ooooohworth reading and heartening
Month: April 2018
Boundaries, Buddies, and Benevolent Dictators within the Ecology of Doctoral Study
ecology relationships – great metaphor
by Kay Guccione and Søren Bengtsen
In March we co-delivered a seminar at SRHE based on our complementary research studies into doctoral support, supervision, and relationships. In recognition that very many and varied players contribute to supporting doctoral researchers along the way, we spoke to the idea of the ‘Ecology’ of doctoral study. Through both of our research and practice areas, we raise issues of:
Boundaries, for example: Who is responsible for which aspects of doctoral development?
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Ratbag research
Ratbaggery among ratbags
This article first appeared in Funding Insight on 9 March 2018 and is reproduced with permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com.
For Mates and Ratbags, by Michael Coghlan, on Flickr.
Last year, the International Campaign to Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the Nobel Peace prize for their work “to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons” and their “ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”.
Recently, I was at an event where the inimitable Dave Sweeney lovingly referred to ICAN as ratbags. He wasn’t being insulting – ‘ratbag’ is one of those wonderful Australian words that means that ICAN are troublemakers, people who are contrary, and don’t follow the rules.
I immediately knew what he meant. In 10 years, ICAN has gone from a group of activists, doctors, academics and concerned citizens to a…
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Am I a (Good) Neoliberal?
worth a jolly good social thinking session
In a recently published paper in the Journal of Sociology (2018a), I sought to describe how something as abstract as a political rationality is experienced in the everyday lives of scholars. The growth of audit cultures, managerial power and new languages for describing academic work are each a focal point of a broader arena of political changes to higher education and academic research. In another recent paper (2018b), I have also argued that we currently practice scholarship in a culture of authenticity, in which our personal values and identities are often inseparable from how we evaluate our work and careers. I find the intersection of these papers – of political economy and self-identity – an unavoidable part of everyday early-career academic life. After a good half-hour of catching up with friends and describing our small victories, stressful setbacks and unexpected re-routings, an apologetic tone may find its way into our…
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A personal message to friends and colleagues
honesty and integrity
I decided to send this note to everyone at Sussex MSK Partnership (central) where I work. A tiny contribution to challenging stigma.
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Dear friends and colleagues
This is to let you know that I am going through a bad bout of anxiety and depression.
It may be due to withdrawal effects as I tried to come off my meds. It is proving another very hard time.
I want at least to break the stigma by saying this because I know a lot of others at work who sometimes go through similar problems.
And I don’t think in our society we talk about it enough or support each other adequately – there is still a taboo and people do not know how to talk about it. We call it stress at best. And it is still regarded as a weakness – more so than physical health problems. I worry a…
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Digital learning PD Dr Ann Lawless 