There ought be a kind of researcher's bill of rights.
Research got you where you are.
(You competed with many other people to get your job. Your expertise and research was a factor in getting you the job you have.)
You are paid to do research or at the very least to maintain your scholarly base.
(If you are teaching at the college level you got there because you are good at what you are teaching. You developed the skills and knowledge that you are imparting to the students. You need to keep developing your own knowledge base, because nothing is worse than a teacher gone stale. If you actually are in a research position then doing that research is part of what you are paid to do, not some ancillary thing you do on your own time, even if the department and the university act like that sometimes.)
Anyone who says you are writing too much, or discourages you from your work, should be your sworn enemy.
(The motivations of people who tell you this are never good. They can envious of you; they might think you are better than them [you are]; they might just want to sabotage your career out of pure spite. Even if their motives were good, so what?)
You should feel proud of your accomplishments.
(Stop being embarrassed about devoting too much time to your work, or publishing too much. )
2 comments:
A print-out of this post goes on the door to my office. And on the wall of every room in my house. I love this post.
Aha, I posted my comment really on this to the wrong post. Anyway, yes, it's true. I find it odd that when I had a work environment that said the opposite directly, it was easy to fight. What I found more insidious were the ones which said: "we know we should think this, and we wish we were in a position to think it, but...".
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