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Friday 27 April 2018

relationships in academia

Relationships of any kind can be tricky and complex at the best of times. In the university and academia more generally, the structural and organisational systems, that give life to ego-saturated status and rank  differentials, over and above the complexities of interpersonal interactions, make for a difficult terrain to navigate. I've learnt a number of hard lessons, bruising lessons about how this can play out over the last six months or so. And while living through this period, I suspect my immersion in the day-to-day specifics of 'who said what', and 'who did what to whom', and 'what does this mean' and 'how shall I respond', left me a bit blindsided and unable to appreciate a more helicopter-inspired perspective on - relationships in academia. Yesterday in some sort of strange way (no such thing as coincidence) I 'suddenly' caught a glimpse of this enriched vantage.

Two things happened - interlinked, implicated - at the level of both the concrete, the visceral. A reflective piece I co-wrote with LT was published and we decided to share it. So I was copied into an email that saw this piece travel across distant lands. I also heard of the death of a well respected, admired and beloved academic. We interacted with each other on many occasions in very collegial ways, and I am very familiar with, and have at times, extensively use her scholarship, but ours was never more than a professional relationship. I am however, privy, through my connections with colleagues who were very close to her, to their hugely meaningful and deep interpersonal relationships. And, yesterday to some of their heartfelt sadness and devastation because of their loss. Both these examples made me think anew about the relationships within the academy that I have been able to forge or those that have floundered or more dramatically, exploded. I wondered about the degree to which the academic setting acted against or contrived to scupper the chances of meaningful personal connection as we race to 'put ourselves out there' and gain academic recognition through primarily, the high stakes activities of publication and research outputs.

The reflective piece, which in many ways details an evolving friendship birthed in and through the university, and my second-hand insights into the multiple ways in which BL transcended the academic setting to nurture deeply meaningful and authentic interpersonal connections with many of her colleagues, draws attention to how relationships can be different in academia. Maybe I haven't realised it before, but these are the only kinds of relationships within academia I am keen to foster and give attention. It means that I have to personally act against the structural mechanism that pull me into viewing colleagues as adversaries or using my rank and status to undermine opportunities for meaningful connection with others. It also means I have to avoid situations and people who cant appreciate this way of doing relationships in the academy. Where I cant carefully avoid this (at least 60-70% of the time), I have to see it for what it is, disconnect and tell myself, 'this isn't for you Lynn, just try to be respectful and keep it strictly professional'. To Brenda, Hamba Kakuhle!

Thursday 19 April 2018

Cycling in Uppsala

I fell off my bike yesterday, not five-minutes after reflecting on my 'cycling capital' and recounting friends I know who also fell off their bikes and as a result needed plastic surgery. Luckily for me, I don't need plastic surgery - I came away with some bruises, scraps and a sore shoulder.

 BlĂ„senhus Building. 
the cocoa cha chi replacement
I'm not very good on a bike. I'm stiff and rigid. I can't handle going down hills and nervously approach traffic lights where I have to stop. Also I'm slow. So very slow. All manner of other cyclist whiz past me, the very young and the very old. They all seem so much more confident and adept at what they are doing, while my legs feel like I'm asking them to climb Mount Everest. But I'm in Uppsala and people (everyone!) cycles here. I want to fit in, so I cycle. To work, at the BlÄsenhus, or to the city and my new favourite coffee shop.
But I cycle on the wrong side of the cycling lane, I'm nervous about the cycling traffic, I jump traffic lights and I'm not very gracious when I get off the bike. Cycling is not as good for me as walking, because when I walk, I think; I process my thoughts, I talk to myself, I look around and take in the sights and I make sense of my thinking. When I cycle I'm just concentrating on how not to fall off the bike. But this is what I'm going to do for the next three months. I'm going to cycle - maybe I'll continue to be slow, so what. But I'm going to start wearing a helmet. Need to protect my head.

Friday 13 April 2018

the good ole days of being a new PhD student

Yesterday I attended a session in the Academic teaching training course run by the Unit for teaching and learning here at Uppsala University. It was the English course so filled with participants from across the globe who are spending an extended time at the university and have some teaching responsibility. All lecturers/academics at the institution are mandated to attend at least 10 weeks of training in university teaching and learning. And PhD students with teaching responsibility have to complete at least five weeks of training. So it happened that the majority of those in the course yesterday were PhD students.
I was immediately reminded of those early days at the OU and the PhD skills training we were required to attend. The people I met; the diverse, strange, opinionated and interesting characters who were for the most part hugely enthusiastic about their research and firmly believed they were the best and brightest and that their research were going to change the world. Looking back on that heady period in late 2008 and my fellow PhD students (I have a photo of the group somewhere), I realise what a wonderful, open time it was - almost filled with a optimistic sense of the intellectual and interpersonal possibilities that can exist when you bring together some twenty odd, relatively smart but very different people and ask then to engage and learn together.

Tuesday 10 April 2018

Visiting academic: Uppsala University, Sweden

It's 8:30am, it's 3 degrees and I'm on a bike cycling. First day in my Visiting Academic position at the division for Teaching and Learning at Uppsala University.

The view from my desk for the next two months might look a bit bleak at the moment, with leafless trees, but I have a desk, and internet access and a door pass, and free tea and fruit and a lovely open staff lounge area. I've met several of my 'new' Uppsala University colleagues, who joined in on a short informal chat in the lounge area. Very welcoming. Hopefully I will attend their current 'Academic Teacher Training' course which they run about six/seven times a term and I've been asked to do a short little input at their informal seminar sessions. Overwise I will be allowed to get on and write at my neat little desk, with just a glimpse of Uppsala castle in the distance through the window.
Uppsala Castle - the pinkish circular building behind the leafless tree