Blackmore on the Life of an Academic in the UK

Susan Blackmore: "Why I’m leaving" (The Independent, January 2002):

Term is starting and I’m not going back! Whoopee! ... It’s really true. I have given up my secure academic job as Reader at the University of the West of England for the vagaries of life as a freelance. And why? Because I want to work - really work - and my job made that impossible. ...

Maybe some people can get home after a long day and have brilliant thoughts. Maybe some can write the best book they are capable of in the hours stolen from their sleep, or from their children. But I can’t. ...

The deal used to be, for the cleverest or luckiest few get a job in a university, give a reasonable number of lectures, do a few other useful tasks, and the rest of the time is yours. Yes it was often abused, and yes we can’t afford that in today’s climate, with so many more students. But what have we instead? The current deal is to give an unreasonable number of lectures, to ever larger groups of less interested students, plus a completely mind-boggling amount of marking, setting exams, going to meetings, and--on top of all that--justify everything you do with learning outcomes, aims and objectives, and the TQA....