‘A shrinkage is taking place,’ says Ding! co-founder Phil Gomm. Then, warming to his theme: ‘There’s an extinction event going on.’ And if, as he suggests, ‘you look at all the reports and if you look at the mood music, and the hostile environment that’s being generated around HE’, you’ll probably have to agree with him (Ding webinar, ‘Reframing Expertise, 9.8.24).
A number of universities are pulling departments; there’s talk of institutions going to the wall before the 2024 intake have finished their degrees; and some 40% will have budget deficits at the end of the year, according to the Office for Students.
The impact of uncertainty
Many academic staff will be waiting anxiously for news of potential cuts and/or wondering how they might manage after the cuts. They probably won’t be operating with any usefully stored bounce either: over the years, staff mental health in HE has been declining – in what Liz Morrish (2019) and others describe as a ‘toxic culture’.
Pre-pandemic, ‘43% of academic staff exhibited symptoms of at least a mild mental disorder … nearly twice the prevalence of mental disorders in the general population’ (Gorczynski, 2018, cited in Morrish, 2019:16); and in 2021, Wray and Kinman say the figure for academic staff reporting probable depression was 53%. No one is suggesting signs of any improvement.
The challenge of leaving Higher Education
Throughout the early 21st century, damaged academic staff have reported – in large numbers – that they have been thinking of leaving HE. However, in most cases, they don’t leave unless they’re pushed. One reason for this may lie in the vocational nature of the profession. A survey respondent (Watermeyer et al., 2024) says, ‘Academia is a vocation and largely tied to a sense of identity for many. This is, I think, largely what makes it hard to leave; people become institutionalised and can’t imagine another life.’ Watermeyer at al. go on:
‘For some, leaving academia will be a process of bereavement and recovery from lost and/or dismembered identity that demands a reimagining and reconstruction of the self … easier to entertain a denial of self than its total abandonment.’
Many may feel that, like Phil Gomm when he jumped the HE ship: ‘HE had made me feel deskilled … my usefulness was in a very small space … a box.’ And it’s not: ‘You have more in your toolbox,’ he says, ‘than you can possibly imagine.’
Reframing your expertise as learning design
He tells an early post-exit story of stumbling towards Amnesty International’s offices on leaden feet, weighed down by a newly-acquired tag, ‘Communications Consultant’ – and an unnamed problem he had been conscripted to solve. Three or four minutes into discussions, he realised he had all the tools he needed from his experiences of aligning teaching and learning, creating slide decks, timetabling (‘a 3D game of chess’), rapid rethinking after sudden restructuring and, crucially, ‘thinking from the learner’s perspective, the user, the human being’. His inhibiting title had been a red herring. Since then, he says,
‘when I’ve taken the fancy dress off a new challenge, clothes that I do not recognise, I think, “You know what? It’s another one of those jobs”.’
And the umbrella name for those jobs is ‘learning design’. Lecturers are doing it all the time; they just don’t call it that. And anyone who found themselves adapting to an online teaching and learning life during Covid, ensuring their sessions still worked for all their learners, will have been asking most – if not all – the good questions that a learning designer might ask.
So, if you find your department has shrunk to nothing or you finally really do need to leave, remember this: ‘You have more in your toolbox than you can possibly imagine.’
Be kind to yourselves
For those who remain in HE: above all, be kind to yourselves. Wray and Kinman (2021) say ‘36% of academic staff “always” or “almost always” neglect personal needs due to work demands’, yet evidence suggests that students’ motivation and results depend hugely on how staff are feeling: ‘staff stress is predictive of student academic outcomes and correlates with poorer effective learning and reduced motivation’ (Zhang and Sapp, 2008).
For the sake of your students at the very least, then, give up the role of burning martyr and maybe start thinking along these lines:
- There’s always more work than there are hours available, so make sure you schedule time to do the stuff that matters to you.
- Think creatively about what you cut, how you shave time. Trust the decisions you make.
- Look after your colleagues; create community.
- Believe you can make a difference.
- Go for walks regularly. Rebrand walking as thinking time. You’ll feel better and be more productive.
(From Reeves, Houghton and Martin: Ramblings 2021)
Recommended reading
Oppezzo, M. and Shwartz, D. (2014) ‘Give your ideas some legs: the positive effect of walking on creative thinking’ Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. 40(4), 1142-1152
White, M., Alcock, I., Grellier, J., Wheeler, B., Hartig, T., Warber, S., Bone, A., Depledge, M. and Fleming, L. (2010) ‘Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing’ Scientific Reports, 9: 7730
Williams, M. and Penman, D. (2011) Mindfulness: a practical guide for finding peace in a frantic world London: Piatkus
Wood, A., Joseph, S. and Maltby, J. (2008) ‘Gratitude uniquely predicts satisfaction with life: incremental validity above the domains and facets of the Five Factor Model’ Personality and Individual Differences. 45: 49-54
Bibliography
Ding! webinar, ‘Reframing Expertise: creative solutions for sector challenges’ (9.8.24)
Kinman, G., Jones, F. and Kinman, R. (2006) The Well-being of the UK Academy, 1998-2004.Quality in Higher Education, 12:1, 15-27
Morrish, L. (2019) Pressure Vessels: The epidemic of poor mental health among higher education staff. HEPI Occasional Paper 20
Watermeyer, R., Bolden, R., Knight, C. and Crick, T. (2024) Academic anomie: implications of the “great resignation” for leadership in post-COVID higher education. Higher Education
Wray, S., and Kinman, G. (2021). Supporting Staff Wellbeing in Higher Education. Education Support. Education Support.
Zhang, Q., and Sapp, D. (2008). A burning issue in teaching: the impact of perceived teacher burnout and nonverbal immediacy on student motivation and affective learning. Journal of Communication Studies, 1, 152–168.
You might also like:
- How to (actually) widen participation in higher education
- Increasing belonging through course design
- How slow looking improves learning
Thank you to:
- Ray Martin for researching and preparing this article
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