OPINION: When everyone protest with one voice, you should listen
It’s unusual for so many parties at all levels of the organisation to respond so quickly and with such identical criticism, as is the case in the protest against the faculty leadership team’s decision to shut down the PhD administration at Arts as an independent entity. For that reason, the leadership team should listen, writes Associate Professor of History Charlotte Appel.
This is an opinion piece, the views expressed in the column are the writer’s own.
The joint and well-functioning PhD administration at Arts will be closed in its current form if Dean Maja Horst chooses to follow all recommendations in a new report with plans for administrative reform at Arts. The report is about ensuring better research support. A good goal. But why destroy the PhD administration that all concerned believe works exceptionally well?
Employees protest against intended decision by the Leadership Team at Arts
Reform proposals often lead to protests. There are always people who are affected and prefer things to stay the way they are. But some protests are well-reasoned. Here are three good reasons in this case to listen, engage in dialogue, and not destroy the PhD administration of the Faculty of Arts:
1. Everyone is speaking up — and saying the same thing
It’s unusual for all involved parties at all levels of the organisation to respond quickly and sharply, with numerous and concurring arguments (see entry in Omnibus): The PhD students (representatives on the faculty's PhD committee and over 140 PhD students who have signed a petition), supervisors (a group of 42 from DPU alone), the VIP representatives on the PhD committee (from all three departments), and the eight PhD programme directors. All voices are speaking as one. In my nearly 40 years of university politics, I cannot recall such a clear and identical message from so many!
2. PHD STUDENTS ARE A SPECIAL GROUP
The PhD students are a large and important group at Arts (currently there are over 250 enrolled), stretched between education and research and are both students and junior researchers. Well-being surveys show that they are particularly challenged. Everyone agrees that the current PhD administration manages to support and guide very well, across complicated sets of rules.
The argument about “equalising employees” (the dean's answer here in the Omnibus) simply doesn’t hold up. Also, assistant professors and postdocs have challenges, yes, but not at all of the same type (and the number of assistant professors is vanishingly small). For a large and special group such as the PhD students, targeted support is needed.
3. SURELY A REPORT IS JUST AN INPUT?
The report it is based on was commissioned by the dean to strengthen research support. As far as we know, the assignment didn’t mention any problems with the PhD administration (which, in fact, there are none). The idea of closing this very unit seems to have been fostered at a desk — without bad intent, of course, but with extremely unfortunate consequences.
The dean defends the haste, lack of consultation with the PhD school and of the international evaluation due this autumn, saying that one must “take into account the fact that the administrative staff have been working on this for over half a year”. Is she pointing to the administrative centre head and the senior consultant who produced the report (because no one else seems to have worked on it for so long)? It’s always nice to acknowledge the work done, but consideration must also be given to the seven skilled employees at the PhD administration, to all the many VIPs who deal with the PhD field daily, and last but not least, to the more than 250 PhD students. How can one speak of “a pure administrative reorganisation” when the entire structure of who management, VIPs and PhD employees will be interacting with in the future is broken up, and you no longer have the knowledge and experience gathered. — The administrative report is 27 pages, of which two (pp. 12-13) deal with the closure of the PhD administration. Fortunately, it’s normal that, as the recipient of an administrative report, you can select proposals that you’d like to follow and, conversely, opt out of inappropriate proposals.
It’s my hope that our dean will take the opportunity to live up to her principles of listening and involving her staff. In this case, where everyone speaks with one voice, it must actually be relatively easy to hear what is being said – and show that you are a leader who both dares to listen and act accordingly.
Charlotte Appel is an associate professor of History at the Department of Culture and Society and is a VIP representative on the Faculty's PhD Committee (2021-). She has also previously served as PhD programme director (2018-21).
This text is machine translated and post-edited by Lisa Enevoldsen.