-----Original Message-----
From: Mannie Kusemamuriwo
Sent: 16 November 2004 14:07
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: EducationGuardian.co.uk: Cracks in the ivory towers
Mannie Kusemamuriwo spotted this on the EducationGuardian.co.uk site and
thought you should see it.
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Note from Mannie Kusemamuriwo:
Dear Colleagues,
Here's an article on stress that some of you might be interested in,
following the statutory requirements that have now been placed on
institutional practice to enable it to go beyond compliance, if it is to
be seen to be good institutional practice for all those who are employed
by our institutions.
Please feel free to contact me off list, if you need any further
assistance with this.
Regards
Mannie
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To see this story with its related links on the EducationGuardian.co.uk
site, go to http://education.guardian.co.uk
Cracks in the ivory towers
From outside, universities may seem like havens of calm and
civilisation, but an increasing number of academics are suffering from
work-related stress, and even bullying. Polly Curtis and John Crace
report
Polly Curtis and John Crace
Tuesday November 16 2004
The Guardian
There's a saying that if you think you're standing still, then you're
probably going backwards. If true, then the collective psyche of UK
academics may be in even worse shape than first thought. Six years ago,
Gail Kinman of the University of Luton produced her first survey into
stress and work-life balance in higher education, which revealed levels
of stress far in excess of most other professions. Today Kinman, with
Fiona Jones from Leeds University, publishes a report for the
Association of University Teachers, Working to the Limit, that shows
continuing cause for concern.
"I had rather expected that my 1998 findings would turn out to be a
blip," says Kinman. "Academics were then in the process of having to
adjust to changes in the system - increased bureaucracy and more
pressure both to extend student contact time and to get published - and
hadn't yet learned to cope with the pressure. I had imagined that
administrators and staff would have found a way to manage and improve
the system."
It hasn't quite turned out that way. Pressure to publish for the
research assessment exercise is still intense, and the focus on
undergraduate personal development planning continues to stretch the
working day to its limits. Meanwhile fixed-term contracts, threats of
redundancy, unsympathetic management styles and good old-fashioned
departmental back-stabbing keep the nights sleepless.
"There appears to be no consistency across universities," Kinman
continues. "Nearly half of all academics have no idea whether their
institution even provides stress management training, and the reported
levels of stress remain consistent with six years ago.
"Some things have even got worse. In 1998, 44% of respondents reported
that they had considered leaving higher education. This time round, the
figure has risen to 47%. We have no way of knowing just how many of
those who considered leaving in 1998 carried out that threat, but these
numbers cannot be good for the morale and health of the profession."
Kinman and Jones polled 1,100 academics and academic-related staff at 99
universities. Nearly half say they are constantly under strain, over
two-thirds (69%) say that they find their work stressful and 78% believe
that the status of their profession is in decline. Seventy-two per cent
of academics find that their first thought every morning is about work.
The list goes on and gets worse. Half show borderline levels of
psychological distress. Eight out of 10 say that as the result of that
stress they are tired even when they've slept; over half say they
experience headaches and 41% have trouble sleeping. One in five report
dizziness, heart pounding or skin rashes, which they put down to stress.
But there is a silver lining. University workers do feel they have a
choice in what they do at work and how they do it. Some 81% agreed with
a statement that said they had the possibility to "learn new things" in
their jobs. These are strong reasons for staying in the profession and
probably more like the image that outsiders have of universities.
Outside of these ivory towers, people are unsympathetic. The view of
universities is of the leafy campus and quiet library; places for
contemplation and debate, not nailbiting and backstabbing.
Schoolteachers, not scientists, have nervous breakdowns because of
workload; bully-boy tactics are rife in the stock exchange, not the
library. What on earth do academics have to be stressed about?
"Every job comes with its own internal psychological contract," Kinman
says. "The deal that most academics make with themselves when they enter
the profession is that they will be trading a lower salary for greater
autonomy and flexibility.
"When they discover that not only are the pressures as intense - if not
more so - than in other professions, but that much of their workload has
been reduced to bureaucracy, they feel cheated that the contract has
been violated. They are in effect mourning the loss of the job they
thought they had."
Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at
Lancaster University and a leading researcher into work-related stress,
says: "People have this view that academics are people who have long
holidays, teach a bit and then play with some research," he says.
"People don't have sympathy for us. They will have sympathy for doctors
and nurses. Who trains the doctors? We do. Who trains the nurses, the
social workers, the teachers? We do. Who trains all the people they
worry about? Us. These attitudes add to the problem. We don't perceive
ourselves to be valued."
Three-quarters of academics polled by the AUT said there had been a
decline in status for academic staff in the past five years.
Cooper says the near-epidemic levels of stress on British campuses can
be blamed on the pace of change. "The talk about mergers, the
downsizing, the restructuring, the 'take more students' demands are all
putting stresses and strains on people. Too much change can be the
move-maker for someone who's struggling."
The majority in the AUT survey blame stress levels on the lack of time
to prepare for lessons, classes that are too big and the massive
expansion of paperwork that has come with the stepped-up quality control
and monitoring systems.
Meanwhile, 90% say that the pressure to get their research published has
also increased. Some researchers say that this dichotomy between
research and teaching leaves them with a tough and career-debilitating
choice.
David Roberts (not his real name) is only 26, but he runs a research
team at a Russell Group university. He's exactly what the ageing
workforce needs, yet is considering leaving because he feels so torn
between teaching and research.
"There's disjunction between short-term targets - the marking of 60
dissertations or something - and doing research that will advance your
career. You're stressed by missing what you're meant to be doing in the
short term, then by the fact that you know your career is slipping away
from you.
"You either have to stand up to management or do their bit and see your
career suffering. I'm a young academic on a fixed-term contract. I need
to publish to get another job, or have this job go permanent."
At the heart of it, he says, is the research assessment exercise, the
government's tool for making universities compete for cash to fund their
research. Individual departments' research income is based on the number
of papers their people have published. If you're not publishing, you're
a liability, even if you're busy with other things. Like, for instance,
teaching.
"The vice-chancellor says we're a research-led university, but we're
doing that in our spare time because teaching in itself is a full-time
occupation," says Roberts, who is looking for a new job. He's thinking
of leaving the Russell Group after he approached one former polytechnic,
which told him his workload would be half the number of students he
currently works with.
Roberts talks in a resigned, disappointed fashion. But others are angry
with their bosses, the vice-chancellors and even the government for
allowing their workload to spiral out of control.
Andy Robinson is in charge of the student administration office at Queen
Mary, University of London. He says he's struggling to keep the
university's record system afloat as the pressures pile on: increasing
accountability, different types of learning and marking, more overseas
students and more plagiarism, and a creaking computer system. "I have
seen this place go down the tubes," he says. "Trying to get 50% of young
people into HE is farcical. It puts pressure on institutions.
"I'm furious that I can't do my job properly. My appraisal was one of
the most negative experiences in my life because the targets I had set
myself in the one previously were unattainable. No matter what I want to
do, I can't take it forward. I used to enjoy my job, I think it is a
worthwhile job to do, but I think there are so many ways we could do
this better."
Joanna Bryson is a computer scientist who has worked in three Ivy League
institutions in the US and is now settled in Bristol. She is at the
other end of the paper trail. "The major source of frustration is the
lack of administration - secretarial resources are seen as something
that can be cut here. People do their own photocopying. In America,
there tends to be a secretary for every two or three professors," she
says.
Bryson worked in financial services in Chicago before becoming an
academic. "The thing I like best about industry is that when you go home
it's over," she remembers. "But in academia there's always more work you
could be doing, a lecture to write or a paper to research."
The AUT research found some worrying issues concerning work-life
balance. The boundaries between home and work in the life of the
academic are wafer-thin - even more so if, like 20% of those polled, you
live with another academic. On average, a quarter of academics' working
life happens at home. Some 10% of academics check their email five times
a day at home. Many people appreciate this flexibility in working, but
not when those hours are in excess of a full working week in the office.
Those who did manage to separate their home and work lives were less
likely to be suffering from stress.
What it seems the university workforce is desperate for, in an age of
the RAE, soaring student numbers, shifting structures and the blurring
of their working lives into their home life, is a damn good manager. And
that's what they say they aren't getting in universities.
Eva Berglund quit a University of London anthropology department, and
academia altogether, because of the "big egos and bad morale". The
culture was unbearable. "There's an institutional sense of nobody
trusting you, and you have to create a paper trail, which makes you feel
under surveillance. You have no power to do anything if the feedback is
bad."
What runs through the AUT report is a strong sense of a huge divide
between them and us. People are generally happy with their colleagues -
57% report that they are "satisfied" with the people with whom they work
on the same level. But that figure decreases as you go up the career
ladder: a third are dissatisfied with their immediate bosses and 56% are
unhappy with the support they receive from senior managers. Some 73%
disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement "management has
become more sensitive to the needs of academic staff".
Sue Blackwell, an AUT representative at Birmingham University, who
herself has suffered from stress and now counsels other members, says
that managers in any other organisation are employed because they are
good with people. But this doesn't happen in universities. "People take
these jobs because they want to do teaching and research, they then get
promoted to management, for which they are not trained or experienced,"
she says. "They are promoted because they have a lot of publications,
because that's what counts. But they are not necessarily good at dealing
with people as human beings."
Good management is more than a cup of coffee, a shoulder to cry on and a
few touchy-feely words of comfort. Fiona Jones suggests that a useful
starting point in alleviating stress would be a clarification of just
what is and isn't expected of staff.
"There needs to be much more realistic expectations of what is
possible," she says. "Universities want their staff to become far more
visible within the department, to be available at all times for
students. But this is clearly incompatible with the more invisible,
contemplative demands of research. There needs to be a clear division of
time: employers can't just have it both ways."
Both authors are anxious that the report should be considered
constructive rather than antagonistic. "One does need to be careful
about how the findings are presented," says Kinman. "We don't want
academics to come across as a bunch of moaning minnies. It's as
important that staff understand the pressures of management's job as
vice versa."
Kinman's concerns may be groundless. Most employers recognise that
stress is a critical issue. "Stress is stress - regardless of the causes
or whether it's perceived or actual," says Matt Grainger, communications
adviser for the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (Ucea).
"Universities are committed to providing support to staff."
The backbone of this support will be the release of new guidelines to
update the 1999 publication, Dealing with Stress. "It would be wrong to
pre-empt the new report," says Clive Parkinson, health and safety
adviser for the Ucea, "but it's safe to assume that the review will be
based on pilot studies of stress-management schemes in universities,
such as Birmingham, and the six stress standards published recently by
the Health and Safety Executive.
There's no doubting the sincerity of the commitment, but the fact is
that any guidelines will remain just that. Guidelines. There are no
statutory demands on any employer, so inevitably provision is likely to
be at best inconsistent and at worst non-existent.
The situation is far from ideal. Even so, as Kinman points out, there's
still plenty of room for the situation to get worse.
"With the introduction of top-up fees," she says, "students are likely
to become even more demanding and vociferous consumers. They will expect
even more from their academics."
Don't say you haven't been warned.
Stress by numbers
69% of academics and academic- related staff agree or strongly agree
with the statement "I find my job stressful"
66% claim to work more than 45 hours a week
65% had too much paperwork
57% are "satisfied" with colleagues on same level
56% are unhappy with the support they receive from senior managers
47% have considered leaving higher education
41% have trouble sleeping
45% would not be able to discuss problems of stress with their senior
managers
38% can cope with the demands of the job
37% were happy with the quality of their research
32% had enough time to prepare for their classes
21% claim to work more than 55 hours a week
18% had experienced bullying at work
Source: Association of University Teachers
· Association of University Teachers' stress helpline: 0870 6061407
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
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