Transparency

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Transparency is a beautiful word. It appears in strategic plans, in mission statements, in evaluation forms. But in practice? It's often the first thing to disappear when it comes to matters that truly matter. When I was asked to become vice-dean for research, it seemed like a great opportunity. The dean's assistant told me I would receive teaching relief, an attractive allowance, and — the icing on the cake — a sabbatical at the end of my term. I agreed, was elected. What turned out? No sabbatical at all. It had existed only in that one conversation. The teaching relief had to be arranged separately by the incumbent dean, who did so with a cc to the entire dean's office, writing that he was doing this "albeit with considerable reluctance" — as if I had asked him for a personal favour. Meanwhile the incumbent vice-dean, the dean, and the vice-dean for teaching all received teaching relief as a matter of course. The problem was never the teaching relief itself. The...
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About

I am Ineke Mennen — professor of applied linguistics, with a specialisation in second language pronunciation. After more than thirty years in academia, I write here about what the handbooks leave out: the unwritten rules, the informal power structures, and the quiet mechanisms that shape academic life.

For the full story of why this blog exists — and why I wrote it anonymously for so long — read I was anonymous.

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