End of semester MACS

Posted on | June 3, 2006 | 5 Comments

In ‘The Mental Labour Problem’, Andrew Ross argues that ‘two generations of scholars now form a semipermanent cadre of independent contractors, with little or no prospect of advancement into regular, full-time employment’ in academic positions. For these scholars, a doctoral qualification has marked ‘not the beginning, but the end of their teaching career; they are not a product, but a by-product, of graduate education’ (Low Pay, High Profile, 2004, p 223).

How does the situation differ in Australia? Next Friday, Monthly MACS tackles the current state of teaching in higher education from the perspective of those at the sessional and early career coal-face. Speakers with a range of different experiences of teaching – whether during or after PhD candidature, or following on from a postdoctoral fellowship – will share anecdotes and advice about the pros, cons and neglected benefits of teaching. This is an attempt to spark some frank discussion about the usefulness of teaching when compared with the isolated life of the postdoc, as well as some considered speculation on the point of teaching when there are so few ongoing jobs available. We will also ask what measures are being developed by the university system more broadly to deal with the changing nature of academic labour.

Be at:
QUT Creative Industries Precinct, Kelvin Grove Campus
2-4pm, Friday June 9
Room to be confirmed; end of semester drinks to follow at the Normanby Hotel.

Category: Academia, Events, Teaching

Comments

5 Responses to “End of semester MACS”

  1. Glen
    June 3rd, 2006 @ 5:24 pm

    hey mel is there any chance of this being recorded?
    :)
    :)
    :)

  2. melgregg
    June 4th, 2006 @ 4:03 pm

    Probably. We digitally recorded the last one. Trouble is the dynamic of MACS is quite anecdotal and participatory. It affects the informality – and hence the value – of the meeting to record too much of the discussion. I might do the featured speakers again and add it to the stockpile of archives for future debate about use.

    How are the wiki preparations going? :)

  3. Glen
    June 5th, 2006 @ 5:38 pm

    coming along! i have been forcing myself to tackle different things with different intensities and rates of work. wiki is a longer scale 2-months-to-go sort of project. for example thesis work is much more intense. for wiki, next step is get quotes for site/server hosting.

  4. Nick Caldwell
    June 5th, 2006 @ 7:11 pm

    Glen, need a hand with budgeting / finding a webhost? I’d usually recommend Textdrive, and I’m not being paid to say that. I swear. But you may be looking for something a bit less intense. Let me know your requirements.

  5. home cooked theory » Blog Archive » Getting organised
    June 15th, 2006 @ 10:41 am

    [...] Filling out the CRN nomination and contemplating the prospects for ongoing employment last week have me feeling super anal about getting my affairs in order. I’ve just updated a bunch of stuff on my work homepage (check out the ‘research‘, ‘publications‘ and ‘MACS‘ pages) which led me in a bout of inspiration just now to summarise my new project. This is all very well given that the assessments for my ARC postdoc application will come out tomorrow, no doubt deflating any of my optimism or apparent talent to actually do what I propose below. However, on the flip side, these are the things I plan to study for the next 18 months, whether or not I get funding to do it, under the rubric ‘Working from Home’: * to analyse the rhetoric of ‘flexibility’ in discourses surrounding workplace culture, and how this annuls the political potential of multiculturalism and theories of difference; [...]

Leave a Reply