In Thrall or Enthralled? – The Academic Work-Life Balance

I‘ve written about the academic work-life balance before, but that was about the conflicts arsing between research, teaching and administration.  This time I want to address the real work-life balance i.e. home life versus work life and the angst that it causes many of us.

In the UK we have a number of Bank Holidays*, the two most recent at the time of writing, the May Day Holiday and the late May (Whitsun) Bank Holiday. The former, despite the name was May 6^th this year!  I felt the need to log on Twitter and wrote “It is quite revealing how as an academic I am feeling guilty that I am not marking student research projects today even though it is a Bank Holiday. How is that we have allowed ourselves to get so in thrall to #academiclife that even the bits we don’t like can cause guilt 😦“

Immediate responses to my tweet about work guilt

Given the current state of the Academy, I was not surprised to find that I was not the only one 😊

If only we all had the will power and sense, that Olaf Schmidt has

When I first became an academic more than forty years ago, albeit in a research institute, we had typists and departmental secretaries who did a lot of the things that we do now.  We had technical support teams that ordered our supplies and we had administrative staff that got our estimates for the equipment that we needed for grant applications. We also didn’t have email, although it very soon arrived!   It seems to me that as we have got more and more computerised and do more things on-line, we as academics are doing things, that in the past, were done by non-academic staff.  We are now also faced with ever tighter deadlines to get marked assignments back to students and urged to give more detailed feedback.  Much of this is in response to provide data for the metrics by which universities are now judged.  Couple this with the increased number of students on modules, brought about by the way in which universities seek savings by reducing module choice and the need to publish and bring in grant monies and there just aren’t enough hours in the day ☹ The generation before mine had it even easier and although I am not advocating a return to those days, scientists were perhaps more likely to take more risks with their research in those less metric-driven times.

Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching, it is why I moved from working in a research institute to a university, although I really, really, hate marking.  I also love research and being in a university environment allows you the freedom to do both, but the pressures, especially in research intensive institutions means that the job is far from stress free.  In my case, and for many of my colleagues, if you don’t take some of your work home it doesn’t get done. There are just not enough hours in the working day.  If you do outreach as I do, most of that happens in the evenings, so again you are working outwith ‘office hours’.  In theory, one can opt to take ‘time off in lieu’ (TOIL), but when, especially as in my case and of that of many colleagues, our official work loads show us working in excess of 100%, mine for example is 113%.

As Tamsin Majerus remarked in response to my Tweet  “I agree, it is just wrong. The whole system is based on a history of dedicated researchers working long hours doing something they loved. The amount of work now deemed ‘normal’ assumes all academics will continue to work the long hours regardless of the task or other commitments”

So, we are our own worst enemies, and this takes me to the title of my post. When you’re in thrall to someone, you are under their control in some way. If you’re being held as a hostage, you’re in thrall to your captor. You can be in thrall to anything that holds you captive or controls your thoughts or actions, like an addiction, a disease, or a cult leader. The Old English word that thrall comes from literally means “slave” or “servant.” Another word with the same root as thrall is enthrall, which is a sort of friendlier version of the same idea. If you’re enthralled by someone, you’re captivated or fascinated, rather than “held in bondage.” I certainly became a researcher because I was fascinated by insects, and never expected or wanted  to be a slave to paperwork.

So which is it, are we enthralled or in thrall and if the latter how do we go about changing things and live a guilt-free life?

Many thanks to any of you who answered the poll.

*

Thanks to Lars Chittka, I now know that Bank Holidays were invented by an entomologist, John Lubbock – we get everywhere 🙂

 

Pick and Mix 31 – questions and answers

Sammy Borras Illustrator

 

Evelyn Cheeseman – entomologist extraordinaire in her own comic strip

Why I love aphids – soldiers, eusociality, plasterers

What’s the buzz about pollinators? Scott McArt from Conrell University explains in this video

Wildlife-friendly farming increases crop yield: evidence for ecological intensification

Tony Juniper wonders how Winston Churchill would have reacted to the threat of climate change

Jeff Olleton asks if the angry response of (some) environmentalists in the aftermath of the Notre Dame fire reasonable?

This one from Dynamic Ecology  on “Quantifying the life histories of ecological ideas”  is definitely for ecology nerds, but I found it very interesting J

How biodegradable is biodegradble plastic anyway?

What is the impact of journal impact factor on promotion, tenure and appointment of academics?

Terry McGlynn asks if some people are just innately smarter than others.  What do you think?

 

 

Graphical abstracts are so passé, let’s hear it for the haiku highlight

Graphical abstracts,

They’re past their sell by date;

Use Haikus instead

 

It may surprise you, or perhaps not, that insects, as well as inspiring poets to wax lyrical, inspire many entomologists to wax poetical 🙂  Indeed, I have, on occasion, penned the odd verse myself.

Available at a very reasonable price from Pemberley Books  and no, I have no vested interests 🙂

Back in 2016 I stepped down as Editor-in-Chief of Insect Conservation & Diversity to become a Senior Editor, handing over the reins to Raphael Didham who had been a Senior Editor since 2010.  Now, I have known Raph a long time, back in the 1990s we were colleagues at Silwood Park, but it wasn’t until I convinced him to join Twitter as @EntoRaph, at the Royal Entomological Society Publications Meeting in March this year, that I discovered his dark secret.  He is a poet as well as an entomologist!  Raph is, despite his late conversion to Twitter, a pretty innovative guy; just look at the excellent changes he has made to our journal, and once he discovered, via Twitter, that I too, indulge in the odd spot of verse, haikus to be precise, it was inevitable that the idea of the Haiku Highlight was born 🙂

The birth of a notion

And that dear Reader, is how it all began………

I was quite proud of this one 🙂

The eagle-eyed reader may have noticed that the hashtag for our Haiku Highlights is #sciku. The Sciku project  is the brainwave of zoologist Andrew Holmes @AndrewMHolmes, who argues that writing haiku has made him a better scientist.  Being asked to keep your writing short and sweet, yet still understandable, may sometimes be difficult, but as Judy Fort Brenneman points out, it can be great fun.

If you would like to contribute to our Haiku Highlight project do get in touch. I wonder if it will catch on with other journals, it would certainly be fun.  While I am on the subject of entomologist poets, if you like butterflies and poetry, I can thoroughly recommend The Butterfly Collection, by Richard Harrington; beautiful photographs and a range of verse from haiku to sonnet.

 

Published by Brambleby Books http://www.bramblebybooks.co.uk/butterfly_collection.asp

 

Satiable curiosity – side projects are they worthwhile?

I’ve been meaning to write this one for quite a while.  It was stimulated by two posts, one from the incredibly prolific Steve Heard, the other by the not quite so prolific, but equally interesting,  Manu Saunders.  First off, what is a side project?  To me, a side project is one that is not directly funded by a research council or other funding agency or, in some cases, one that you do in your spare time, or to the horror of some line-managers, is not strictly in your job description 🙂 The tyranny of modern research funding dictates that projects must have specific research questions and be accompanied by hypotheses and very specific predictions; most proposals I referee, even contain graphs with predicted results and almost all have ‘preliminary data’ to support their applications.   This is not necessarily a bad thing but to directly quote Manu Saunders from her blog post

“Whittaker’s (1952) study of ‘summer foliage insect communities in the Great Smoky Mountains’ is considered one of the pioneer studies of modern community ecology methods. The very short Introduction starts with the sentence “The study was designed to sample foliage insects in a series of natural communities and to obtain results of ecological significance from the samples.” No “specific research questions” and the hypotheses and predictions don’t appear until the Discussion” Sounds like bliss.

The central ethos of my research career which began in 1977, can be summed up by this quotation uttered by the character ‘Doc’ in John Steinbeck’s novel Sweet Thursday “I want take everything I’ve seen and thought and learned and reduce them and relate them and refine them until I have something of meaning, something of use” (Steinbeck, 1954).* The other thing that has driven me for as long as I can remember, and why I ended up where I am,  is something I share with Rudyard Kipling’s Elephant Child, and that is a “satiable curiosity”:-) Something that has always frustrated me, is that, in the UK at least, most funded research tends to be of a very short duration, usually three years, often less than that**, and if you are very lucky, maybe five years.  If you work on real life field populations, even if you work on aphids, these short term projects are not really very useful; laboratory work is of course a different matter.

I got my first ‘permanent’ job in 1982 working for UK Forestry Commission Research based at their Northern Research Station (NRS) just outside Edinburgh.  My remit initially was to work on the pine beauty moth, Panolis flammea and finally, on the large pine weevil, Hylobius abietis.  As a committed aphidophile, I was determined, job description or not, to carry on working with aphids. I decided that the easiest and most useful thing to do was to set up a long-term field study and follow aphid populations throughout the year.  My PhD was on the bird cherry-oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi, a host alternating aphid, the primary host of which is the bird cherry, Prunus padus, with which  Scotland is very well supplied, and fortuitously, just down the road from NRS was Roslin Glen Nature Reserve with a nice healthy population of bird  cherry trees.  I chose ten suitable trees and started what was to become a ten-year once a week, lunch time counting and recording marathon.  I also decided to repeat a study that my PhD supervisor, Tony Dixon had done, record the populations of the sycamore aphid, Drepanosiphum platanoidis.  In the grounds of NRS were five adjacent sycamore tree, Acer pseudoplatanus, and these became my early morning study subjects, also once a week. I had no articulated hypotheses, my only aim was to count and record numbers and life stages and anything else I might see. Anathema to research councils but exactly what Darwin did 🙂

Although it was a ‘permanent’ job, after ten years I moved to Imperial College at Silwood Park and immediately set up a new, improved version of my sycamore study, this time a once weekly early morning*** walk of 52 trees in three transects and with much more data collection involved, not just the aphids, their natural enemies and anything else I found and on top of all that, the trees themselves came in for scrutiny, phenology, growth, flowering and fruiting, all went into my data sheets.  I also set up a bird cherry plot, this time with some hypotheses articulated 🙂

As a result of my weekly walk along my sycamore transects, a few years later I set up yet another side project, this time an experimental cum observational study looking at tree seedling survival and colonisation underneath different tree canopies. At about the same time, initially designed as a pedagogical exercise, I started my study of the biodiversity of Bracknell roundabouts.

One might argue that most undergraduate and MSc research projects could also come under the heading of side projects, but I think that unless they were part of a long term study they aren’t quite the same thing, even though some of them were published.  So, the burning question, apart from the benefits of regular exercise, was the investment of my time and that of my student helpers and co-researchers worth it scientifically?

Side project 1.  Sycamore aphids at the Northern Research Station, 1982-1992

I collected a lot of aphid data, most of which remains, along with the data from Side project 2, in these two notebooks, waiting to be entered into a spreadsheet.  I also collected some limited natural enemy data, presence of aphid mummies and numbers killed by entomopathogenic fungi.  Tree phenological data is limited to bud burst and leaf fall and as I only sampled five trees I’m not sure that this will ever amount to much, apart from perhaps appearing in my blog or as part of a book.  Nothing has as yet made it into print, so a nil return on investment.

Raw data – anyone wanting to help input into a spreadsheet, let me know 🙂 Also includes the data for Side project 2

 

Side project 2.  Rhopalosiphum padi on Prunus padus at Roslin Glen Nature Reserve 1982-1992

I was a lot more ambitious with this project, collecting lots of aphid and natural enemy data and also a lot more tree phenology data, plus noting the presence and counting the numbers of other herbivores.  I have got some of this, peak populations and egg counts in a spreadsheet and some of it has made it to the outside world (Leather, 1986, 1993: Ward et al., 1998).  According to Google Scholar, Ward et al., is my 6^th most cited output with, at the time of writing, 127 citations, Leather (1993) is also doing quite well with 56 citations, while Leather (1986) is much further down the list with a mere 38 citations.  I have still not given up hope of publishing some of the other aphid data.  I mentioned that I also recorded the other herbivores I found, one was a new record for bird cherry (Leather, 1989), the other, the result of a nice student project on the bird cherry ermine moth (Leather & MacKenzie, 1994).  I would, I think, be justified in counting this side project as being worthwhile, despite the fact that I started it with no clear hypotheses and the only aim to count what was there.

 

Side project 3.  Everything you wanted to know about sycamores but were afraid to ask 1992-2012

As side projects go this was pretty massive.  Once a week for twenty years, me and on some occasions, an undergraduate research intern, walked along three transects of 52 sycamore trees, recording everything that we could see and count and record, aphids, other herbivores, natural enemies and tree data, including leaf size, phenology, height, fruiting success and sex expression.  My aim was pretty similar to that of Whittaker’s i.e.   “…to sample foliage insects in a series of natural communities and to obtain results of ecological significance from the samples”  truly a mega-project.  I once calculated that there are counts from over 2 000 000 leaves which scales up to something like 10 000 000 pieces of data, if you conservatively estimate five data observations per leaf. Quite a lot of the data are now computerized thanks to a series of student helpers and Vicki Senior, currently finishing her PhD at Sheffield University, but certainly not all of it. In terms of output, only two papers so far (Wade & Leather, 2002; Leather et al., 2005), but papers on the winter moth, sycamore and maple aphids and orange ladybird are soon to be submitted.  On balance, I think that this was also worthwhile and gave me plenty of early morning thinking time in pleasant surroundings and a chance to enjoy Nature.

The sycamore project – most of the raw data, some of which still needs to be computerised 🙂

 

Side project 5. Sixty bird cherry trees 1993-2012

This project has already featured in my blog in my Data I am never going to publish series and also in a post about autumn colours and aphid overwintering site selection.  Suffice to say that so far, thanks to my collaborator Marco Archetti, two excellent papers have appeared (Archetti & Leather, 2005; Archetti et al., 2009), the latter of which is my third most cited paper with 101 cites to date and the former is placed at a very respectable 21^st place.  I don’t really see any more papers coming out from this project, but I might get round to writing something about the study as a whole in a natural history journal. On balance, even though only two papers have appeared from this project, I count this as having been a very worthwhile investment of my time.

All now in a spreadsheet and possibly still worthwhile delving into the data

 

Side project 5.  Urban ecology – Bracknell roundabouts 2002-2012

This started as a pedagogical exercise, which will be the subject of a blog post in the not too distant future. The majority of the field work was done by undergraduate and MSc students and in the latter years spawned a PhD student, so a side project that became a funded project 🙂 To date, we have published seven papers from the project (Helden & Leather, 2004, 2005; Leather & Helden, 2005ab; Helden et al., 2012; Jones & Leather, 2012; Goodwin et al., 2017) and there are probably two more to come.  Definitely a success and a very worthwhile investment of my time.  The story of the project is my most requested outreach talk so also gives me the opportunity to spread the importance of urban ecology to a wider audience.

The famous roundabouts – probably the most talked and read about roundabouts in the world 🙂 Sadly Roundabout 1 i n o longer with us; it was converted into a four-way traffic light junction last year 😦

 

Side project 6.  Testing the Janzen-Connell Hypothesis – Silwood Park, 2005-2012

I mentioned this project fairly recently so will just link you to it here.  So far only one paper has come out of this project (Pigot & Leather, 2008) and I don’t really see me getting round to doing much more than producing another Data I am never going to publish article, although it does get a passing mention in the book that I am writing with former colleagues Tilly Collins and Patricia Reader.  It also gave undergraduate and MSc project students something to do.  Overall, this just about counts as a worthwhile use of my time.

Most of this is safely in a spreadsheet but the data in the notebooks still needs inputting

According to my data base I have published 282 papers since 1980 which given that I have supervised 52 PhD students, had 5 post-docs, and, at a rough estimate, supervised 150 MSc student projects and probably 200 undergraduate student projects doesn’t seem to be very productive 😦 Of the 282 papers, 125 are from my own projects, which leaves 139 papers for the post-docs and PhD students and 17 from the side projects.  Three of the papers published from the side projects were by PhD students, so if I remove them from the side projects that gives an average of 2.3 papers per side project and 2.4 papers per post-doc and PhD student.   So, in my opinion, yes, side projects are definitely worth the investment.

 

References

Archetti, M. & Leather, S.R. (2005) A test of the coevolution theory of autumn colours: colour preference of Rhopalosiphum padi on Prunus padus. Oikos, 110, 339-343.

Archetti, M., Döring, T.F., Hagen, S.B., Hughes, N.M., Leather, S.R., Lee, D.W., Lev-Yadun, S., Manetas, Y., Ougham, H.J., Schaberg, P.G., & Thomas, H. (2009) Unravelling the evolution of autumn colours: an interdisciplinary approach. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 24, 166-173.

Goodwin, C., Keep, B., & Leather, S.R. (2017) Habitat selection and tree species richness of roundabouts: effects on site selection and the prevalence of arboreal caterpillars. Urban Ecosystems, 19, 889-895.

Helden, A.J. & Leather, S.R. (2004) Biodiversity on urban roundabouts – Hemiptera, management and the species-area relationship. Basic and Applied Ecology, 5, 367-377.

Helden, A.J. & Leather, S.R. (2005) The Hemiptera of Bracknell as an example of biodiversity within an urban environment. British Journal of Entomology & Natural History, 18, 233-252.

Helden, A.J., Stamp, G.C., & Leather, S.R. (2012) Urban biodiversity: comparison of insect assemblages on native and non-native trees.  Urban Ecosystems, 15, 611-624.

Jones, E.L. & Leather, S.R. (2012) Invertebrates in urban areas: a review. European Journal of Entomology, 109, 463-478.

Leather, S.R. (1986) Host monitoring by aphid migrants: do gynoparae maximise offspring fitness? Oecologia, 68, 367-369.

Leather, S.R. (1989) Phytodecta pallida (L.) (Col., Chrysomelidae) – a new insect record for bird cherry (Prunus padus). Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine, 125, 17-18.

Leather, S.R. (1993) Overwintering in six arable aphid pests: a review with particular relevance to pest management. Journal of Applied Entomology, 116, 217-233.

Leather, S.R. & Helden, A.J. (2005) Magic roundabouts?  Teaching conservation in schools and universities. Journal of Biological Education, 39, 102-107.

Leather, S.R. & Helden, A.J. (2005) Roundabouts: our neglected nature reserves? Biologist, 52, 102-106.

Leather, S.R. & Mackenzie, G.A. (1994) Factors affecting the population development of the bird cherry ermine moth, Yponomeuta evonymella L. The Entomologist, 113, 86-105.

Leather, S.R., Wade, F.A., & Godfray, H.C.J. (2005) Plant quality, progeny sequence, and the sex ratio of the sycamore aphid, Drepanoisphum platanoidis. Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 115, 311-321.

Pigot, A.L. & Leather, S.R. (2008) Invertebrate predators drive distance-dependent patterns of seedling mortality in a temperate tree Acer pseudoplatanus. Oikos, 117, 521-530.

Steinbeck, J. (1954) Sweet Thursday, Viking Press, New York, USA.

Wade, F.A. & Leather, S.R. (2002) Overwintering of the sycamore aphid, Drepanosiphum platanoidis. Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 104, 241-253.

Ward, S.A., Leather, S.R., Pickup, J., & Harrington, R. (1998) Mortality during dispersal and the cost of host-specificity in parasites: how many aphids find hosts? Journal of Animal Ecology, 67, 763-773.

Whittaker, R.H. (1952) A Study of summer foliage insect communities in the Great Smoky Mountains. Ecological Monographs, 22, 1-44.

 

*

I was so impressed by this piece of philosophy that it is quoted in the front of my PhD thesis 🙂

**

My second post-doc was only for two years.

***

You may wonder why I keep emphasising early morning in relation to surveying sycamore aphids.  Sycamore aphids are very easy to disturb so it is best to try and count them in the early morning before they have a chance to warm up and become flight active.