where the f$@& is academia going?

A female academic I know sent me an email this week: She was in a mixed-gender meeting. Everyone in the room was equals. All of the men were being referred to as "Dr," whereas the women were being called by their first names. I wish I could say I felt surprised.

As this week wrapped up, I felt a lot of academic outrage fatigue. (Side note: I find twitter contributes to this fatigue because it amplifies my exposure to outrage-inducing stories, I'm not sure if this is good or bad or neither).

There was the LaCour scandal (I appreciate how this is now being called the LaCour scandal, not the Green scandal, although certainly Green had a role to play in this). (Also read here, an article that does a better job than I could of discussing what we need to learn from the LaCour scandal). In addition, tenure in Wisconsin is experiencing some serious threats that we should all be quite worried about (in my opinion). (That article also talks about the decrease in tenured positions at the time that administrative positions garnering very large pay checks has increased). There was also this Canadian story that highlights (briefly) the push-pull between teaching and research, and how this can impact graduate students and junior faculty.

And these are just some of the stories of academic outrage - I could write and write and write about the many other injustices going on, but have chosen to focus on this (more on that below). 

This weekend my new partner and I decided to try Arthur Aron's (et al) 1997 procedure for generating closeness. We were both familiar with it (he from a news story, me from graduate school coursework) and thought it was interesting. One of the questions I really struggled with asked what I would like to know if a crystal ball could tell me the truth about myself, life, the future, or anything else. I was really stumped by this (for reasons that aren't relevant to this blog post).

After some thought I said: "I wish I knew if academia was going to change at all. I feel trapped in a system with many problems, overwhelmed with how much I wish would change, and discouraged at effecting any change."

There are many, many aspects of academia I love. Even if you probably wouldn't guess it from reading my blog or listening to me vent. Academia involves a constant quest for knowledge, the opportunity to be a positive influence on students, independence, and opportunities to travel and meet new people. (The first four advantages that come to mind for me).

But there are also so many aspects of academia that I am exhausted by: The sexism (blatant and clear, or subtle every day sexism). The divide between junior and senior professors. Cuts to funding, threats to academic freedom. Poor dissemination of findings. In fighting. Racism. Lack of tolerance for anyone who doesn't fit the mold. A hyper-competitive environment that encourages us to eat each other alive rather than support one another. Abusive supervisors. Reviewers that can't exercise basic human kindness.

I have academic outrage fatigue. I'd love a crystal ball to tell me if change is possible (I suspect that academics have been complaining about these very issues since long before I was born) so I can either continue trying to impact the system I work in, or pack it in and just look after myself. Attempting to change the system is exhausting. I don't quite know how to push this rock uphill while protecting my own well-being, and that feels like a deep personality flaw on my part.  

be the three bullet point full professor (a bit)

Peer reviews are really important to me (See this previous post for some reasons why). In many academic niches they really make the (academic) world go round and so it is important that we do them, do them well (enough), and do them in a timely manner. (It's also important we do them without being an asshole, but I'm going to tell myself all of my blog readers already know how to do that, because you are nice, kind, and supportive people).

This doesn't mean that I necessarily enjoy doing peer reviews or that I don't find them to be a pain in the ass. Mostly for reasons related to me consistently forgetting to put time in my calendar to do them (but also sometimes because I get sick of reading the same terrible manuscript that I've rejected over and over again).

Recently I sat down at a cafe to review a manuscript that had made its way to me a second time because of the first R&R decision from the editor. The first thing I decided to do was read through the other reviews and the response letter from the authors to gauge how well they had responded to my comments and the comments of the other three reviewers.

There was my review, about a page long. There were the reviews of Reviewer 2, same length. Reviewer 3 wrote about 2 pages of comments, which I thought was a bit long but they seemed reasonable and justified.

Then I got to Reviewer 4.

Reviewer 4's entire review was three bullet points long. 

(and no, it wasn't "this paper is so amazing you should accept it")

This epitomizes for me how I'm feeling about work these days. I'm the one-page professor, who feels guilty for not doing a "better job." I'm surrounded with three-bullet point professors who probably don't feel guilty at all (in my mind). And in my crankiness I see nothing but benefits from being the three bullet point professor: More time for research and grant writing. Less stress. Not taking home work to do late at night.

Note: All of those benefits might not even be true, I know this.

I'm so tired out these days. Work is requiring a lot of effort. So Be The Three Bullet Point Professor (at least a bit) is, for now, my new motto for productivity.

apparently I'm so burnt out even my burnout is burnt out

A few weeks ago one of my friends called me after something bad happened. I'm not going to name the friend, even with the pseudonym I usually use or tell you what happened. But what happened was seen as both of us as a possible symptom of long-standing burnout.

I don't remember our whole conversation (it was early in the morning and I was already in my office, lame) but I do remember distinctly saying to my friend that we are not to be trusted to regulate ourselves and work. We can't trust ourselves to accurately gauge how much work we can really handle, nor can we trust ourselves to tell when we're burnt out. We vastly overestimate the former and sadly never see the latter until it's far too late. Both of us have a tendency, I think, to be cruising along actually thinking we're not that stressed until something almost downright hilarious in its awfulness happens. It is my working hypothesis that grad school interacted with our pre-existing vulnerabilities to completely burn out our ability to notice and manage stress.

This week I went to an award ceremony. Every time someone was called up to receive their award, the sponsor (for example a colleague) spoke for a few minutes about the accomplishments of that person. It was actually an inspiring, albeit intimidating, experience. There were so many people being recognized for doing so many amazing things. This definitely resulted in some imposter syndrome on my part, but that's not what this post is about.

Everyone was described as not only a fantastic researcher, colleague, team-member, and overall person, but as a dedicated and passionate instructor. And hearing everyone's tales of instructor amazing-ness gave me a bit of an out of body experience.

I realized, listening to them, that I used to be that instructor. I was passionate about teaching. I spent time on my courses consistently. I went above and beyond with my students. I was interested in the pedagogy of teaching and I was up to date on much of it. I used principles of learning in my courses (okay I still do that one).

I'm not that instructor anymore. I doubt I'm even that mentor anymore. Is that all my fault? No. I've been dealt some shitty hands here at PCU. And I know I can't be perfect across the board and I have actively tried to prioritize research over teaching, knowing that it is research that will get me tenure. Not teaching. Even worse however, is the fact that I hardly remember being that instructor. It's almost like thinking of a completely different individual. (And in a lot of ways, I was a different individual, that many years ago).

I could write about all the things that have led to this, but I'm frankly too exhausted. This odd experience, of listening to the descriptions of the instructor I'd like to be but can't, allowed me to connect with how incredibly burnt out I am. I am burnt out in my bones, in my soul. My brain doesn't work very clearly. I'm tired all of the time. I'm cynical, I'm bitter, I am angry. Some of it is accurate and some of it is not. I'd like a vacation but I can barely get myself to stop working 7 days a week out of stress and fear of losing my job.

So not only am I burnt out (if you look it up, you'll see a lot of those things describe it perfectly), I am... apathetic about my burnout. I didn't care. It was a weird disconnected "Huh. Look how burnt out I am. Interesting" experience - with no emotion whatsoever. I am so burnt out that I'm even burnt out of my burnout.

Am I completely flat? No. I'm finding lots of reward and happiness in some places. But I'm clearly not who I used to be when I left graduate school. And one of my biggest concerns has been related to the theme of whether or not the sacrifices I've made for my career have permanently made me a different person or if they are temporary - this is something I talk about constantly, and worry about constantly. I don't want to be a burnt out professor.

You might wonder - do my colleagues recognize this kind of burnout in Assistant Professors? Yes. It's openly known this happens. Do my senior colleagues have recommendations for this kind of burnout? Yes - one's first sabbatical. In Year 7. That's right... you're fully expected to hang in there for seven years of this and then expected to somehow recover on your sabbatical (while also accomplishing enough to justify your sabbatical and get ready for your next level of promotion). 7 years of this, then 1 year to recover. Take a step back and think about that, if you can - that's just a little bit fucked up.