1. Universities are beginning to address student mental health

1. Mental health 1. Universities are beginning to address student mental health 1. Dialogue between staff and students on mental health is beginning 2. Mostly student focused 1. Media attention 2. Many tragic cases 2. BUT what about staff? 1. Staff working conditions ARE student working conditions 1. Staff wellbeing directly impacts students 2. Staff being made redundant while Higher Education is investing heavily in capital expenditure 3. Lots of staff leaving higher education: 1. Performance management 2. Precarious contracts 3. Pressure 1. TEF 2. REF 3. Grants 4. Recruitment 4. Unrealistic expectations 2. Students are not (for the most part) causing the staff mental health problems. It's the system and the institutions 1. Students 'get' the pressure staff are under when it is explained to them 2. TEF and increased fees have pressured staff to deliver an enhanced student experience 3. Work-life balance 1. Academics more likely to work 10+ hours a day 3. For a long time, mental health has been under addressed in higher education 1. Staff cannot keep paying the price 2. More academics and students have mental health problems than ever before 1. 43% of staff exhibited signs of mental health problem 1. Mistakes 2. Lack of sleep 3. Anxiety 2. Academics more at risk of suicide than students and other professionals 3. Academics are paying the price for this system... 4. Increasing percentage of referrals to staff counselling and occupational health 1. FOI requests show this 2. Women were more likely to take part in this help. 70% for counselling 4. Research focuses on academics - but evidence shows professional service staff are also at risk 5. The standard should be competence and development 1. How can a new academic, coming out of a doctorate be expected to delivery world-class research and teaching 6. Wellbeing 1. The onus is solely on the employee 2. Take responsibility 3. Employers should be eliminating stresses on employees 4. Higher Education is an 'anxiety machine' 2. Pressures in Higher Education 1. Audit culture 1. Teaching Excellent Framework (TEF) 1. As subject-level TEF progresses, there is more focus on individual lectures 2. A lot of TEF focuses on this out of the lecturers control (i.e. graduate salary) 1. Too much focus on the outcome of higher education being earnings 3. Model evaluation questions favour male, white lecturers 4. THE TEF IS UTTERLY WITHOUT FOUNDATION 2. Research Excellence Framework (REF) 1. Too much focus on competition 1. Fear of failure 2. Anxiety 2. Knowledge production makes people vulnerable 3. REF was never designed for individuals. The intention was to develop a picture of the research strength across the UK and divide up the quality-related money. Now, it is being used by institutions to target individuals 4. Additional scrutiny of already published works 5. Is not transparent - changes each year 3. Metric authority. We stand judged by dashboards 2. Performance management 1. Particularly 'outcome-based' performance management 2. REF and REF and just other metrics to beat academics with... 3. Metric authority 1. Research outputs 2. Citations 3. H-index 4. Journal impact factors 5. ALT metrics 6. Teaching satisfaction scores 4. Contracts - fixed term, short term - all precarious 1. Constant thread of redundancy 2. Stressful not knowing where your next job will be 3. Tenure a thing of the past 4. Little criteria on what will lead to a permanent contract 5. Cumulative anxiety as people move from one precarious contract to another 5. Workload management models 1. Make workload 'equitable and transparent' 2. Attempt to break down academic work 3. Fill in *all* the available time of each employee 4. Problems: 1. No headroom 1. No time to think 2. No room for cover 3. Not time for emergencies 4. No consideration for other activities: 1. Expert testimony 2. PhD examining 3. Invited lectures 4. Conference papers/panels 5. Unrealistic estimates on how long activities require 5. Hours allocated are unrealistic 1. Lots of activities, especially student contact and preparation are under counted 6. Emerging research shows workload management is detrimental 1. No peaks and troughs in the annual cycle 2. Workload exceeds contractual hours 3. Few can meet requirements without working unreasonable hours 6. Teaching is intensifying 1. More content on VLE 2. More preparation 3. More formative assessment 4. More enhanced assessment 5. More modes of teaching 6. Lecture capture to edit 3. Alternatives - what could we be doing? 1. Reinstate autonomy 2. Work on trust 3. Less control through legitimate research time and vacations 4. Challenge the culture of 'more' 1. More research 2. More success 3. More teaching 5. Use metrics RESPONSIBLY 1. Use qualitative measures too 2. Signatories commit to eliminating the use of journal-based metrics 6. Performance management MUST be developmental 7. Less judging 8. Sustainable academic career pathways 9. Humanity in leadership 4. AppendixFloating Text1. Blame often put on academics. This isn't something related to the job. It is related to the institutions 2. These are mostly cost-neutural. This is down to institutional willingness 3. The 'real' rot is the ranking of universities. This won't disappear. This is something on the rise... 4. Dr Liz Morrish - Pressure Vessels: The epidemic of poor mental health among academics ................
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