South African Universities in 2017 - future prospects?

Universities hope for more stable academic year

While it is unlikely that South Africa will escape student unrest at the start of the 2017 academic year, authorities are hoping such action will be moderated by the progress made in addressing some of the key challenges that sparked and sustained last year’s violent and highly disruptive protests over fee-free higher education...

 

Sharon Dell 27 January 2017 Issue No:444

From: University World News

the best social media accounts for academics

Irreverent, funny and informative – higher education does the internet really well. Here are our favourite blogs and Twitter accounts 

From the Higher Education Network - Helen Lock, 23 March 2016, The Guardian 

Via open licence “Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd”

Yes or No to a Career in the Humanities ???

Majoring In The Humanities Does Pay Off, Just Later

From: Susan Adams, Forbes Staff, 22/1/2014

Majoring in the humanities seems like a bad idea these days. Employers don’t want to hire you, we hear, and when they do, they pay poorly (I’ve written three stories saying as much in the last two weeks). But a new study out today gives hope to liberal arts graduates.  ...But at least humanities graduates hold their own.

Liberal Arts Grads Win Long-Term

From: Allie Grasgreen, 22/1/2014

reporting on the US report  “How Liberal Arts and Sciences Majors Fare in Employment,”

Employers consistently say they want to hire people who have a broad knowledge base and can work together to solve problems, debate, communicate and think critically, the report notes – all skills that liberal arts programs aggressively, and perhaps uniquely, strive to teach.

Employment in the Humanities

 From: Dispatches from Drury's Humanities Division

 One fact about the Humanities that is well acknowledged is that studying it leads to personal satisfaction...Does this personal satisfaction come at a practical cost? Some will have you believe that students interested in the Humanities must choose between personal or economic satisfaction. Thankfully, the data does not support this re a recent study commissioned by the Academy of the Arts and Sciences (AAS) collected data on available jobs.

Salaries in the Humanities

From: Dispatches from Drury's Humanities Division

In addition to discussion about unemployment rates, it is important for people to have a good idea of the salary implications of majoring in the Humanities. Now, remember, here we are talking about only majoring in the Humanities. Double majoring in a Humanities field and in a non-Humanities field combines the power of the skill sets for both sides. Here, however, we focus just on single majors.
Humanities majors do well! On average they do make less than their non-Humanities counterparts, but not much less. In fact, particular Humanities fields, such as philosophy, history, and marketing, earn more at mid-career than the non-Humanities average. Additionally, philosophy majors (along with physics majors) see the largest start to mid-career salary boost – a whopping 104.5% increase over that period re the latest Georgetown study

Maximizing The Impacts Of Your Research

‘Maximizing The Impacts Of Your Research: A Handbook For Social Scientists’

 now available to download as a PDF

In the past, there has been no one source of systematic advice on how to maximize the academic impacts of your research in terms of citations and other measures of influence. And almost no sources at all have helped researchers to achieve greater visibility and impacts with audiences outside the university. Instead researchers have had to rely on informal knowledge and picking up random hints and tips here and there from colleagues, and from their own personal experience.This Handbook remedies this key gap and opens the door to researchers achieving a more professional and focused approach to their research from the outset.

from: LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog 14th April 2011

The academic career path has been thoroughly destabilised...

 The academic career path has been thoroughly destabilised by the precarious practices of the neoliberal university.

It is an increasingly difficult time to begin an academic career. The pressures of the REF, casualization and adjunctification of teaching and the disappearance of research funding are enormous obstacles academics face. Sydney Calkin looks at how academics have in many ways become model neoliberal subjects. How might we effectively challenge the growing acceptance of the unpaid, underpaid, zero hours work within universities? A ‘job’ posting circulated on Twitter and Facebook in July 2013, provoking a mix of shock, anger, and hopelessness among academics, particularly young aspiring academics.

Interesting commentary follows the article on LSEImpactBlog.