back at the not-ok corral

And now for a break in our programming...whilst I've been lingering here in the sheltered groves of American academe, the Bumbledorean dream has been falling into ruin back at home.  What dream, you say, knowing how apt the moniker of Bumbledore to be? Well, the idea that I could somehow combine teaching, research and writing all in the one job.

The fact is that the spectre of DEST has caught up at last with us CW folks.  Our previous supervisor, who engaged the other CW lecturer and myself, said that work on creative projects was the equivalent of research and that a short story was, say, the equivalent of a journal article. Well, it may have been back in the old DEST guidelines for publications, but it ain't no more.  I vaguely knew about this, but was keeping this information to myself.

Our current supervisor, an ex-nurse who lectures in the area of Alcohol and Other Drugs, has finally caught up with this fact. She was never totally convinced that writing a novel or a film script counted as research, so read the DEST fine print.  Mind you, she was also incensed by our refusal to be 'team players' and to participate in potential research projects such as 'Team-building on the Bumbledore bus' and 'Student perceptions of Bumbledore, before and after enrolment', though really, one would have to be skeptical as to whether a refereed academic journal would ever accept a paper on either of these topics.

My co-lecturer has decided that this is the last Bumbledorean straw, and has resigned so that she can finish writing her novel by the end of the year.  She believes that the DEST way of thinking will lead to non-writers teaching CW.  I'm now left holding the baby, fighting the good fight, and other cliches.  The likelihood of a new lecturer being found before the end of the year and being brought up to speed is negligible, given the turnaround on advertising and filling positions here.

This means that my workload, which is already hugely stressful as course coordinator, is about to increase by about 33 %, if not 50 %.  If I can't find any casual replacements for co-lecturer's teaching weeks, then I could end up teaching four weeks in a row in October -- that's five days a week of teaching from 8.30 --12.00 plus a consultation hour, and somehow including preparation for class and course materials.  This is a lot to do, given that I teach a half a semester's worth of normal university course in a week.  It would also mean that I would have to travel and prepare madly on the weekends, in some cases.

On top of this, I would have the MFA to do, the film script to finish and the New Research Agenda. I'm not adverse to the thought of writing a research paper on CW and teaching Indigenous students (surely more relevant to me than the Bumbledore bus, which I never even catch), but I really have no idea where I'd find the time.

Of course, the big picture here is about the general lack of support for creative labour and writing, once again.  Here at Gopher, they suggest that you work in a job that doesn't demand your 'primary energy' (i.e. something non-demanding, preferably part-time).  They do not suggest you give up your day job: 'even T. S. Eliot had his job at the bank,' someone chirped the other day.

Now that I know my co-lecturer has resigned, I've been in email congress with my Big Boss, the Head of School, who likes me, but well, has read the Edicts of DEST.  (I must admit I'm yet to read them myself and check whether they allow for more scope than what's being said, tho some recent ruminations in the Humanities Researcher's blog make me suspect otherwise.)

The Big Boss has been very conciliatory (subtext: he's worried I'll resign, too), though I keep on getting this line from him about the need to participate in 'our research agenda', and 'where we want to get' and 'how we want to get there' (obviously in the Bumbledorean bus).  He says they are supportive of our creative work, yet at the same time, we are not to use Bumbledorean resources or time to produce it, as creative publications are not 'DEST approved' -- i.e. they are not referred academic journal articles. So what does this mean: that they're supportive of the work I do on the weekend and in the evenings on my creative projects in spirit?  It doesn't make sense...and how am I meant to ensure my credibility as a CW lecturer if I don't write and publish?   None of these people of course have any idea of how long it takes to write properly. And if I did ever get a book accepted for publication or funding for a film script, I guess I'd be meant to use it to reflect well on the School, even though they never gave me any physical support.  Oh, and the other unfair thing: they like CW because it brings the student numbers in, but they don't want to value CW itself.

I am seriously worried about how I'm even physically going to manage the rest of semester, without having a heart attack or ending up under sedation.  Now that I've been in this writerly enclave for almost two weeks, I'm starting to take my MFA project much more seriously than I did before.  I really do believe that I am well-positioned to write a probing book about central Australia.  I have no idea if I could find a publisher for it, but I'm reasonably hopeful that it's a topical subject and that I could do a good job with it.  I've always known that if I try and work on this project, at some point, I'd have to take leave or something to complete it (i.e. do more thorough research, finesse my writing), though I thought that would be later rather than sooner. But the cards on the table aren't looking good at the moment.  I feel that I've ended up in exactly the same position I was in this time last year, when I had no idea whether they'd renew my contract (they did till 2010), which was wondering if I should blow them off anyway, at the end of the year, get a part-time job in a gallery up the road and write in the rest of my time.  I've always had a fantasy about working in a gallery; I don't know how likely it is or whether it's even a good idea.

I call this Plan B. One downside of Plan B is that my self-education expenses would no longer be tax-deductible and that I would have to budget madly, say goodbye to large sums of money, and hope it's all worth it. Another is that there's no certainty that two years of lecturer level B at Bumbledore, an American MFA in literary nonfiction and possibly a book would get me a job somewhere down the track -- I'm a bit scared of jumping out of the teaching loop altogether.

One of the other downsides of Plan B is that I really think I'm an excellent teacher: they're cutting off their nose to spite their face or whatever by alienating me.  I'm more certain that I'm a good teacher than I'm a good academic or a good writer.  I'm also very good at communicating with Aboriginal people, and not every teacher is.  I don't know that I'd be any good with other racial minorities, but I seem to be good with this one.  And I'm dedicated to my students and have partly undertaken this MFA so I can learn up about CNF and develop courses for them in this area (ditto the scriptwriting jaunt).

So....I'm not sure if what roll of the dice will play out at this stage, tho if Bumbledore turns out to be ruinous to my health in the next few months, I'm definitely going.  I do know, however, that nothing is ever going to go according to plan, as long as I'm ever associated with Aboriginal affairs or writing (not to mention both at the same time -- asking for double trouble!)  If you have any pearls of wisdom, do share.  Maybe Jane Austen had it easy after all, writing under the sampler.

I will write da funny post about da funny people in the program, incl GT, I promise, but I might have to wait till I'm back in tourist mode for such levity.

Some good news: I'm going to see Vanessa Redgrave in Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking on Broadway on Saturday.  I read a tepid review of the show in the NY, but I'm still excited.  It did make the interesting point of how such a tall and commanding actress could play such a diminutive (if acute) titmouse.

Comments

[Meredith]

wow... that's a difficult set of circumstances and options. I'll be really interested to read about how it all goes.

[elsewhere]

Thanks, Meredith. I have no idea at this stage.

[Laura]

Would it be of any help if I asked some of the CW people in my dept about their takes on the DEST issue? IE how do they propose to get their writing counted as research? Unless you can find a way of making that happen then you're up against it. The worst possible option would be writing stuff you're not specially interested in just for the sake of the research profile. There are refereed higher ed theory journals which would publish articles about teaching CW at Bumbledore, but do you really want to spend your time writing stuff like that?

I do think though El that your cv would make you a very attractive job applicant down south. I feel like I should be trying to get some creative writing experience to make me more employable.

[elsewhere]

>Would it be of any help if I asked some of the CW people in my dept about their takes on the DEST issue?<

Thanks, Laura. If you could ask even casually, that would be great, or maybe if they'd be prepared to chat with me by email re: the issue. I have been collecting some info on the net re: the issue and thinking of whom I could network with in other depts. But I'm trying to take a few days holiday at the moment!

You could maybe put up a blogging/CNF type course as a CW unit...

I could see myself trying to re-badge a chapter from my MFA each year as a submission to a refereed journal, but no, I don't really want to spend my time in soc-sci type research into CW.

[whitebait]

hey el,

some welcome back home.

if you don't know about them, the just-released RQF draft panel-specific guides (august 2007) might be of interest.
panel 13 (creative arts, design and built environment) specifically mentions creative writing and scripts as two forms of research output that will be acceptable. these are more important than the existing DEST guidelines as far as i understand.

[Danny Yee]

From http://www.uws.edu.au/about/adminorg/devint/ors/rodevelopment/prepgrant/destdefinitionofresearch

"DEST Definition of Research

The following activities are excluded except where they are used primarily for the support of, or as part of research and experimental development activities:

* literary and artistic activities such as creative writing but note that preparation of an original report on research and experimental development findings is research and experimental development"

I don't know how much wriggle room that leaves. ("activities of students undertaking postgraduate research courses" and "supervision of students undertaking postgraduate research courses" qualify as research, but that seems a bit circular...)

Good luck with whatever you decide, anyway, it sounds like a fairly major crossroads.

[elsewhere]

Thanks, folks. I'll have a look into these.