#12 ‘Working’ from home

Once the academic realised that they had roughly 5 hours per week of actual ‘face time’ and the rest was fairly discretionary, a beautiful plan was set in motion.

Talk to an academic and you will hear no end of its demanding work schedule.  The punishing routine of standing in front of a disinterested group of people and prattling for 1.5 hours apparently requires preparation and concentration similar to that of a bank heist.  Irrespective of the fact that they have taught the topic several times previously and not changed the syllabus at all.  Also, best to leave out the fact that the assessment (usually two or three times at most during the semester) is generally marked by others and hasn’t really changed much either.

A distressingly plausible scenario

The academic will argue that its ‘best work’ gets done away from all of these irritatingly measurable outcomes.  Research, it will suggest, gets done while working from home.  Now, for most people, working at home is a euphemism for masturbation.  But, for the academic, it is so much more than that.

An opportunity to avoid meetings, not respond to emails, and watch The West Wing.  But also, freedom.

The academic will fiercely guard its right to work off campus.  Insistent that its ‘most productive’ time is whilst off campus.  However, this claim is difficult to empirically examine.  Particularly when offered feeble evidence such as, ‘I have really crystallised my thinking on a working paper’ or ‘It gave me time to think about where to position my latest research.’

If you ask about USA political policy during the late 1990s, the academic will be oddly knowledgeable and perhaps mention the names Bartlett, Lyman (or indeed, Rahm Emanuel), and then lament the lack of moral leadership apparent in politics during the early-2000s.  And that’s what working from home is really about, isn’t it?  A chance to be yourself and laugh misanthropically when students email pleading for some consultation during non-posted-office hours.  And get paid a full salary, obviously.

#11 Rankings

Every year, the academic is held in a state of anxiety and anticipation, like a tween at a Justin Bieber concert.  University rankings are about to be released.  This is the Higher Education equivalent of a beauty pageant, and the swimsuit section was too close to call.

Rankings are an unusual beast.  Despite some universities (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale) being a constant fixture, like Venezuela and Brazil in the Miss Universe, there is always anticipation to see if they’ve moved one place.  Much less anxiety is generated by the remaining 99.5% of universities, which are the only ones with cause for surprise at any rankings movement whatsoever.

It is a boon for those in the top 100 overall and top 10/20 by region.  However, those in this category were virtually assured of their victory.  Rankings are most meaningful for those who will face some disappointment.  For those south on the rankings list, it is time for vicious and bitter reprisals.  These usually come along the lines of methodology (“the use of papers per academic favours the physical over social sciences, where [my university] is much stronger!”), politics (“the high weightings on reputational factors leaves the system open to political manoeuvrings!”) or anomalies (“University X is a dog.  How did we get ranked lower?”).  Some will even write fierce rebuttals, but these obviously won’t be published anywhere.  If these academics could get their arguments published anywhere worthwhile, they wouldn’t be in this problem in the first place.

Those in the non-academic world do not appreciate the highly-charged nature of the rankings season.  Much existential musing occurs during this time, like in a David Lynch film.  Some have even detailed Faculty’s responses to the boon/crisis of University rankings. Ultimately, it is fairly misrepresentative for an academic to claim anything other than good fortune from the rankings.  Individuals have spectacularly little weight in overall rankings.  But there’s no shame in claiming victory for the team win, even if you were benched for most of the game.

Whether in a good spot (or bad), the academic does love to muse over the judiciousness ( or blatant unfairness) of the rankings.

The in:  Relative to where the academic’s institution is ranked, ask what they thought of the rankings.  If good, agree that it seemed fair and cite the consistent place in the rankings over the past few years as evidence.  If bad, mention that if less reputational effects had been used, the outcome would be completely different.  Let the academic weep into your shirt.  Pat them on the back and tell them it will be OK.

#10 Pretending to Be Able to Get a Job Elsewhere

The academic feels as though its vastly superior intelligence and esoteric skills should be much more rewarded than with a 30-week working year and 4-hour days.  Whenever the academic feels as though he or she is being unappreciated, immediate threats of finding a job elsewhere will follow.

"And my citations in 2009 are here"

Despite work in academe being, by definition, incompatible with work in industry, the academic will suggest otherwise.  The academic will often suggest that his or her talents are wasted in education.  Despite having limited organisational skills, sense of practicality and hygiene, the academic will often suggest that it would, in fact, flourish in an industry environment.

Some academics even have ‘industry’ or ‘private practice’ experience that they can draw on for comparisons.  If you wander the hallowed halls, you may hear, ‘I would never have put up with this when I was an analyst/advisor/specialist in [large corporation]!’  This claim will often be about having to re-fill the paper tray in the photocopier.

The academic will rarely, if ever, actually pursue the option of employment elsewhere.  Getting a job in private practice/industry often seems attractive because it would offer a better salary and a personal staff.  However, on an hourly basis, the academic would probably be somewhat worse off.  The academic is gravely aware of this.  Despite the petulant threats of going off to industry, the academic is aware that it probably would not be able to get away with an 11 a.m. start time most days of the week.

Further, the academic has become accustomed to a certain standing in social relations.  Vaguely aware that you cannot threaten to fail customers or team members, the academic privately fears it would not be suited to the working environment of most government or private industry organisations.

The in:  Whenever a more successful academic or a practitioner is mentioned in conversation, say that you feel grateful that you have been taught by academics who have put aside their personal needs for a greater good.  Emphasise that good academics have many opportunities elsewhere, but are committed to educating others and forego personal gain.  Mention that you think that [industry] would be a lot better off if more people shared this community mindedness.  Smile admiringly at the academic.  You’ll probably end up on the Dean’s List.

#9 Summer

The academic, like Danny & Sandy, loves summer

While the academic is pale, pasty, and a natural enemy of sunlight, it sure does enjoy several months without having to teach.  As summer comes to an end in the Northern hemisphere, it is worth putting aside a few silent moments to mourn the passing of the best thing about having an academic job: not having to do much, if any, work for about 2-3 months of the year.

Regular people, those without 8+ years of post graduate education, will balk at the idea of teaching approximately 30 weeks of a 52 week year and referring to said employment as ‘full-time’ or even ‘a real job.’  Nonetheless, the academic has many defences to this ignorant observation:

• Face to face class time is only half of what is involved in teaching when you include curriculum design, marking, preparation, administration, etc.
• Only some of an academic’s work is teaching.  The rest is research.  Research is most productive when non-interrupted, hence the need for a few months away from teaching activities.
• That teaching a full-time load often involves more than a full-time job so the summer months are used to recharge psychic batteries.

Realistically, none of these are true.  The academic really just wants a few months to work less than the usual four hours per day, and maybe to get through the full series of The West Wing.

One of the best opportunities to see this in play is watching academics meeting up when classes return.  They will often ask each other how the summer was spent, and answer with a vague reference to conferences, intensive data collection or analysis, and President Bartlett.

The in: If you are ever in the awkward situation of having to deal with or defend an academic during the summer months, be sure to show your sympathy.  If their honour is questioned, just come to their rescue by invoking the only lazier profession: teachers.  Remind the accuser that teachers do not even have research requirements, yet get several term/semester breaks and summer off.  Also repeat any of the arguments bullet-pointed above.  One or two will usually suffice.  The academic will thank you for your understanding of the many pressures of academic work.  Then will then drive home, change into pajamas, and watch The West Wing.

#8 Providing Ill-Informed Opinions

The academic does not want fame and fortune.  It is a noble creature living with austerity.  Yet, it does want fame and fortune.  If only a little bit.

The opportunity for this is extremely limited.  The academic is barely noticed by people who pay thousands of dollars a year to sit in its class.  Yet, occasionally, the academic’s obscure area of interest becomes topical in the broader media.  At this time, with some cajoling from the in-house marketing manager, the academic decides to release a statement in support or criticism of a policy.

Deep down, the academic expects that the response will be uniform approval.  The academic dreams of political and economic leaders citing the piece in their arguments.  The statement will possibly lead to a consulting position and riches beyond the academics’ wildest dreams.  Possibly enough to pay off the second-hand Toyota.

Ultimately, however, most academics are undone by their own brilliance.  Believing themselves to be near infallible, they make some generalisations.  Broad, sweeping, ‘unforeseen’ statements are the kind of things that draw attention and, obviously, admiration.  However, the academic has not taken into account the problem of interest groups.  The academic is used to facts and scientific rigour.  Interest groups are often staffed by bat-shit-crazy loons with no regard for either.  Armed with fax machines and only a passing knowledge of grammar, interest groups blast the academic for their cavalier statements.

The academic is  wounded and retreats back to its natural habitat.  The most vitriolic thing that happens there is a journal article rebuttal.  These are generally published several months apart.

The in: Ask the academic if they’ve heard about [insert recent commentary remotely relating to their research topic].  Even if they haven’t, they will feign knowledge of it.  Tell them that you think the response by [attack group] was outrageous and didn’t demonstrate any of the rigour that the academic did.  Ask the academic for their position on the matter.  Undoubtedly, you will receive favourable grades.

#7 Rap Battles

Professor of Dope Beats . . . and Mathematics

Inspired by the life and times of Tupac Shakur, the academic is keen to defend its turf and trash those who dis’ its homies.  Practically, however, this is difficult.  The academic certainly doesn’t use weapons and generally loses consciousness at the sight of any bodily fluids.  Notwithstanding, the rage it feels when faced with disrespect is unbridled and epic, like an Eminem ballad.  The academic’s response?  A bad-ass press release.

Attacks on academics happen fairly often.  Andrew Bolt – an exemplar of conservative, reasoned commentary and good humour – is forever bitching about how academics are all left-wing, soft-headed wastes-of-resources.  Most academics ignore him but buy The Age just to spit on his column.  Some write incredibly detailed and mind-numbing analysis of his position.  That certainly shows him.

All too often, there are academic vs. academic battles launched via the press.  A reporter will ask a typically asinine question and an academic will respond with contempt, oversimplifying the issue.  Another academic will then call them out on  it and the battle shall begin.  This tends to happen with popular topics, such as technology or the economy.

Occasionally, more noteworthy opponents rise to the challenge.  Recently, a Saudi official suggested that Australian universities – with the exception of the Go8 – were probably a bit shit.  While this is certainly known and, indeed, entirely accepted within Australia, it hurt to have a foreigner pick it up so quickly.  Peter Coaldrake, Vice-Chancellor of one of the ‘shit ones’, rapped out a stunning defence noted for both its eloquence and catchy tune: “all Australian universities/ are tightly regulated/ and must adhere to a rigorous/ regulatory and auditing regime/ which ensures that the standards/ of education/ across all universities/ in Australia/ are maintained at a superior level.”  He didn’t need to add “. . . bitch” to prove his point.  The beat-boxing did that for him.

Update: Sometimes academics rise to the occasion and defend their peeps.  Often this is encouraged when someone makes a suspicious claim backed up by evidence using totally appalling methodology.  The academic then dissects their position and shows everyone that the initial claim was retarded.  Some would think that this is mean and childish, but it is fun.

The in: you don’t want to engage the academic in a rap battle with yourself.  Heavens no.  Imagine the saliva.  Instead, bring with you a metaphorical straw man.  The Saudi guy is a good one.  Ask the academic what he or she thinks of the recent controversy around the issue.  If he or she is finding it hard to respond, use words like ‘accreditation,’ ‘relative standards,’ and ‘lack of contextual understanding’ as prompts.  The academic will eventually leap into action and tell you about a press release/opinion piece they are thinking of writing on the topic.  Pretend to listen intently.  You will be assured good marks.

#6 Hating Practitioners

The academic likes nothing more than to see its lesser counterparts fail.  This is an important theme in the academic’s life narrative.  The academic is brilliant, but noble.  It has made sacrifices and suffered for its art.  It is a defender of the faith of [insert totally irrelevant discipline here].  To defend something it loves – or at least profits from – it has to keep it away from the common people and lesser counterparts.  The academic considers practitioners of its discipline to be amongst the biggest offenders of the ‘lesser counterparts’ group.

Psychologists hate self-help books, organisational theorists hate manager’s-how-to-guides, literature majors hate bestselling fiction authors, and economists hate get-rich-quick books.  There is debate about whether the hatred is because of (i) the popularisation of the discipline making it cheap, tawdry, and accessible in paperback format; or (ii) the fact that practitioners earn about 350% more than the average academic working in the same discipline.  Potentially, a lethal combination of the two.

Interestingly, this is a one-way loathing.  Practitioners are often completely unaware of academics.  Most practitioners actually do stuff and don’t think about the etymology of terms and epistemological struggles that must have taken place for a concept to become common enough to reach their philistine minds.  This only makes the academic pink with pale, whiny rage.  Practitioners inhabit a curious ontological space where academics are like elves and principled liberals – nonexistent.

The in: talk to the academic about an assignment topic.  Inevitably, there will be some popular press you can draw in.  Try emotional intelligence, freakonomics, Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, or something equally asinine.  Feign effrontery about class/group members trying to reference the offending practitioner in their assessment.  Ask the academic, ‘Surely we can only use peer-reviewed sources?’  The academic will most likely say that non-peer-reviewed sources are unacceptable, but not ideal.  The real reason for this is that academics can’t be bothered taking 20 minutes to explain the difference between peer-reviewed sources and non-peer-reviewed sources and how to find the former.  The academic will hint that an essay/assignment that critiques popularist views would be well received.

In your assessment, reference a popularist and suggest that they have not paid careful attention to the development of the concept or tests of its validity.  Throw in a token reference, ideally a meta-analysis or conceptual review.  You will be assured good marks.

#5 Defining their uninteresting research area as niche

The academic is a very territorial creature.  Try showing a passing interest in something close to its topic and the academic will spend a great deal of psychic effort to prove to you that it knows far more than you do. While not finishing the sentence with, ‘How d’you like me now, bitch?’ that is exactly what the academic is thinking.  There is no time that this primal urge is more present than when an academic must explain his or her research area.  Unlike most professions, which value skills and knowledge in a range of functional areas, academe prefers its inhabitants to show their cleverness by exhibiting savant-like knowledge of an exclusive and extraordinarily uninteresting area.

Somewhere, someone is researching the dental characteristics of this particular animal

Why would you research something like body image?  Why indeed, when there are alternatives like body image in pre-pubescent hemaphrodites in South-West Micronesia?  Why something as broad as history?  Certainly not, when you could choose oral histories transmitted through matriarchal social groups in outer Inuit territories?  By making the pool of relevance small enough, the academic is able to claim that it knows everything about this field.  Sure.  Who is going to argue with them?

The clever academic will go a step further, and fashion all of its research around one specific and painfully dull area.  That way, it can claim it produces the “most-cited” research in the area.  Also, that it publishes in “top-tier” journals.  If your interests are specific enough, such as weevil extermination technologies and traditions in Scandinavia during the Dark Ages, there is likely to be only one totally suitable outlet for publication.  Hence, it is top-tier.

The in: this is one of the most difficult areas to traverse.  If you suggest that you didn’t even know that research area existed, the academic will be offended that you think it is trivial.  If you say you knew the research area existed and have read about it, the academic will be offended that you think it is common.  The best approach is to listen – patiently – as the academic tells you about the most mind-numbing details of its methodologies.  Try to stay awake, nod, and occasionally say, ‘I had never thought of it that way before.’  When there is a suitable pause in the conversation, ask the academic if he or she has a research group in the University are are they considering applications for graduate study.  You will be assured good marks.

#4 Passing off appalling fashion sense as eccentricity

The academic is especially clever and wants you to know it.  However, the academic is far too crafty to deliver this with a lack of subtly, such as with a promotion, good teaching evaluations, or by authoring a seminal article.  No, siree.  The academic seeks to demonstrate their uniqueness and coolness by being above all of those ‘obvious’ things.  The best way to do this is to dress like a psychiatric patient or a homeless person.

Somewhere, this man is grading others on a criteria of 'appropriateness'

Non-conformance is a prized trait amongst academics.  Anyone seen as following the pack in trends is considered not to have made a well-thought-out, painstakingly dull decision.  Showing that you are outside the mainstream shows that you are more intelligent that the mainstream.

A combination of Hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts, and an ankle-length black trench coat might make you think, ‘Does this lunatic have a hunting knife strapped to their thigh?’ but the academic would want you to see through this.  You might think that a beige sundress with mustard stains indicates a lack of grooming, but, instead, the academic is signifying that they have more pressing matters and are above these superficial concerns.

The in: Just don’t tease an academic about looking absurd.  That’s the most they could hope for.

#3 Using ‘Dr’

The academic has been through many years of grueling study, some of it requiring more than 4 hours per day of work.  Not content with merely getting a well-paying job requiring only 3 hours per day of work during the teaching term, the academic wants more.  By possessing a Doctorate of Philosophy, the academic justifies having everyone else refer to him or her as ‘Dr.’

The term ‘Dr’ has often been reserved for those who are, well, Doctors, often of Medicine.  The test used by most of the public is ‘Can this person prescribe me drugs that are addictive?’  If the answer is no, generally the person should not use the term ‘Dr.’  However, the academic, upon graduating, will change their official titles on all of their credit cards, banking, and insurance documents, and especially for family and social contacts.  Particularly so when arriving for flights, the academic will check themselves in as ‘Dr.’  This is often in the vain hope of a free seat upgrade.  This is actually an act of bravery, as the academic deeply fears someone having a heart attack mid-flight and the crew dramatically pleading, ‘Is anyone on board a doctor?’  To which the only honest replies could be, ‘Technically,’ or ‘of Philosophy, yes!’

Caped crusader of a different kind

The only thing that the academic hates about the term ‘Dr’ is when it is conferred on someone as an honour.  Yes, honourary doctorates to academics are like the Ebola virus to immune systems.  Not good.  The academic hates that someone could get a doctorate just for service to the community.  It wants doctorates limited to a select group of people who are willing to give up social contact and basic hygiene to write a thesis of at least 80,000 words.

The in: You will need to show the academic that you respect their designation.  When communicating in writing, always address the academic as Dr (or Professor, whichever is technically more correct).  If you are given the opportunity, engage the academic in a discussion about an honourary doctorate recipient, indicating that you are interested in their formal training.  The academic will point out that this person is not a researcher; that their title is honourary.  Ask the academic what this means and follow by feigning outrage.  Suggest something along these lines: ‘I know Maya Angelou is a respected poet and has done a bit for human rights, but if she isn’t prepared to put in the hard yards and do some coursework and a thesis, I don’t think she should be able to call herself ‘Dr.’  Don’t you think so?’  The academic will give a vague and diplomatic reply, but will most certainly think you are absolutely correct.  You will be assured excellent marks.