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

weary

It's that time of the year. Three more days to go before I am officially on leave. And I've taken to the departmental culture - so I've already downed-tools and been on a virtual go-slow since last week. No planning for 2015 - what needs to happen in 2015, can wait for 2015. I've tried to conjure up my energy and interest reserves, I've compiled lists of things to do, did some rudimentary weekly planning and made an attempt to clean my office, rearrange my filing and tell myself I need to write some reports, so that I can draw a neat line under 2014. But I'm not convinced that anyone will read the reports I write, so whenever the idea of writing the reports fills my consciousness, I quickly find something equally unproductive to do. All of this has significantly contributed to the weariness and general despondency filling me up. It doesn't help that my body-clock is also completely out of synch. I can't sleep at night, wake early, start to fade by lunch and can hardly keep my eyes open, let alone do anything that remotely requires some cognitive functions, then start to perk-up again by 3pm. Let the holidays come I say, because then if all of this is my daily reality (except of course the angst about writing a report), I can legitimacy say - its fine I'm on holiday, who cares.

balance?

Eventually equilibrium comes. At the start of the last week I decided I would write. I resolved to set aside whatever was happening at work and focus on my writing. And just after lunchtime on Monday, I was in my happy place at UCT and I think that set the tone for how I approached the rest of the week. I soon forgot the intensity of the feelings resulting from the events that caused my wobble. The issues -  gender discrimination, feeling undermined, disregarded in my professional space - have not gone away, and neither has my anger about how it insidiously creeps in and infects the 'ways things are done' in my department and institution. If anything I have resolved to consciously keep it on my agenda, to be vigilant and to be challenging. Sometimes people need to know that they have to display an appropriate degree of sensitivity to issues of diversity and discrimination and that not everyone buys in to a Victorian value system. And so it continues and in the continuing, often with the mundane and the everyday, that the humanity returns and in this I found that my validation (the validation and affirmation I seek) can come from many places. Often times there is enough elsewhere (like with  my friends, mentors, at conferences, seminars or research presentations) to go around to support and sustain me as I engage with those less engaging and enabling environments and/ or personalities.

and I knew I wasnt alone

Thanks to LR, who shared the following with me, http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/sexistsa-academic-spaces-are-far-from-safe/, my suspicion, that what I experienced last week is probably just the milder tip of a massive, menacing iceberg, was confirmed. Unfortunately, the student story captured above, makes my 'little rant' seem like a pleasant stroll on a Sunday afternoon. So proud to see that these women students are actively challenging the patriarchy and sexism they encounter within the SA university context, even though taking such an confrontational and oppositional stance, will probably  place them firmly in the firing line. Aluta continua!

wobble

At the beginning of the semester I was determined that my new positive attitude would rise above all the crappy institutional, departmental, personality-defined politics and culture I encountered. This past week threatened to seriously derail my plans. While I'm not 100% sure why this week, in particular, so threatened my new-found positive attitude, as the week unfolded, a series of events all conspired and quietly coalesced to once again force me to question why I work where I do, whether I want to continue to be there and why, in certain instances, I react so poorly at what I get confronted with.

Fortunately, I can answer the first two questions without flinching, but unfortunately, the answers will reveal a less than honourable or principled side to me. In many ways it was a slow build-up - little bits of things, possibly over many months, that unfortunately, depleted my tolerance levels. To my credit and maybe a testament to how my new positive attitude has actually changed how I deal with things, instead of highlighting my inadequacies or suggesting that somehow I'm at fault - the past week saw me confront, and challenge face on (sometimes), the insidious, patriarchal, sexist underbelly of the department and institution. Some examples from the past week to illustrate exactly how this plays itself out in my work space: Seeing myself and other female colleagues being relegated to the ones who arrange the catering and venues; Being summoned into a management meeting to 'recount' the logistical arrangements for a curriculum development workshop - even though the programme leader, for whom the workshop was devised and who was present in the meeting, was fully briefed on the what's and how's of the workshop; Witnessing how a senior female colleague was jokingly, invited to 'strut her stuff' on a imagined runway in a formal workshop venue; Then the final straw - when a member of the institutional executive management, with all seriousness, challenged an all women audience, at a women leadership in higher education meeting to interrogate 'What was wrong with women?' Would anyone challenge black academics to question 'What is wrong with black academics?' I wonder? I'm depleted, really. The fact that I was able to challenge and raised my voice to counter some of these viewpoints, almost feels insignificant.  I think the extent of discrimination, of all kinds, but especially towards women (both students and staff) within my working space and so reflecting the higher education sector in Cape Town (dare I say South Africa) and the arrogance of those who perpetuate it cannot be underestimated. But, I won't take it laying down and I won't be polite and intellectual about it either. So as we say here on the Cape Flats their 'ma se p$%*!

discernment

Earlier this week I was once again surprised by my poor level of discernment. I had signed-up for a ‘writing for publication’ training workshop run by our Research ‘promotion’ Department. Knowing who was running this course should already have kick-in my internal early warning system. But I wanted to challenge my own prejudices and remain open to the idea that I could learn from such an engagement even if the underpinning philosophy or pedagogy, guiding these types of skills & support courses, did not sit comfortably with my own views. Second warning bell sounded very loudly when I entered the workshop venue and found that the physical arrangements of the furniture and the state of the furniture itself was so poorly suited to ensuring that the budding academic writers would be able to sit comfortably and write for more than 10 minutes at a time. The final straw come after I had subjected myself to the first hours of the work and the facilitator started to ask different participants to read her slides aloud as a way of bringing some variation to the presentation.

To be fair – this kind of thing, where you get a generic, one-size fits all, laundry list of rules/conventions associated with being successful with your academic writing endeavours or journal writing, can be (is) beneficial to certain people. But, I need something more. My understanding of writing (all writing) as a deeply embedded social practice, means that I want an opportunity to discussion and share how issues of context, power, status, ideology, identity become infused, influence and shape the activities of trying to write an article for a journal. Instead of rules and regulations, there are principles and practices that have worked well for those more experiences. Sharing these, alongside the difficulties, challenges and pitfall can be a valuable way of building the confidence of the novice writer. Then, just creating a really comfortable, conducive space to simply write is equally beneficial. So this little event didn’t work for me, but I really should have shown better judgement in deciding to attend the event in the first place and trusted myself more. Yes discernment – I really should exercise some more of discernment, especially in the work context where it would definitely go along way in saving me some unnecessary irritation and precious time.

a PhD by another name

At the risk for coming across as a snob and slightly superior - I'm becoming increasingly annoyed when people, particularly at my institution, deliberately conflate a Dtech degree with a PhD. All of a sudden, despite prescriptions by national government that suggest the opposite, my institution appears to be offering PhDs. Colleagues I know who have completed or are completing their doctoral studies at our institution, talk about their PhDs. In our internal media publication this week, reference was made to systems being put in place to increase the amount of PhDs graduating from the institution. I read a draft of a journal article written by a recent institutional Dtech graduate, that blatantly referred to their study as a PhD research project. Surely all of this smacks of dishonesty. They know they aren't doing a PhD, nor did they graduate with a PhD and they know our institution doesn't offer PhDs. I'm all for recognising and acknowledging the merits of a particular qualification based on the defining parameters of that qualification, but when you pass one qualification 'off' as another, you inadvertently draw unnecessary attention to the quality, status and worth of the qualification being airbrushed away. The status of the replacement nomenclature becomes elevated, while that of real qualification diminished. Or maybe for the people doing it, they're actually hoping their Dtech qualification is conferred with the same status as the PhD.  Now it could be that the term PhD is the more common and familiar, so more likely to be in people's consciousness. But, the same could be said in other countries where PhDs and other professional doctorates make-up the qualification mix. Yet I've never heard an EdD mistakenly, or otherwise, referred to as a PhD in England. So is this parlance a South African phenomenon? And more importantly, why is this causing me so much irritation? Maybe underlying this little outpouring of irritability is a superiority complex which I should acknowledge. I don't really want my PhD conflated with a Dtech, thank you very much. Status, or rather the perceived deferential status of these two qualifications, is really at the heart of this (my) problem. But this conflation exercise, as I describe above, isn't doing anything to address the status inequality, rather I think it simply perpetuates it.

reclaiming my research day

At the institution and especially department where I work, there is this mythical thing called a research day. The institution, who is keen to show the outside world that it is serious about having a strong research culture and is supportive of its fledgling researchers, is keen in it's official discourse to acknowledge this thing called a research day. Once inside the department however, this 'thing' is more elusive. So I have a research day. But it's something that's said in a whisper and acknowledged almost half-halfheartedly - like some who smiles deceptively when they say 'sure everything is ok'. Since the start of the academic year all my other work and administrative responsibilities have all but swallowed my research day. I had hoped this special day would allow me to stay connected to all things conceptual and provide the antidote to the impoverish intellectual environment of my day-to-day work environment, where the concept of 'the academic' is a expletive concept at best. Today, however, I reclaimed my freaking research day - well almost. I went to work, but at 12 pm I left the building and came to sit in one of my favourite and productive places for all things academic. I managed to revise an abstract for a regional colloquium I'm involved in. Today I've also been reminded that I have to take charge of the pathway I want to construct for myself and if there are particular 'tools' at my disposal it's up to me to use them to service my own needs. But this attitude also requires strength of will, especially within the context of my current position, and I will have to work hard to keep my strength up.

a day of rest

During my PhD I had this unspoken rule that for at least one day in the week I would not work on my thesis. It was a rule I introduced to give myself the illusion of a breathing space, that would allow me to step away from the thesis that consumed my head, my being. I always imagined that I would never again be in a position where work would take over my life in this way. Now that I'm teaching again and trying to carve out a space to do writing work as well, I've quickly found myself in this position where the rules I applied to my PhD, especially about working on weekend, have been completely discarded. I'm working everyday of the week often until 10 pm at night and still not getting everything I need to do done. I keep thinking, as I did during my PhD, that I'm simply not using my time effectively. That I'm just inefficient. Unfortunately my default is always to blame myself, although I know a lot of the tensions I'm experiencing at the moment are reflected more deeply in how academic work is conceptualised in the vocational higher education sector in South Africa and the particular constraints I'm facing in my department. But on the face of things, I just cannot find more hours in the day to stay on top of all the tasks I need to do. And I'm becoming deeply resentful of how much of my supposedly free time I need give up to get my basic work-relate tasks done.I'd always imagined that working like this was reserved for my PhD and not my full-time job! At the moment I've basically abandoned any aspirations for writing this term and I'm deeply pissed off about it. I love being in the classroom again, I just wish there was a way that my teaching did not become the obstacle to my writing.

maybe it's not all in my head?

A friend sent me this link from THE about the complexities of being an academic in current times. I read it and breathed a sigh of relief - it's clearly not all in my head, these feelings of disconnection, dislocation, uneasy I feel about my place in the academic machine and in particular the department where I work. And as the weekend arrives, after a very disheartening engagement with my boss, where the realities of departmental priorities that so clearly seek to sideline and marginalise the positive contribution I was hoping to make, become abundantly clear to me, I'm relieved because of the perspective and possibilities my PhD experience has allowed me to see.

that gap between the past and the present

Because of the PhD studies I was effectively away from the institution where I work for five years. I'm realising that, the gap between 'the past' and 'the present' is where insincerity, insecurity and cowardice play. I've lost a history, an understanding of how things work and how they have developed and progressed in that five year gap. I'm not sure I can make it up. I'm trying - and I've decided to bring the PhD into service to help me overcome the problems presented by that gap - especially my own insecurities related to having lost my footing in the status and other hierarchies in the department. But equally interesting and sometimes difficult for me to handle are the insecurities and insincerity I encounter from colleagues, which I feel ill equipped to deal with because of the 'gap' burden. Often when I'm unable to 'deal' with what is thrown at me I interpret my response as cowardice - because I fail to act even when I know I should, and I appear, to myself anyway, to take the easy route and slip out of view.

I've been told that my position as Senior Lecturer (one I earned through the newly introduced Ad Hominen promotion system at my institution just before I left) means that I should take on an 'academic leadership' role with a portfolio of responsibility - just like the other Senior Lecturers in the department - all of whom were appointed to a specific administrative post like to this title. While this phrase 'academic leadership' is being used to position this role - especially for my benefit - I can't help feeling a hollowness, bordering on insincerity in how it is translated in practice. My reading of the sub-text implies that I'm not or haven't taken on and acted rightfully in my assigned position within the department (so I haven't shown academic leadership). However, nothing in how the department is currently structured has created the possibility for me to act or be seen to act in this position. I still haven't been asked to join the extended management meetings - so one of the technicians in our department has a permanent 'spot' on this forum, but not me. Of course my response - which has been not to explicitly highlight this omission to the powers is underpinned by a willingness to sit under the radar and smile almost cunningly knowing that I'm therefore not required to attend boring 3-4 hours meetings and thus allowed to write instead or get on with other more important academic 'stuff'. I'm complicit in my own invisibility while realising that just like I carry the burden of the gap in my history, the institution/department still operates very much in the past where leadership and seniority is also constructive in administrative terms - just like the technikon environment which is the ghost of our present institutional self. So they want to play the 'academic' game and seemingly talk the 'academic' language that might suggest they are in 'the game' but really do they really have any sense of what it is?