Help, I'm trapped in an ivory tower! Or "what the fuck am i getting myself into with this academia stuff"

Dunno if this will go anywhere, but there seem to be a few of us and it's nice to have a home thread...

Some happy thoughts to kick off:

I know of people that have given a purportedly crippled software to a collegue to sabotage his project. I’ve been violently attacked verbally for having dared talking with my supervisor of a project I was collaborating with, because she feared that I wanted to “steal” her credit. And I can’t blame her: she was “helped” by another postdoc when she first came in Cambridge, only to find all credit for her work taken by the nice and smiling guy who scammed her by “helping” her. There are endless horror stories like that. Everywhere. Now, do you want to work in a place full of insanely clever people who are also insanely cynical and determined to do everything to get on top of you? If so, you can do top level science.

http://blog.devicerandom.org/2011/02/18/getting-a-life/

i gave up graduate school, where my degree would have only set me up for PHd work, to go to law school.

tbh, i should have become a circus clown instead. or a paid assassin.

Or both. Imagine the possibilities.

yeah, except few of the high-value assassin targets go to rodeo shows.

hard to cross-pollinate good careers.

ameritocracy!

http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/the-strangest-conference-i-ever-attended/32805

2 stories:

1) friend goes to top 10 history dept, makes straight a's, gets into masters program at top 3 history grad department. makes a 3.7, runs the international blah blah film festival and in general excels in his studies. at the end of the 2 years, his advisor is like, "well, look, a 3.7 isn't bad and youre a smart guy, but i'm not going to write you a letter of recommendation. period. cause 2 other folx got 3.8's and frankly a phd for you will just be a $150,000 hole fr you to dig your way out of in bitterness and starbucks jobs. you should save yourself the misery, and to help you along i'm fucking your chances at getting into a phd program, on purpose. your welcome." dude went on to make crazy 6 figure salaries selling hospital equipmement in south america and land in seasia, and the advisdor was probably right. but that had to sting just a bit.

2) my dad's a professor. pay scale was quite comfortable, office politics were a bit sucky but when you have tenure who gives a fuck really. i could tell he loved his job, was bit jealous i didn't have the talent in acedemia to follow in his footsteps, honestly being a prof looked like an awesome job from close up.

BUT: even if you get that phd you're still about 1 in 50 from getting an opening position at a university, and what, 1 in 200 from getting tenured? competition is ridiculous, and yeah i've heard my share of backstabbing horror stories in the academic publishing communities. apply at your own risk!

still, nice work if you can get it.

'use other words, please':

'rich', re conference presentations, journal articles

Ruth Richards drove me to the station. As we sat in her car waiting for my train to come in she leaned back in her seat, lit a cigarette, then turned to me and said: “You know what keeps this whole thing going? What allows them to take themselves so seriously, and still go on behaving like this? It’s guys like my husband. My husband is a good man, a kind and gentle man, comes from a poor home, fought his way to the top. And he’s smart. Very, very smart. But you know? In spite of all that, and in spite of everything he knows, every morning of his life he wakes up, goes to the bathroom, starts to shave, and as he’s looking at himself in the mirror, somewhere inside of him a voice is saying: ‘Jesus Christ. I’m at Yale.’”

via

this is a booming post (and a great blog)

http://secondlanguage.blogspot.de/2013/05/science-as-hustle-and-bustle-2.html

also this

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/rowanpelling/8604337/Save-us-from-the-BBCs-New-Generation-Thinkers.html

and these

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109
http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/

sorry for link dump

As I enter my seventh year of teaching, I am now twelve days away from the big day: on the 18th of September there will be a private senior faculty meeting at which my colleagues will decide whether or not I get tenure. If they reject me, then I get a terminal year of employment in which to seek positions elsewhere (or else just leave the field) and then I lose my job. If they approve of me, I get the satisfaction of my colleague's esteem and temporary relief from the anxious feelings, and then my candidacy is kicked up the chain to another ad hoc committee (whose members are a secret) who then will take another 7-8 months to solicit further external letters, look over the report of my colleagues, and then decide if, for real, I actually get tenure or not. (The higher-up vote is not a rubber stamp at my school; at some institutions if the department supports you then it's a lock but that's not the case where I teach) The pressure is starting to get to me, in little ways and in big ways. Anyone on here who has made it to the farther shore? Any advice about how to manage the fear? I do realize, fully, how lucky I am to even be in this highly privileged position; when so many people are adjuncts, I got the brass ring, but now it's starting to burn my hands.

I made it through, twice even because the year after the big T I got another, better job, but to hire me with T they had to put me through the process again. How to manage the fear: I didn't? The first time I traveled a lot that term and made sure to avoid my colleagues after the vote until I heard the result. The second time I got weird twitches. It takes a permanent toll.

*Raises hand*: are there schools at which the odds are 50/50 or worse?

Yes. Harvard and Yale are pretty notorious for the very low rate at which junior faculty get tenure. My department hasn't had anyone come up for tenure in ten years and the last person who came up for it was denied tenure, so at my institution there isn't a great track record either. Trying to Keep It Positive, my book came out this spring, I've already published another article since then, and I have six book chapters or articles which have been accepted for publication and are forthcoming, so there's really no way they can make a productivity argument against my tenure. But they can always just decide that they don't like me or my work and then it's curtains.

well if they "just don't like you" then they'll have justify that, and you can appeal that etc. what's crucial there are the outside letters. how many do you need? my institutions have gotten about half a dozen, which I understand is fairly normal for R1s, but I've interviewed at a UC school that said they needed about 10 outside letters.

the outside letter part is weird, since you're not allowed to know even who wrote them. but they hold big time sway, especially with committees above your departmental one.

yeah, my chair can't tell me anything about the outside letters, I get the impression that the department solicits 5-7 and the outside ad hoc committee solicits another 5-7, so they're at 10-14 by the end of the process. I was allowed to submit some names that I *did not* want asked (i.e. people whose work I critique in my book), but I couldn't have any knowledge of who they were going to ask, for obvious reasons. If I'm honest with myself, I'm probably in pretty good shape with my colleagues (at our faculty meetings and cocktail parties and receptions everyone keeps reassuring me, over and over, that I'm going to get this). The fear of the ad hoc committee is the real killer for me, as I am going to be at the mercy of people who aren't in my field, and there are plenty of people in the sciences who really don't like critical theory-oriented work in the humanities (with good reason- some of it is junk).

yeah that's a lot of letters! it's a very mysterious thing: people who may not have heard of you are sent all of your work and asked to make a judgment on whether you'll lose your job or keep it for forever.

at my institutions departments don't send up the chain cases that they think stand a decent chance of failing.

just thinking about this stuff again gives me the willies, though. it's some comfort to know that we all go through this. but it's taken something out of me all the same. (though tbh so did grad school)

xp - why would they include scientists on the ad hoc committee? Is that standard for humanities depts?

The ad hoc folks may or may not be from the humanities. I just won't know.

As I lope towards the finish line, I gotta say I am increasingly struck by the push-pull of difference between the battle to get an academic book contract for a first book from a decent press and the battle to get tenure that comes in its wake. Post 2008 bank crisis and the new austerity that made university presses increasingly skeptical /skittish about first books, if you aren't saying something new, original, and different from the prevailing wisdom, then you aren't getting a book contract. But in order to get the approval of the older guard of senior scholars who are likely to be the sort of people approached for outside letters, you can't say something that bothers or pisses them off, repudiates their methodological commitments, re-directs the conversation away from their interests and habits and affiliations. So it seems like the very qualities that might help you get a book contract are the kind that might hurt you when it comes to getting approval from the mysterious outside letter writers. I guess the result is that it encourages a kind of "via media" of small c conservatism about the kind of arguments that you can make before you have tenure. If folks outside of academia wonder why it so often looks like people re-arranging the same intellectual furniture, this process seems to encourage that.

i think that's a very eloquent description of the double-bind faced by younger academics. i have a book manuscript in review at the moment and it's basically my only hope for landing a job.

my discipline (philo) doesn't require a book for tenure, or even for promotion to full, but we have the same issue with journal pubs, where acceptance rates in places that will count for tenure and promotion are 3%-5%. I said fuck it, I don't care about the same intellectual furniture as the bulk of my discipline, and I can do something else if this profession doesn't want me. I was warned about this from senior colleagues who are deeply sympathetic to my work, but I couldn't follow their advice and just write on what everyone else writes on; I can't do work that bores me. I'd have failed to get tenure on productivity grounds. but here I followed my nose, that what I was doing was something lots of other people *should* have considered interesting and worth promoting, and I wrote with that mission in mind.

being on outside of a job looking in, my thinking isn't much different. it's a wing and a prayer for me anyway so i figured might as well do something im passionate about and hope it's good enough and different enough that it stands out.

well re getting a job with that attitude the best thing to do is to get to know as many senior people as you can, and tell them about your work in short and crystal clear and compelling ways. when someone bites send them your work, and follow up on it. even if they don't hire you then maybe you can get a letter. junior candidates with outside letters have a leg up, especially if the outside letters provide with comparisons with other junior people, maybe even with their own students.

that's good advice, thanks! I'm definitely working on an outside letter.

i really don't know what compelled me to read through all of caek's lynx just now but christ

you're in academia too, right Lamp?

yeah that's a lot of letters! it's a very mysterious thing: people who may not have heard of you are sent all of your work and asked to make a judgment on whether you'll lose your job or keep it for forever.

how long do they typically spend doing that? cuz this would surely take a while to do properly once people have several articles, some chapters, maybe a book etc

i hope ttwp gets through successfully and with minimal agitation.....

usually a couple of weeks of devoted full-time work. it's a big deal.

My wife went through this two years ago, and since a very large % of our friends are also university faculty I've seen a whole lot of this recently. None of them really managed the fear so much as resigned themselves to the fact that once their materials were in there was nothing they could do to control the outcome so they at least stressed out in a different way, waiting for the letter to show up. Only one of these friends was denied tenure, and honestly his heart wasn't really in it anyway so it wasn't that surprising but still was pretty awful and he has since moved away which really sucks.

Now my wife's on the other side and it's kind of crazy and depressing for her to see how it all works - decisions overridden for shady reasons at very high levels, inappropriate things said at meetings that mean a of guarantee tenure or a lawsuit, etc.

power corrupts, even in academia

the american class system is unfair, even in academia

you're in academia too, right Lamp?

haha define 'in'

a series of thoughts on a friday afternoon: i wonder how many people are going to be able to get tenure spots in the next 5 years? 10 years? i wonder, somewhat desperately, about the value of my own research, abt the value of the undergraduate education students are getting, about the ways that universities serve to reinforce the growing inequality in our society and abt the values that universities (particularly elite universities) are instilling in their graduates. mostly i keep thinking about this article: http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/on-quitting/

blah - hope yr tenure goes well dr3w but this thread is hella depressing for me

i really don't know what compelled me to read through all of caek's lynx just now but christ

Ha sorry man.

Tenure oh boy. Good luck USA.

Drew if its any help I am in basically the opposite discipline to you and find you writing compelling and your miserable blog radical.

aren't you in astronomy, or physics, caek? you'll find that engineering is more an opposite of the humanities than the pure sciences, in particular because the latter two domains are usually, in NA at least, lumped together in colleges or schools of arts & sciences, and thus hiring & promotion decisions for both humanities and pure sciences go through the same people at that level. whereas engineers have their own colleges/schools & their own rules. & they are as a rule friendly to neither the humanities nor the pure sciences.

tenure is a horrible system for faculty, students, staff and universities as a whole. at my place of employment the fucking librarians are tenured. which means you end up with 6-figure salaried morons who have been left behind by the past two decades of technological development and are not only unfireable but wield a disproportionately large hammer in terms of influence and power.

not to mention that the inherent inflexibility of the tenure system leads to lumbering faculty bodies capable only of noisily and unattractively blocking realistic and necessary policy changes.

the moribund atmosphere in a department due to what i assume were 80s/90s tenure decisions is precisely the reason i didn't take an otherwise good postdoc at an R1 a couple of years ago.

Yeah. It seems like the integral of productivity, total product I guess, is most important. Why not end tenure but also lower the productivity expectation a bit. Most engineers leaning toward academia seem to be trying the industry-to-tenure gambit these days, since a post doc no longer guarantees a professorship.

pretty isolated at the academic law library where i work, doing unsupported special collections stuff in tech services, no law degree just a library degree, making 15 bucks an hour (could be so much worse), at least the benefits are good. hearing word that my boss is the only non-j.d. librarian position here and she's just completely full of shit, 100% doo-doo brown, every last cell, but someone you don't want to try to push out, or at least i don't because i don't have it in me, i'm too inexperienced and raw. there's a new library director and i had some hope earlier this year because two tenured idiots are on the verge of retirement, but that's evaporated and i'm gritting my teeth covering for my boss's shitty work ethic and idiotic approach to everything. don't know how i can jump ship to something better since i feel like damaged goods, im almost 5 years past library school and still haven't had a professional-level job, my skill set seems way too skimpy for everything i see, oh yeah i hate this fucking place and all of the mormon breeders in it, doubt that good will is gonna carry me anywhere here. think it's finally time to save up for a year then get the hell out of here.

speaking of grim forecasts regarding academia today, has anybody else here checked out this book?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Fall-Faculty-Benjamin-Ginsberg/dp/0199975434

full disclosure: he's a colleague at my school, so I'm biased. I just read it last weekend. a really impassioned rant against the bloat of administration, there are some points at which he just reads schools to filth, I found it pretty addictive. That said, I wonder how it might read to someone who was not, themselves, a professor . . . The argument might simply come off as nostalgia for a lost moment of institutional dominance. But when he's on, he's on.

didn't read it yet, but it was discussed positively in this great frank piece from the latest baffler: http://thebaffler.com/past/academy_fight_song

you know when your boss has a ph.d. in communications, you're in trouble

that baffler piece is brutal and righteous

"That the people who hold the ultimate authority at our institutions of higher learning are dedicated to a notorious form of pseudo-knowledge is richly ironic, and it is also telling. The point of management theory, after all, is to establish the legitimacy of a social order and a social class who are, in fact, little more than drones."

poetic justice for humanities departments that travesty the socialism they tout by privileging privileged grad students over disadvantaged grad students

well since I barfed up all my tenure anxiety earlier in this thread, I thought I would share my good news: my department voted unanimously to support my tenure today. Now it goes up to the ad hoc committee so I will still have six months more of uncertainty and suspense, but my tenure could have simply ended today if my department had decided to deny me. The two hours of waiting around while they were at their meeting was a scary, scary time, and I was so freaked out when my chair called and started up by saying "I'm so sorry . . . " *I immediately assume he's about to tell me that I got shut down* " . . . to have taken so long to call you to tell you." Yikes!

I am really happy and really relieved. And I hope that I'm able to be mindful of the sheer luck and contingency that swaddles my "success" in the field- I think human beings are inclined to think that if they are happy and successful that it is somehow about their merit, that they deserve what they have and have earned it, even though they still know that the system as a whole is rigged and unfair and arbitrary in countless structural ways, no one wants that to apply too directly to their own case (we feel bathed in a tacit cloud of meritocracy). So, as much as I want to feel that this is the happy result of seven years of hard work in the department and beyond, I also know of so many talented and hard working people who are adjuncts who never even got the shot that I have had. Okay, gotta go to sleep so I can get up and teach my grad seminar.

congratulations

ryans lawyer friends life stinks ass

To say the least. I'd rather be on the dole.

George Michael agrees: https://youtu.be/BsyHQgiem8c

George Michael otm.

I don't think I'm ever going to get over idealizing academia and regretting not taking that path. I know that it's to some extent a grass-is-greener thing, but it's hard not feel envious when friends from the MA years are finishing their doctorates and landing cool post-docs and jobs - basically fulfilling this future that I'd spent so much time imagining for myself and which my brain still latches onto when I'm down.

h/t j. (thread):

Can I ask academics of any level of seniority how many hours a week they reckon they work. My current estimate is over 100. I am a mug. But what is the norm in real life. ?

— mary beard (@wmarybeard) November 23, 2019

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/05/07/fuck-the-bread-the-bread-is-over/

Not 'academia' per se, but can anyone recommend any websites/journals/magazines accepting papers (or articles) on anything film/music/art/culture/psychoanalysis-y? Probably more casual than peer-reviewed, but possibly either.

I am unable to proceed onto a doctorate yet due to technicalities that have been compounded by these times, and feel (like many, no doubt) that I am utterly stagnating. It helps to read theory, but I find my motivation lacking when there isn't something concrete to channel it into. I'll look into different things, but just wondered if anyone has specifically heard of anything recently, or had success in different places.

Sorry to hear that the pandemic has been an impediment to your studies/research on top of everything else.

This might be too academic a suggestion, but have you considered Paragraph? Their editorial board is more open to exploring the intersection between aesthetics and psychoanalysis than most. Failing that, maybe 3:AM Magazine if you'd rather keep the ivory tower at bay?

I also came across this ongoing project a few days ago and was tempted to submit the entirety of the 'recently on ILX Dreams…' thread:

https://www.lockdowndreams.com

Thank you for these really excellent suggestions! I found some other places, but honestly none of them were as exciting as this.

Ha, coincidentally, the lockdown dreams project is hosted by the very department I am unable to begin working in! Well, the theoretical side of it anyway. I'm supposed to progress onto a clinical doctorate, but it's going to be at least 2 years before I can begin and honestly I don't know if maybe I should do a PhD while I'm waiting, or if that is mad.

Is anyone working on a PhD during lockdown, and if so, how is it?

So my workplace (not just UCSF, this is UC-wide) has done something great:

After more than two years of negotiations, UC has reached an open access agreement with Elsevier! 🥳https://t.co/b7AyUxifji

— UCSF Library (@ucsf_library) March 16, 2021

Here's the general UCOP post, though the UCSF one linked there has more specifics

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-news-uc-secures-landmark-open-access-deal-world-s-largest-scientific-publisher

well after 25 years in academia I've applied for a science writing job, no doubt way off base but a worthwhile message to self

anyone fancy applying for this?

I screamed pic.twitter.com/IR14czokLl

— Christopher DeWeese (@lighghghght) June 15, 2021

Does this thread ring true for anyone still in the game?

But I think the largest group of faculty, for a variety of reasons, aren't making big job moves. If I had to describe what the Great Resignation looks like for them, I'd call it disengagement. A general pulling back or away, a doubling down on autonomy.

— Kevin R. McClure (@kevinrmcclure) January 11, 2022

It pretty much describes how my spouse and I are operating. I always had a tenuous connection to my department (non tenure stream spousal accommodation who teaches primarily in an interdisciplinary program that is a tiny part of the overall focus) and not being around any colleagues for the past two years makes me feel zero connection at all. My wife could go up for full but what’s the point? It would be a pittance raise and more responsibility in exchange for an ego boost and the dept getting to brag about another full professor.

We’ve lost a number of tenured faculty with no hope of those lines coming back anytime soon (and we know of two who have campus visits for other jobs coming up) so all of them are on literally every grad committee because someone has to be. We’re on our third (interim) chair in the 4.5 years I’ve been here.

I could get a private sector (or university staff) IT/dev job that pays more but it would be a 12 month 9-5 office job vs being able to do whatever for three months every summer. Basically we’re at a sweet spot of time/money/workload and despite neither of us being really invested at all we can’t think of how anything could be better. So I do my best at teaching but go through the motions on everything else whiles looking forward to summers.

Feels pathetic to say it, but I have lost all hope that my academic job will improve, and at 52 I highly doubt anyone would hire me to something new, so what on earth can I do, just be miserable for 8 years until I can retire?
Being in Tasmania the number of private bioscience startups is … low.

ha ha, my promotion application bringing together 11 years of the things I've built and innovated, going the extra mile, heart and soul stuff, was met with four months of total silence, followed by "nope".

ha ha, my promotion application bringing together 11 years of the things I've built and innovated, going the extra mile, heart and soul stuff, was met with four months of total silence, followed by "nope".

I missed this. Sorry dude.

Ugh sorry

https://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2023/11/exclusive-facing-budget-shortfalls-uw-system-president-privately-suggested-chancellors-shift-away-from-liberal-arts-programs-at-low-income-campuses

I work at the UW Parkside and we serve more low income students than any other school in the system. I can't adequately express how mad this makes me.

well, they are 'liberal' arts, right? I'm mean it says it right on the diploma

I peruse job ads frequently, as I'm sure many academics do. I have noticed a ton of openings in my field (Art/Design) in the US south, particularly Texas and Florida. I wounder why that is????? Far fewer desirable positions to be found in other areas. I'm not looking looking, just passive, but it seems remarkable.

Successfully defended my dissertation on Tuesday. Now comes the anxiety over finding a job, paying back student loans, etc, but for now I've applied to a couple of postdoc fellowships that I should know about in a couple months. I don't know much about anyone else's experiences applying for these things, but I have a supervisor and a department that seem pretty excited to work with me, so here's hoping. If that doesn't come through--what the fuck am I getting myself into indeed.

I never did any kind of post- study or work, but everyone I know that did/does have one got the gig through good old fashioned nepotism, so that seems like the angle to follow.

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23428166/college-enrollment-population-education-crash

This has been getting a ton of attention at my school. Reading the example of Shipsburg in the article it sounded exactly like where I work, although we have been in crisis for longer. Some might joke that we've gotten good at it.

I think the demographic cliff deserves attention, but it also deserves critique. Some acquaintances of mine have been doing that (older piece, but still: https://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/2021/08/10/universities-reopen-lets-recommit-our-state-wisconsin-idea/5557124001/)

Recognizing what can and can't be done about demographics and reconciling that with what is politically possible/necessary as far as funding is a much tougher needle to thread than letting vulnerable schools die. I am against the vocationalization of regional higher ed and I think expanding faculty unions is one piece of the answer. By that I mean all faculty, not just the tenure track folks (of which I am one.)

One thing our school has going for it is we're in between two major cities. I think about the schools in rural areas and it's sad, but I'm glad I landed here.

congrats cryptosicko! i also defended last month. in my dept they don’t let you schedule the oral defence until you’ve got a job lined up, so i ended up defending a couple weeks before the start of my postdoc. which was a bit hectic, but not having an unfunded gap in between the two was nice

That's awesome, flopson--and congrats!

My postdoc is hardy a sure thing at this point, but I did have someone reach out to me to work with her on a potential postdoc project before I even defended, so I was balancing my defence and my post-doc stuff at the same time. That said, with the amazing support I've been getting from my potential supervisor and university, I feel like I at least have the chance to avoid living in that uncertain post-graduate space that I'm seeing too many of my colleagues occupying.

Congratulations, C and F!

Hugs to you both.

Group hug!

As a newly-minted Ph.D. living (and kinda hoping to continue living) in Ontario, this is discouraging:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/york-university-temporarily-suspending-admissions-18-programs-1.7462610

Not all humanities courses, I realize, but this feels like it may be signalling a trend towards gutting the humanities. The schadenfreude from various comment section trolls about "useless" Gender Studies courses is unsurprising, but still enraging.

As a York alumnus, I'm surprised at some of the disciplines listed - is English really such a marginal or irrelevant part of higher education?

If it's anything like the school I work at, disciplines like English, Math, History, and Philosophy are increasingly viewed as "service-only" departments and less as degree-granting departments.

point
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2025-08-08/trump-administration-seeks-1-billion-settlement-from-ucla-a-white-house-official-says

counterpoint
https://americanbazaaronline.com/2025/07/30/donald-trumps-gifted-qatari-jet-to-cost-1-billion-in-renovations-465637/

Just got word that the course I was to teach in the Fall has been cancelled due to low enrolment. I still have a research gig for the year at another university, but a bummer nonetheless.

what sort of course?

Course was called "Gay Lives and Culture." One of several Gender Studies courses to get cut for this reason, I'm told.

Classes are being cancelled left and right this semester — international students are choosing to study elsewhere and the FAFSA was fucked so fewer students in general bc no one can afford college. :(

that sucks, crypto— sorry to hear it. one of my classes has too many students— administrators won’t listen to reason that a 25 person writing workshop is stupid— and the other is just right but is a stupid course that i agreed to teach because it is easy and i need the cash

Really sorry to hear that cryptosicko. These are messy times for an already ailing industry. Cutting that course is a loss in so many ways.

I’ve decided to step away from sessional teaching / TAing because the only option for me is course that’s also dumb but easy money. My department recently revamped it, making it significantly dumber than before, but it pulls in relatively huge enrolment numbers for an arts course, which I suppose is what you have to do to fend off cuts as international enrolment dries up.

A friend at a mid-sized UK university was saying they've had back to back drops of 20% in enrolment the last 2 years and have been declining for around 5. Overseas students declining in particular, though the decline intake for this year been offset by rise in US students

A real "one door closes and another door opens" (or however that goes) situation: the same week I lose my course at one university, the department head at the university I'm currently working at as a researcher contacts me about a course that needs an emergency substitution hire. Better yet, it's a 3rd-year Topics course which I am free to design any way I like. I'm already becoming conditioned to the reality that an academic career will likely mean a lot more setbacks than wins, so I'm just gonna enjoy this win for now.

gotta love the "can you prep this entire course last minute thx" behavior across academia, from community colleges to the highest caliber unis.

That basically describes my whole teaching career - for example, two years ago I was offered a course 6 days before it started. Having developed the ability to throw together a course v quickly has been a huge asset - turns out that making all those mock syllabi during my training paid off.

Of course, in a better world, instructors would be given sufficient time to develop a course that’s significantly better for both them and their students, but in my experience departments (or at least mine) don’t care about the quality of their courses.

Glad to hear the situation has improved for you cryptosicko

ime departments care about courses and deans are the ones who don't care (and also hold the keys to who gets what course and when, as well as what courses are canceled for whatever reason)

Then again when I have been in the position of planning a course with ~a week's notice and was told "all you have to do is stay one week ahead of the students" by a senior faculty, with a shrug

A friend at a mid-sized UK university was saying they've had back to back drops of 20% in enrolment the last 2 years and have been declining for around 5. Overseas students declining in particular, though the decline intake for this year been offset by rise in US students

― anvil, Friday, 22 August 2025 14:23 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I have seen this decline first-hand and can confirm it, a load of different factors at play but the result is a steady decline in number of overseas students, to the extent that everyone is wondering whether there's a bottom to it.

my first teaching gigs were two courses given to me with a week to prep. i also had never taught a course at the uni level before, only TAed.

that same university now has much better rules around this, thanks to our union, but yeesh, that was a rough first semester.