Graham Crow – Managing career endings and the transition to retirement

Research note 4: The condensed lives of sociologists

Graham Crow — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 22:23:44 +0000

I am sure I am not alone in being asked quite often what it is that sociologists do. One way of answering this question is to refer to the work of particular sociologists, and I find myself doing this more often since I started looking systematically at obituaries. These may be only brief, but even a condensed account of a life can be informative, engaging and instructive. Among the 256 obituaries featured in The Times Higher in the five years from January 2015 (mostly written by Matthew Reisz) there are at least six identified as sociologists (Ulrich Beck, Michael Feige, Andy Furlong, John Urry, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Peter Wright), along with several more of people whose work contained strong sociological elements (such as Benedict Anderson, Agnes Heller and Doreen Massey).
Even from this small number of brief lives it is immediately apparent that sociologists do many things. Sociologists investigate troubling issues in the public domain such as the risks associated with climate change, the challenges to the peace process in the Middle East, the fractured transition from education to employment, the restructuring of place, the interplay of politics and economics in recent world history, and the historical roots of modern science. Sociologists also provide us with tools to think with, for example the conceptual framework of world systems theory and the ideas of risk society and of individualization. In addition to shaping intellectual agendas, sociologists also communicate these ideas to diverse audiences, from students in the lecture hall to wider publics in various fora, both institutional and activist. Peter Wright’s obituary recalls his arrest at a protest over racial segregation in a 1960s Leicester pub, and Michael Feige’s death in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv brought to a premature end a life dedicated to the peace process. These obituaries tell stories of lives of research, ideas and engagement. In addition, they are accounts of lives lived that also contain glimpses of people whose professionalism was combined with a range of very human personal qualities: kindness, courtesy, humility, imagination, commitment to reason, and commitment to social justice.
This note was first published in Everyday Society on 11 May 2020 https://es.britsoc.co.uk/the-condensed-lives-of-sociologists-in-obituaries/ and permission to reproduce it here is gratefully acknowledged.

Research note 3: Lessons from academic careers

Graham Crow — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 21:27:44 +0000

A successful career can take many forms, and there are always lessons to be learned through studying people’s achievements. For successful academics, obituaries are revealing about what counts as success and how to achieve it. In the obituaries featured weekly in The Times Higher in the five years from January 2015 (256 obituaries in total, mostly written by Matthew Reisz) there are Nobel Prize winners recognised for their scientific discoveries, such as Sir Charles Kuen Kao, ‘the grandfather of broadband’. There are authors noted for their prolific output, such as the development studies scholar Calestous Juma of whom it was said by a contemporary that he ‘could write faster than most of us could read’. There are much-loved teachers who inspired generations of students; Patrick O’Donnell delivered his introductory psychology lectures to 45 academic cohorts, long enough for his students to include members of three generations of the same family. There are people whose talent for administration and team-building include the physicist James Stirling who made it look easy to lead what was described (with implied understatement) as ‘a large department of occasionally fractious academics’. There are pioneers of organizational change, for example the health scientist Mary Edmonds, famous for promoting widening participation among women from minority ethnic backgrounds. Then there are quirky figures whose nicknames convey their personalities: the engineer Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya was ‘known as “Lord Battery Charger” for his fast-paced enthusiasm’, and Steve Redhead’s research engagement with contemporary dance culture earned him the moniker ‘Professor Rave’.
In some cases, success came despite inauspicious beginnings. Several of the obituaries relate stories of early lives scarred by displacement and persecution during the Second World War. Among these, the Dutch physicist Clemens Roothaan survived a concentration camp and went on to be described as ‘probably the person who most deserved but never received the Nobel Prize’. Another physicist, Ursula Franklin, survived a forced labour camp and went on to become the first female professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Engineering; she also won Canada’s Pearson Peace Medal for her humanitarian work. Others also took contrasting paths to that of smooth progression following conventional academic milestones. The archaeologist Mark Pluciennik completed his undergraduate degree at the second attempt in his thirties, but despite this ‘late start’ he became ‘a scholar of international repute’. The anthropologist Paul Clough took 19 years to complete his PhD, but perseverance with this and related research paid off as it ‘transformed our understanding of African peasant economies and societies’. And without the work of the transgender neuroscientist Ben Barres (who transitioned mid-career and reflected on how male and female scientists are received differently), it is said that ‘there would be no field’ of glial studies at all.
There are of course also plenty of cases of favourable beginnings (such as having academic parents) and of steady career progression, but even here chance events feature in life stories. The psychologist John Krumboltz was introduced to his discipline by his tennis coach. Carl Weber’s route to becoming Professor of Drama at Stanford followed both working with Bertolt Brecht and being forced into exile by Cold War politics. The literary scholar Pascale Casanova had Pierre Bourdieu as her PhD supervisor, but never held a permanent academic post in France. For the humanities scholar Annette Kolodny, her early education and career took her to several prestigious North American institutions but the hostile reception given to her ideas led her to liken academic life to dancing through a minefield. Her legacy is framed in terms of both her scholarship and her inspirational personal characteristics, including graciousness.
Other obituaries also remember their subjects for a set of positive qualities, including attention to detail, boundless energy, charisma, commitment, compassion, congeniality, diplomacy, empathy, encyclopaedic knowledge, fearless forensic intelligence, genius, humility, humour, integrity, kindness, modesty, natural aptitude for communication, open-mindedness, prodigious energy, rigour, and scholarly temperament. They are described variously as astonishingly wide-ranging, committed, dedicated, delighted when others succeeded, distinguished, exuberant, fair-minded, generous, good-humoured, highly-influential, humble, infectiously brilliant, much-admired, outstanding, passionate, pioneering, spellbinding, stimulating, tireless, and versatile team players. One wonders how ‘a great scholar of the old school’ (the description applied to the expert on culture and politics Joseph Buttegieg) would fare if starting out in to-day’s more competitive academic environment. That said, competitiveness overshadowing collegiality is the gist of a minority of obituaries, framed as the forthrightness of combative and provocative characters unafraid of confrontation. Such figures are remembered wryly as having attracted ‘as many critics as admirers’. Other minorities include those described as ‘scatter-brained’ and ‘maverick’. Paul Clough’s reported capacity ‘to connect with any argument’ also suggests unusualness. On another plane, the scholar of literature and religion William Gray is perhaps unique among academics in having been ‘completely free of the wish to impress’; we may not see his like again.
Two decades ago Barbara Tizard and Charlie Owen’s survey of retired academics in the UK found a strikingly diverse pattern of career trajectories. At that time, however, fixed retirement ages had forced an ending which has now become more optional, and the prospect beckons of some academics keeping their jobs into their seventies and beyond. In the UK, at least, changed pension arrangements are another variation from the fixed points of earlier generations’ calculations about when and how to retire from a fulfilling academic career. This limits the extent to which iconic members of those earlier generations can provide to-day’s academics with realistic role models. For these and other reasons, including the feminisation of the workforce and the precariousness of much employment in universities, the time is ripe for a new study of academics’ later careers and retirement. The Leverhulme Trust are funding me to undertake this, and data are being collected through two surveys of UK-based academics, one for current staff contemplating retirement and another for those already retired.
This note was first published in Discover Society https://discoversociety.org/2020/05/06/lessons-from-academic-careers/ and permission to reproduce it here is gratefully acknowledged.

Research note 2: What is academic retirement?

Graham Crow — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 21:14:17 +0000

A life expectancy of 75 may seem low for academics, but it is the average age at which death occurred for the people featured in the weekly obituaries column of The Times Higher over the five years from January 2015. Of course, it does not follow that university dons have a lower life expectancy than the general UK population, because the sample is not a random one. Of the 256 obituaries featured during this period, only a quarter were women, and a significant minority lived and worked outside of the UK, principally in the USA but in a dozen or so other countries besides, across five continents. The oldest lived to be over 100; the youngest was only 37 when he died. One in seven did not reach their sixtieth birthday, but an almost identical proportion lived to be over 90.
At an individual level, the retirement to which academics can look forward is unpredictable in terms of length. The picture of life after work is further complicated by some people choosing to carry on with what they know. The old adage that academics never retire is supported by the many cases in which the obituarist (normally Matthew Reisz) uses phrases such as ‘notionally retired’, ‘nominal retirement’, ‘a committed researcher to the end of her life’, ‘intellectually active to the last’, and ‘even in hospital, continued working on his final paper’. Some easing up is implied in the story told by the medical researcher Denis Mitchison of his decision aged 90 ‘to take Mondays off’. Another nonagenarian, the physicist and educationalist Lewis Elton, ‘hardly let retirement slow him down’; a third, the mathematician Martin Shubik, was ‘a committed researcher right up to his death’. The philosopher Agnes Heller’s continued high profile as a prodigious writer and lecturer prompted an invitation to lunch from Emmanuel Macron when she reached 90.
Instances of leaving academia early are noticeably fewer, reflecting perhaps a correlation between number of years in the job and the likelihood of achieving the distinction needed to be selected to feature in this obituary column. Distinctions in the form of prizes (including Nobel Prizes), medals, honours and citations awarded in recognition of achievement are typically features of later career stages or post-retirement, as in the case of the astronomer Jack Meadows who had a minor planet named after him aged 72. (It should be noted, however, that a similar honour was given to the physicist Christine Floss, who died in her fifties.) The centenarian oceanographer Walter Munk, described as having been ‘a provocative force in science for 80 years’, had both a deep-sea worm and a pygmy devil fish named after him.
Another very long career was Gillet Griffin’s; his association with Princeton lasted over six decades and included a friendship with Albert Einstein. The view associated with Einstein that great careers start young receives support in several obituaries. Aubrey Trotman-Dickenson’s was one such case, highlighting a first article published when he was 21, based on work done at school with his teacher; both went on to become University vice-chancellors/principals. Early achievements mentioned in Claire Sponsler’s obituary include reading Nietzsche aged 7, while Anne Monius traced her academic trajectory to a visit to Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology at the age of 8. By contrast, other journeys to academic success are prefaced by phrases such as ‘despite his late start’; several accounts chronicle diverse life experiences (such as working as a record store assistant, a docker, a footballer, a singer, a journalist, and doing national service in the armed forces) before devoting attention to university. Still others include the extreme challenges faced by children escaping Nazi Germany via the Kindertransport, or surviving the second world war in a forced labour camp, or being orphaned by a father’s execution. In short, there are diverse career trajectories that range from what are called in the literature ‘early achievers’ to ‘late bloomers’.
Although there are cases of individuals following an idealised pattern of ‘rising through the ranks’ to prominent positions then enjoying deserved retirement pursuing new interests such as writing thrillers, learning to fly aeroplanes, community singing, volunteering, travelling, campaigning, birdwatching, and cultivating their gardens, others stayed in more familiar territory by setting up a publishing house, teaching in a prison, and writing memoirs. Twenty years ago Barbara Tizard and Charlie Owen’s survey of retired academics in the UK found a similarly diverse pattern. At that time, however, fixed retirement ages forced a change which has now become more optional, and the prospect beckons of academics keeping their jobs into their seventies and beyond. In the UK, at least, changed pension arrangements are another variation from the fixed points of earlier generations’ calculations about when and how to retire. This limits the extent to which members of those earlier generations can provide to-day’s academics with realistic role models. For these and other reasons, including the feminisation of the workforce and the precariousness of much employment in universities, the time is ripe for a new study of academics’ later careers and retirement. The Leverhulme Trust are funding me to undertake this, and data are being collected through two surveys of UK-based academics, one for current staff contemplating retirement and another for those already retired.