This post probably won't make much sense to many of you but I'm going to try.
Contrary to popular belief, universities are not there to teach students, but to research. Most of the funding comes from research and every 6 years or so our research is assessed and money allocated accordingly. So, the emphasis is on research and most of the pressure and stress we have is related to researc pressure and how to balance the teaching with the need to publish publish publish. Really the phrase "publish or perish" is not a joke. In the last 6 months or so I have been thinking of writing a book on a particular topic that I thought was fairly topical and quite interesting. However, I was uncertain about writing it alone given just having finshed the book conversion for my thesis so I thought of an edited collection. Because I'm inexperienced in such matters (how do you get people to write for you, for example?) I asked my former PhD supervisor to edit it with me: his name and experience would be invaluable for me and his name on the book and when asking people to write a piece for it would be great as well. I told him I was willing to do the donkey work (chasing people, editing, dealing with publishers etc) and asked him to think about. I had already spoken briefly to a couple of publishers and both thought it sounded interesting. Anyway, he said he would think about it before Christmas and got back to me then today. He said he would like to be involved as he thought it sounded interesting but was concerned about other work commitments. He then went on to say that he had asked one of his PhD students (a friend of mine) to be involved and help me with the editing. He said he should have asked me first (uh, yes) and apologised for not. Now I know this girl, I've blogged briefly about it her: she's very good, probably a better academic than I ever will be, but she can make me feel so inferior: she got a job before finishing her PhD, she's on at least 5 grand more than me (in another university) and has already a number of publications. I intended asking her to write a chapter for the collection, but I'm not sure I want her name on the cover. It's even worse because I had never mentioned the possibility of a book to her, not out of malice but because it's barely a half baked idea. Now my former supervisor has asked her and I'm not sure what to say. I replied to my former supervisor and said that I was non committal about it and needed to think about it. So I'm in a quandrary. I don't want her taking control of it, but if she's an editor she has as much say as I do. Even worse, she phoned me this morning to see how I was, but I was in a marking meeting and now she's emailed me. I hadn't phoned her back this afternoon as I was busy but now I'm avoiding her as I don't know what to say. I think I'm going to have to be honest and say I need to think about it as I hadn't even anticipated my supervisor saying yes.
On top of all that, I have 160 exam questions to mark, a teaching course all next week, another module to mark the following week and two assignments of my own to write. And people think I do nothing.
2 comments:
Gosh, sounds like you've got a busy few weeks coming up. Good luck with it all - hope the book works out well in the end.
Sounds hectic! Hugs. It certainly is a bit of a dilemma. I know it sounds obvious, but you've just been ill, needed antibiotics and possibly a second course, that's an awful drain on a body not endowed with tons of energy at the best of times. Things may look much less daunting in a week or so.
As for the book, perhaps you can get together with this other girl and be as honest with her as you have on here, even about being intimidated as she probably is so wrapped up in her own insecurities she's not even realised?
Not much use, but if you get really fed up I'll email you the name of the one law dept I know where no-one publishes as a matter of course ;)
BG Xx
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