http://www.guardian.co.

uk/education/2012/mar/07/colleges-degree-student-places

Stop competing with your academic colleagues, join forces with them

Don't feel threatened if someone writes an article in a more prestigious journal,

think about working with them. It could benefit your career, says Afshan Jafar

Inspiration can sometimes come from the most unusual sources. In my case (and in
the case of one of my colleagues at University of Venus), the muse was Tina Fey in her
book Bossypants. In retrospect I should have known that academia and the world of
comedy writing would have much in common.

In one of her chapters, Fey discusses her experiences at The Second City, which is an
improvisation and sketch comedy theatre. She discusses 'The Myth of Not Enough', which
was/is the belief that if more women entered comedy, there wouldn't be enough material,
screen time and so on to go around for all the women. This of course doesn't make much
sense when the characters make up the show as they go along! But this idea becomes so
entrenched in people, including women, that they start to see other women as competition,
instead of allies and collaborators.

I have witnessed this attitude in academia quite often: junior faculty feeling
threatened by other junior faculty. This feeling becomes even more pronounced when that
junior faculty is 'like you'—which may mean the same age, gender, sexuality, race,
ethnicity, nationality, and so on. But this is not about blaming junior faculty. Like the
women in comedy that Fey talks about, junior faculty have been made to feel like they're
in competition with one another. We've been made to feel as if there are limited spaces
available for us, and hiring or promoting or granting tenure to one more like us will make
our job less secure. This is simply not true. Fey offers this response to women who see
other women as competition: "Don't be fooled. You're not in competition with other
women. You're in competition with everyone."

I have similar advice for junior faculty but with a twist: you are not in competition
with other junior faculty. You're in competition with yourself. If someone writes an article
in a more prestigious journal, it doesn't mean you should feel threatened. If someone
publishes a book before you do, no need to be sour about it. When you come up for tenure,
you are not evaluated against the accomplishments of other faculty; you are evaluated
against a standard that is expected of all faculty at your institution. Of course standards
can be reevaluated and they can change over time. But it's not going to happen overnight
during your tenure case because the other junior faculty published a book and you didn't.
So relax. Instead of approaching other junior faculty as competition, why not approach
them as allies and friends? Why not experience the possibilities that such a relationship
can offer?

Fey also writes: "When faced with sexism or ageism, or lookism or even really
aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: 'Is this person in between me
and what I want to do?' ... if the answer is yes ... I suggest you model your strategy after
the old Sesame Street film piece, 'Over! Under! Through!'" (This is a reference to an old
Sesame Street segment which taught kids the meanings of these words).

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This is a valuable advice for all faculty, but especially for junior faculty who find
themselves caught between ego-battles of senior faculty, or find themselves in
dysfunctional departments, or working with an unpleasant colleague: go over, under,
through. That is, make connections at all levels and across disciplinary divides in order to
get through and get tenure.

I am not implying that you should simply ignore unpleasant behaviour, but that you
should have enough allies around you so that the disagreeable person cannot stand in the
way of your success and happiness. This may be especially important at small liberal arts
colleges because junior faculty may find themselves in two, three or four person
departments. In these cases, where one other member alone can make your work
experience unpleasant, it becomes even more important, for your success and happiness,
that you have allies, and trustworthy colleagues in other departments and at various
stages of their careers. Furthermore, these colleagues can offer valuable advice and point
you towards the right resources, if need be, for how to deal with the hostile colleague(s) in
your department.

So, think about Tina Fey the next time you have an unpleasant encounter with a
colleague.

Further education colleges awarded 10,000 degree student places

Hartpury, Newham and Newcastle among beneficiaries of scheme to promote

low-cost alternative to traditional universities

More than 10,000 undergraduate student places for this autumn have been awarded
to further education colleges under government reforms that are encouraging the growth
of a low-cost alternative to traditional universities.

A total of 20,000 places have been stripped from higher education institutions in
England and auctioned off to universities and colleges charging average tuition fees of
£7,500 or less this year.

About 9,600 have gone to 35 universities, of which the biggest winners were Anglia
Ruskin, London Met, Nottingham Trent and Staffordshire. But more than half of the places
have gone to further education colleges, including Hartpury College in Gloucester,
Newham College, east London, and Newcastle College.

Universities can charge tuition fees of up to £9,000 from this September. The creation
of a margin of 20,000 student places open only to cheaper institutions was intended to
create pressure to bring fees down.

In December, 24 universities and one FE college brought down their average fees in
order to bid for student places from the margin.

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Announcing the reforms last year, the universities minister, David Willetts, said
there would be "pressure for quality and value for money" on universities.

Nick Davy, higher education policy manager with the Association of Colleges, said:
"The quality of college bids through the core and margin system has led to an allocation of
around 10,500 additional full-time student numbers for the sector – an increase of 25% on
present numbers."

However, Davy said a number of universities had also withdrawn undergraduate

places they had previously extended on a franchise basis to local FE colleges.

He said: "This figure is brought down substantially by the practice of universities

withdrawing indirect student numbers from the sector. AoC estimates that the growth in
entrant numbers actually is nearer to 7%, a long way from the government's intention to
significantly support degree-level growth in the college sector.

"There needs to be a considerable increase in margin places to achieve the

government aim of creating a more cost-effective and accessible HE sector."

The coalition's higher education reforms also allow institutions to expand to take on
more students who achieve grades AAB or higher at A-level. The government estimates
this will cover about 65,000 students in this summer's exam season. This is expected
mainly to benefit elite universities.