{"id":58609,"date":"2021-08-10T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=58609"},"modified":"2021-08-09T21:41:27","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T01:41:27","slug":"when-change-is-awful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/when-change-is-awful\/","title":{"rendered":"When change is awful"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I\u2019ll tell you what I\u2019m really sick of right now: my university telling me that they understand change is hard for their staff. I\u2019m an academic in an Australian university and I\u2019ve chosen to publish this anonymously for reasons that should be obvious.<\/p>\n

This post is a rant. It\u2019s not a reasoned tracing of the whys and wherefores about how higher education got here. Other people have written about that in depressing detail already.<\/p>\n

At many institutions, university leaders have announced big cuts and job losses. Then they go on about how they know change is difficult for staff. They proceed to offer a suite of empathy-adjacent tools and apps that are meant to help their people deal with the meat-grinder dynamics of higher education since 2020.<\/p>\n

Newsflash: Change isn\u2019t really that hard.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0If they had announced that massive changes would affect us all, and that these changes would result in bountiful resources, new opportunities for career building, and investment in me as a valuable staff member, I would be\u00a0STOKED<\/a>. Bring it on! I would have no problems adjusting to this change scenario at all. Zero. Zip. Nada.<\/p>\n

The problem isn\u2019t that change is hard. The problem is that university leaders aren\u2019t really talking about any old change. They\u2019re talking about awful change: budget cuts, redundancies and sackings, discontinuations and non-renewals. They\u2019re talking about taking things away and diminishing the environment around you (yet expecting you to do the same \u2013 if not more \u2013 of the same work). They\u2019re taking actions that push colleagues out and affect livelihoods and career paths.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like our university leaders are shoving us into a room where we\u2019ll be whacked with sticks, then being concerned that we\u2019re reluctant, angry, or distressed about going into that room. I can imagine the executives on a zoom call saying, \u201cHmm, the staff are very upset about going into Whacking Room #4. Maybe we need to be seen to be doing the right thing. Can we provide them with an app for \u2018How to be resilient when being whacked with sticks\u2019?\u201d.<\/p>\n

And here we move onto one of the most infuriating things about all the euphemistic change rhetoric that\u2019s saturating higher education right now: wellbeing apps and newsletters. These have been triggering an increasing fury of emotions as things have worsened (and will worsen still). Twitter accounts like\u00a0@lifeadvicebot<\/a>\u00a0capture beautifully the inanity of the individualised \u2018solutions\u2019 to systemic problems.<\/p>\n

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Are you struggling with the impact of workplace precarity? Consider clean eating #YOLO<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 neoliberal life advice (@lifeadvicebot) July 6, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n