it.
I should also note that some very angry people are absolute models of how I would hope we behave towards one another. #notallangrypeople is absolutely true. But there are some. Too many, indeed, for my liking.
"But Jonathan, you need to understand how F (for some value of F) VCs and similar have been, and how high passions are running." I do need to understand that. This is true. And I have listened and I have read and I have learned a great deal.
But what I don't see is that being angry, or VCs and similar 'being F', justifies being unkind or spiteful to them. It explains it, I agree, but it does not justify it.
So, consider this a plea for kindness. I'm sure I fail (and will continue to fail) to meet this standard myself (I must, I make mistakes). This does not stop me from desiring it as a standard, and I would hope to be called out when I fail to do so.
As I noted in my last post, Jonathan Lowe, my late PhD supervisor, behaved in a way that I would seek to emulate:
"Everything that was said was weighed, carefully, and with respect. You could be a Professor of Philosophy from VERY IMPORTANT UNIVERSITY, or someone outside academia who'd written in with a question; in my experience, it didn't matter. Jonathan would kindly and patiently work through what it was that interested you and try to help you see how the idea could be developed."
That thought guides me here, just as much as it does in my research and teaching.
(I should also acknowledge a debt to Carrie Jenkins here. A while back, Carrie posted something about the idea of kindness of academia that impacted on my thinking. I can't now find her post.)
I am not (here) interested in discussing the vices of the various different potential agreements and I am not interested (here) in discussing the approaches taken to negotiation, or the transparency provided by any particular group. Nor am I (here) interested in discussing what a fair pension looks like. See above: I am less able than others to work my way through it, and I am less well informed. I have nothing to add. I commend Mike Otsuka's work to you, as what seems to me very insightful discussion and data.
What I have seen on social media, and elsewhere, is people being deeply unkind and spiteful to, and about, senior managers at their respective institutions. And that makes me sad and angry.
What sits at the bottom of all of this is that I think people should be civil to one another--at absolute bottom; kind, would be my strong preference. Numbers of people are falling well below that standard. This makes me sad and I do not think that they should do it.
I should also note that some very angry people are absolute models of how I would hope we behave towards one another. #notallangrypeople is absolutely true. But there are some. Too many, indeed, for my liking.
"But Jonathan, you need to understand how F (for some value of F) VCs and similar have been, and how high passions are running." I do need to understand that. This is true. And I have listened and I have read and I have learned a great deal.
But what I don't see is that being angry, or VCs and similar 'being F', justifies being unkind or spiteful to them. It explains it, I agree, but it does not justify it.
So, consider this a plea for kindness. I'm sure I fail (and will continue to fail) to meet this standard myself (I must, I make mistakes). This does not stop me from desiring it as a standard, and I would hope to be called out when I fail to do so.
As I noted in my last post, Jonathan Lowe, my late PhD supervisor, behaved in a way that I would seek to emulate:
"Everything that was said was weighed, carefully, and with respect. You could be a Professor of Philosophy from VERY IMPORTANT UNIVERSITY, or someone outside academia who'd written in with a question; in my experience, it didn't matter. Jonathan would kindly and patiently work through what it was that interested you and try to help you see how the idea could be developed."
That thought guides me here, just as much as it does in my research and teaching.
(I should also acknowledge a debt to Carrie Jenkins here. A while back, Carrie posted something about the idea of kindness of academia that impacted on my thinking. I can't now find her post.)
Friday, March 9, 2018
Professor'd? Professored? Pro...
As I noted on Twitter, this week I received the rather lovely news that I'm to be promoted to Professor this summer. I am delighted!
People have also been extremely kind about it. This has been very wonderful, and I've had to push down the desire to shout 'there must be some mistake' and simply enjoy all of the very nice things people have said.
In among all of those positives, and moments of kindness, there has been one thought that has been ono my mind quite a bit--I hope I can be indulged in talking about it here. I think that the person who had most impact on me as an aspiring academic was Jonathan Lowe. Jonathan sadly passed a few years ago. You can read an interview with him here (http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/metaphysical-foundations-for-science/ ) and an obituary here ( https://www.dur.ac.uk/philosophy/ejlowepages/ ). It was with sadness that I was not able to attend the memorial service in Durham when it was held. I was examining a PhD the same day--probably the only thing I didn't feel I could cancel to be there.
I've been conscious this week of feeling his absence rather keenly.
To me, Jonathan was a model of what I had always thought an academic should be. He was incredibly clever and well read, and a wonderful teacher. But, more than that, through working with him I also came to recognise that he was exactly the kind of academic that I would most like to be. Setting aside his research (it is clear enough that Jonathan was a far better researcher than I will ever be), what stays with me is his enduring kindness, patience, love for his subject, and respect to everyone around him. No question was trivial; no request was insignificant. Everything that was said was weighed, carefully, and with respect. You could be a Professor of Philosophy from VERY IMPORTANT UNIVERSITY, or someone outside academia who'd written in with a question; in my experience, it didn't matter. Jonathan would kindly and patiently work through what it was that interested you and try to help you see how the idea could be developed.
So, I've been somewhat prone to navel-gazing this week, and wondering 'what sort of Professor would I like to be?' Maybe that's pretentious of me. I don't know. But I do have an answer. I'd like to be as much like Jonathan as I can be. If I'm half the Professor he was, I'll consider it a job very well done.
People have also been extremely kind about it. This has been very wonderful, and I've had to push down the desire to shout 'there must be some mistake' and simply enjoy all of the very nice things people have said.
In among all of those positives, and moments of kindness, there has been one thought that has been ono my mind quite a bit--I hope I can be indulged in talking about it here. I think that the person who had most impact on me as an aspiring academic was Jonathan Lowe. Jonathan sadly passed a few years ago. You can read an interview with him here (http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/metaphysical-foundations-for-science/ ) and an obituary here ( https://www.dur.ac.uk/philosophy/ejlowepages/ ). It was with sadness that I was not able to attend the memorial service in Durham when it was held. I was examining a PhD the same day--probably the only thing I didn't feel I could cancel to be there.
I've been conscious this week of feeling his absence rather keenly.
To me, Jonathan was a model of what I had always thought an academic should be. He was incredibly clever and well read, and a wonderful teacher. But, more than that, through working with him I also came to recognise that he was exactly the kind of academic that I would most like to be. Setting aside his research (it is clear enough that Jonathan was a far better researcher than I will ever be), what stays with me is his enduring kindness, patience, love for his subject, and respect to everyone around him. No question was trivial; no request was insignificant. Everything that was said was weighed, carefully, and with respect. You could be a Professor of Philosophy from VERY IMPORTANT UNIVERSITY, or someone outside academia who'd written in with a question; in my experience, it didn't matter. Jonathan would kindly and patiently work through what it was that interested you and try to help you see how the idea could be developed.
So, I've been somewhat prone to navel-gazing this week, and wondering 'what sort of Professor would I like to be?' Maybe that's pretentious of me. I don't know. But I do have an answer. I'd like to be as much like Jonathan as I can be. If I'm half the Professor he was, I'll consider it a job very well done.
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
On the radio....
Ah, so a little while back I posted about wishing philosophers did more to get their work 'out there'. In the spirit of putting my money where my mouth is, I've worked with the University on promoting some of my work about trust. The first notable output from this was a press release. You can read it here.
I felt ok about that. After all, it's in a medium I'm familiar with. But then....
I realise that in reality it's no big deal, but after that I had the opportunity to go and speak about the work on BBC radio Nottingham. The interview itself was fun--I hope listeners enjoyed it!
But two things really struck me. First--and it was a useful reminder--was just how insignificant me and my work are to folks as they go about their everyday lives. We (/I?) aren't a staple. Where what scientists say is probably held up as quite important, or at least interesting, it's a bit less clear that we can say the same about philosophy. Now that's not the fault of the people who don't do the philosophy! We've just done such a bad job as a discipline at getting ourselves into their lives, that we've allowed ourselves to be thought of as less relevant than we really are.
Second, and this was a bit less fun, was the reminder of the challenges that we can all face when in a novel environment. I've never gone on live radio before, and it's safe to say that I'd have benefited from training and practice. So in the hopes that this wasn't my first and last chance to do something like that, I think I need to locate some media training and work out a bit more of a plan. But in any case, a nice reminder. We often put students in novel positions (1st years away from home for the first time; personal tutees being expected to form a professional relationship with a tutor for the first time). It's always good to be reminded of just how daunting that can be.
[Updated: for a month or so, you can listen to me warble on, here [1:25:20 onwards].]
I felt ok about that. After all, it's in a medium I'm familiar with. But then....
I realise that in reality it's no big deal, but after that I had the opportunity to go and speak about the work on BBC radio Nottingham. The interview itself was fun--I hope listeners enjoyed it!
But two things really struck me. First--and it was a useful reminder--was just how insignificant me and my work are to folks as they go about their everyday lives. We (/I?) aren't a staple. Where what scientists say is probably held up as quite important, or at least interesting, it's a bit less clear that we can say the same about philosophy. Now that's not the fault of the people who don't do the philosophy! We've just done such a bad job as a discipline at getting ourselves into their lives, that we've allowed ourselves to be thought of as less relevant than we really are.
Second, and this was a bit less fun, was the reminder of the challenges that we can all face when in a novel environment. I've never gone on live radio before, and it's safe to say that I'd have benefited from training and practice. So in the hopes that this wasn't my first and last chance to do something like that, I think I need to locate some media training and work out a bit more of a plan. But in any case, a nice reminder. We often put students in novel positions (1st years away from home for the first time; personal tutees being expected to form a professional relationship with a tutor for the first time). It's always good to be reminded of just how daunting that can be.
[Updated: for a month or so, you can listen to me warble on, here [1:25:20 onwards].]
Temporal error theory
Very pleased--nay, delighted!--that my 'An Error in Temporal Error Theory' is now forthcoming at the Journal of the American Philosophical Association (JAPA). The target of the paper is the idea of timelessness. There are some famous cases in the philosophical literature of philosophers looking to deny the reality of time and some more recent cases of physicists doing the same. One of the questions that hasn't really been asked, though, is what it would mean to deny the reality of time. Crudely, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for reality to be timeless? There hasn't been much written on this, apart from one interesting paper by Kristie Miller and Sam Baron--'What is Temporal Error Theory?'
Much as I like Kristie and Sam's paper, I think that they err in spelling out the details. So, this paper looks to provide what I think is the correct account of what it would take for reality to be timeless. In a nutshell I claim it comes to this: temporal discourse--the sum of all present tensed sentences--is truth-apt, but false. There's a bit more nuance than that in the end, but that's a decent enough starting point. You can read a draft, here.
I'm hoping to do a bit more work on timelessness, building on this paper, as well as my 'Causation in a timeless world?'. The current plan is to work with Sam and Kristie and see where we get to collaboratively, rather than writing papers back and forth to each other. We'll see how that goes.
I should also note that I had a brilliant experience with JAPA. The referees were great (smart, timely and helpful) and the whole process was really well managed. Along with Ergo and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, one of my favourite journals to deal with.
Much as I like Kristie and Sam's paper, I think that they err in spelling out the details. So, this paper looks to provide what I think is the correct account of what it would take for reality to be timeless. In a nutshell I claim it comes to this: temporal discourse--the sum of all present tensed sentences--is truth-apt, but false. There's a bit more nuance than that in the end, but that's a decent enough starting point. You can read a draft, here.
I'm hoping to do a bit more work on timelessness, building on this paper, as well as my 'Causation in a timeless world?'. The current plan is to work with Sam and Kristie and see where we get to collaboratively, rather than writing papers back and forth to each other. We'll see how that goes.
I should also note that I had a brilliant experience with JAPA. The referees were great (smart, timely and helpful) and the whole process was really well managed. Along with Ergo and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, one of my favourite journals to deal with.
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