Queens UCU: probation petition

What ridiculous impositions on early career staff; one would assume QUB did not want to attract the highest calibre applicants for who would wish to work there under such conditions?

That education today is increasingly aligned with a technocratic dictatorship is simply consistent with free market economics. A university should surely aspire to values and ideals that are universal, freethinking and person-affirming in nature and orientation. There is little to be proud of when a university forces its own academics, new or experienced, to abandon such ideals to systematically become fully structurally compliant with a dehumanising, pyramidal model of the world. A university of excellence should in my view be a refuge for dissent; which, in our times, is one of the most fundamental tools to hold the building of a just society with any degree of hope for success. The QUB probation rules being challenged here fail miserably to build anything but a culture of inbred bullying, chronic professional envy and cronyism. Not the right recipe to appoint the best university lecturers. What would the students/customers think if they really understood the quality of the product being sold to them at escalating prices?

This strategy is profoundly counterproductive to producing world class research long-term.

As a former teacher and lecturer, I find these proposals extremely unfair and disproportionate.

If the goal is to create a completely unsupportive environment and set unmeetable standards, QUB is on its way. If the real goal is to eliminate the next generation of permanent positions, then shame on the administration not only for that, but for being too cowardly to admit it.

I look forward to the day when we have standards by which to measure the performance of university management, as well as procedures through which academic staff can evaluate their School/Faculty management. To say that the performance of university management (and individual School management) at Queen's has been 'lacking' recently is the understatement of the year. Perhaps if we measured _their_ performance, managers might become suddenly more competent at doing their jobs.

Ridiculous and unacceptable terms and conditions for early career researchers. Where is the time to think, to research, to write, to develop ideas?

Ridiculous and unfair, especially unreasonable for early career researchers.

Unrealistic and unfair standards which will damage the university.

'I don't need a million pound grant to do worthwhile research in my field. I just need time'.

Unfair and unrealistic expectations.

Who is responsible for this research income leviathan, consuming from the inside exalted halls of learning, destroying the souls of serious young scholars, some of whom are just out of graduate school? What did research income ever have to do with any great movement or school of thought in the humanities or social sciences? Can you name one important work in history, sociology, musicology or English that owes its existence to research income? In my field, history, I can’t think of a single influential work in the canon – going back to the foundation of the modern discipline under Ranke in the 19th century – whose impetus was a generous institutional or external grant. Scholarship has always been the product of no more than an individual, pen and paper, and a library or archive. Actually, the greatest work known to me, Braudel’s “The Mediterranean”, was drafted in its entirety while the historian was a POW in a German concentration camp. He didn’t even have access to a library.

Fortunately, I am on my way out of QUB. I still hope that these "Academic Standards" (i.e. the way you would judge your average car salesman) will be consigned to the dustbin, with the help of the Union.

It would appear management now want 'clone' 'vanilla' staff ignoring individuals strengths.

The RCUK and private trusts do not provide enough funding to allow all capable academics to fulfill the sort of funding requirements advanced in the new Academic Standards. It thus becomes a game of musical chairs to determine who gets marginalized and possibly kicked out. It is particularly cruel to apply this method to staff on probation. I do not believe that the current course taken by the VC, to use job insecurity to increase research productivity, is ethically justifiable. What is more, I sense that it will poison the otherwise good atmosphere at Queen's.

One size does not fit all. In the long term carrots achieve more than sticks.

These Academic standards are unrealistic, for ECR and non-ECR. The lack of transparency is appalling and reminiscent of Stalinism: staff consultation takes place after the decisions are made. But then, what can we expect from so-called leaders who proudly display the following message during a senior management meeting: “World class leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones. Then they manage the resulting tension. Followers want comfort, stability and solutions from their leaders. But that’s babysitting.” This reminds me of the TV series Dallas - world class leaders in the 1970s may have been bullies but bullying is now an unacceptable behaviour. If some sensible people in HR or senior management at QUB read this, please remember the sad story of Professor Stefan Grimm who was not meeting his academic targets (i.e. bringing in money that he did not need to carry out his fascinating research): https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/imperial-college-professor-stefan-grimm-was-given-grant-income-target/2017369.article I wonder how Imperial College ‘manage[d] the resulting tension’.

There are so many iniquities and problems associated with this proposed course of action. First, probationers will have their futures decided by staff who may not themselves meet the requirements being asked of those on probation (surely a legal minefield?). Second, probationers are being told to meet standards not expected or required by other universities in the UK or Ireland. Third, these terms and conditions have been introduced retrospectively and without consultations (surely another legal minefield). Fourth, there is no possible way for all probationers to meet this requirement, given funding council priorities (yet another legal minefield - I don't see how we can ask those on probation to meet a standard that it is, quite literally impossible for everyone to achieve).

I fully support this petition and object strongly to the proposed changes to the probationary contract -- without consultation -- at QUB.

A very worrying development, and very discouraging for young academics who are doing the best they can.