In my part of the University of Birmingham, the College of Arts and Law, lecturers are currently in the midst of a battle with senior managers who want to make dramatic changes to the Workload Allocation Model (WAM) that governs how we spend our working time. One of the core issues, though by no means the only one, is that they want to cut the basic allocation for research from 33% to 25%—a cut which would remove at one swoop almost a quarter of our research time.
One of the most disheartening things about this process has been the spectacle of older colleagues in senior positions—professors, people with various leadership roles—trying to mollify angry academics. “It won’t really change anything,” they tell us, “and it probably won’t happen anyway.” While some of those senior colleagues have stood up firmly against the management plans, most of the professors in my department have been notable by their absence from the debate, and some have been actively counselling quietism.
This fits a pattern of intergenerational difference that has become increasingly marked in recent years, and not just in UK Higher Education. Its most serious incarnation within academia, of course, is the divide between those of us in secure employment, and the precarious early career scholars struggling to hop between casual contracts while somehow pulling stellar publication records out from under tottering teaching-loads.
But issues like the WAM show how the intergenerational divide continues even within the heavily-guarded walls of the permanent faculty. Those who have spent much of their careers under the old dispensation have little to gain, personally, by fighting to keep it now. That’s especially true for those whose research grants and management responsibilities will shield them from workload increases—grants and responsibilities which naturally concentrate towards the top of the age scale. Meanwhile, those who have only recently made it, sometimes through hell and high water, into the coveted open-ended lectureship now find the rug pulled out from under us.
It sometimes seems to shock our older colleagues that we’re angry—and not only that, but that we’re restive and ready to organise. That shock is a gauge of how removed they are from what’s been going on in the academy. In the case of the College of Arts and Law WAM, the intergenerational nature of the struggle is crystallised by the fact that these changes are being imposed by the Head of School who is due to retire in the summer. Maybe he’ll write some more books on ancient warfare from the comfort of his no doubt well-appointed study. Meanwhile, at this rate, my generation will be angry for a long time yet.
One of the most disheartening things about this process has been the spectacle of older colleagues in senior positions—professors, people with various leadership roles—trying to mollify angry academics. “It won’t really change anything,” they tell us, “and it probably won’t happen anyway.” While some of those senior colleagues have stood up firmly against the management plans, most of the professors in my department have been notable by their absence from the debate, and some have been actively counselling quietism.
This fits a pattern of intergenerational difference that has become increasingly marked in recent years, and not just in UK Higher Education. Its most serious incarnation within academia, of course, is the divide between those of us in secure employment, and the precarious early career scholars struggling to hop between casual contracts while somehow pulling stellar publication records out from under tottering teaching-loads.
But issues like the WAM show how the intergenerational divide continues even within the heavily-guarded walls of the permanent faculty. Those who have spent much of their careers under the old dispensation have little to gain, personally, by fighting to keep it now. That’s especially true for those whose research grants and management responsibilities will shield them from workload increases—grants and responsibilities which naturally concentrate towards the top of the age scale. Meanwhile, those who have only recently made it, sometimes through hell and high water, into the coveted open-ended lectureship now find the rug pulled out from under us.
It sometimes seems to shock our older colleagues that we’re angry—and not only that, but that we’re restive and ready to organise. That shock is a gauge of how removed they are from what’s been going on in the academy. In the case of the College of Arts and Law WAM, the intergenerational nature of the struggle is crystallised by the fact that these changes are being imposed by the Head of School who is due to retire in the summer. Maybe he’ll write some more books on ancient warfare from the comfort of his no doubt well-appointed study. Meanwhile, at this rate, my generation will be angry for a long time yet.