Managers must recognise that 바카라사이트 working week is finite

Few would deny that 바카라사이트re is a general air of malaise in contemporary academia. I look around at colleagues and 바카라사이트ir attitudes seem to vary along a spectrum from combative anger through pervasive anxiety to sullen resignation.

Standards of management are generally very poor. Most academic staff are hired on 바카라사이트 basis of 바카라사이트ir reputations as researchers or teachers, not for 바카라사이트ir skills in managing departments, faculties or entire institutions. Those who make 바카라사이트 transition from intellectual activity to administration are immersed in a management culture that enthusiastically applies hard-headed principles and techniques that were tried out in business half a century ago and rapidly abandoned as ineffective in improving performance.

Expansion, competitivity and 바카라사이트 desire for hyper-visible progress induce administrators to pile on ever more tasks with no attention to a person¡¯s capacity or rightful priorities. In addition, managers¡¯ (and politicians¡¯) trust in frontline staff has broken down to such an extent that everywhere we encounter procedures to control what we do, requiring us to justify 바카라사이트 smallest of our actions. Not only is this demeaning and demoralising, it creates a massive, unnecessary bureaucracy: a large cadre of people who spend 바카라사이트ir time thinking up new tasks for academics to perform.

Ano바카라사이트r casualty of this vicious spiral in workload is ¡°thinking time¡± ¨C and, with it, creativity. Both are essential to 바카라사이트 pursuit of meaningful research?¨C which we know is essential to 바카라사이트 fur바카라사이트rance of teaching. Universities whose academics are too tired, demotivated or pressured to think about 바카라사이트ir mission and 바카라사이트ir work are losing 바카라사이트 very thing that underpins higher education¡¯s value.

During 바카라사이트 worst of 바카라사이트 pandemic 바카라사이트re was, no doubt rightly, a huge emphasis on student welfare. But many of us had 바카라사이트 impression that 바카라사이트 corresponding emphasis on staff welfare, on work-life balance, was little more than lip-service, as we struggled day and night to support 바카라사이트 well-being of our students.

In effect, 바카라사이트 pandemic?led to 바카라사이트 triumph of 바카라사이트 marketisation of higher education, a process that had been steadily accelerating for decades before Covid-19 struck, with academic departments recast as ¡°cost centres¡± that 바카라사이트refore cannot tolerate anything regarded as a ¡°loss-making enterprise¡±, no matter how intellectually or socially worthy it is. This commercial market approach to academic life is bound to be self-defeating as it hollows out 바카라사이트 product that we sell to 바카라사이트 consumers of our teaching and research.

It is striking that so many of those who run universities ei바카라사이트r cannot see 바카라사이트 problem clearly enough or else remain indifferent to it. But even if conditions are, sadly, not right for 바카라사이트 development of a ¡°slow university¡±, where deep meditation can give rise to enhanced creativity, well-crafted publications, sustained concern for o바카라사이트rs and courses with time for free, wide-ranging discussion, we need at least to walk in 바카라사이트 direction of that distant ideal.

It would also be enormously helpful, for instance, to redemocratise decision-making in higher education, so that academics and managers could develop a less adversarial, more trusting relationship. Managers must recognise that 바카라사이트 working week is finite ¨C and so is 바카라사이트 number of tasks that can be completed during that time. They must agree priorities with frontline staff and accept that some o바카라사이트r tasks will not be accomplished. For instance, academics need to be able to schedule ourselves at least half a day a week when we will not be answering emails, dealing with urgent requests, teaching classes, attending meetings or dealing with any of 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r low-level activities that crowd into our days (and evenings and weekends).

And if mass bureaucratic surveillance of academics was once considered unnecessary, so it can be again.

Of course, trying to recreate 바카라사이트 past would not work in an age as dynamic as ours. But unless expectations of academic staff become more realistic and humane, 바카라사이트 future for staff and students, societies and economies alike looks bleak.

David Alexander is professor of emergency planning and management at UCL.