Today’s blogpost is something of a personal reflection on how academics can both protect themselves and ultimately flourish in what has become a sometimes hostile work environment that grates against the ideals of academic freedom, nurturing student potential through teaching excellence and contributing research excellence. This post was prompted following an exchange I witnessed on social media about the deification of the self care narrative as a solution to systemic inequalities, overwork, understaffing and a diminution of the academic mission as most academics see it.
Disclaimer: this is not an apology for a broken system
In the last few years before Covid, the self-care narrative was predominant in Universities. Over Covid, it has merely increased 100-fold, but it is not a new tune. Let me be clear what I mean: staff survey reports chronic overwork, unequal workloads, understaffing, an obsession with metrics that actually creates bad teaching, a dilution of academic autonomy and overbearing micro managing administration. Solution: here are some lunchtime yoga classes - do your downward dog daily and everything will be well. Obviously this is not something I am on board with - who can be? The problem and solution are unmatched. If the staff survey had proposed a universal condition of stiffness and bad backs, then the free downward dog would indeed be helpful. Alas, the cure and the disease remain strangers, not even kissing cousins. This kind of management response to systemic problems of overwork and inequality is rightly derided as a hollow gesture. It is gaslighting on a massive scale. Because the problem is money and inequity and they won’t spend money - Universities are in the money making business, not the money spending business - or solve the inequality that pervades all of academia. Downward dogs are cheap. This is the system: by all means, join a Union and fight the good fight. But what to do in the meantime before the revolution?
Uncomfortable truths
Any suggestion that there might be some strategies that the individual could adopt immediately becomes tainted by this yoga infused self-care narrative associated with downward dog solutions. Should anyone suggest to you that actually there are things YOU can do for yourself to survive and thrive in this broken system, they somehow become management stooges. This is unfair, frankly naive, and also, totally inaccurate. In fact, holding tight to that attitude - that the only way is universal overthrow and there is nothing anyone can do for themselves - actually perpetuates this current configuration of academia as we bend and comply and keep on propping it up whilst being convinced the revolution will come and save us. In the meantime, we keep on doing the work of ten men. Literally. And the meantime goes on and on and on and on and on and on….
When someone is looking for help with how to navigate this new-old University world, a coach can step in to help you. They do not tell that person to join a Union - systemic change is not the goal here - individual survival is. Immediacy is important for someone on the edge. Tangible results. Something they have individual control over. The truth is there are ways of being and doing academia that allows you to have a good career and a stable work life balance, but part of that solution is not constantly waiting for that magical systemic change to come around whilst holding onto debilitating beliefs that served you well in before times. The solution is to navigate better through the system that you are currently working in whilst ensuring you look after your mental and physical well-being.
These are treacherous waters and you need a new compass, a new way of thinking, and doing, academia.
changing belief systems
One of the things you can start to do for yourself is review your belief systems. We come into academia thinking it is one thing, and it has turned out to be something else. Perhaps when you came into academia is really was that thing - although I am suspicious of the good old days narrative - but that is not the reality anymore. When you start to see things as they are, rather than how you would like them to be, it is the beginning of making concrete changes in your behaviour that will help you to navigate this new world order more effectively and, as doctors say, with a better outcome. This is not about compliance: no-one would ever accuse me of that. We are talking about understanding the environment in which you work, not the one you wished you worked in. There is room on an individual level to create space that protects you from chronic overwork, burnout and physical and mental meltdown, but it requires some tough changes and ripping off a band aid of old beliefs that no longer serve you. You can do this by yourself or with support, but the message is: you can do this. There is space to put in place strategies that can help you thrive and the first place to start is untangling the idea that self-care, or other workplace coaching strategies, are somehow the enemy.