Reflecting and Adapting to an Academic Workplace Before and After the Lockdown in Greek-Speaking Cyprus

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are required to constantly adapt and respond to the needs of society, both economic and social, including the current pandemic situation. The traditional representation of university as an educational side is being challenged leading to the inclusion of the practitioner side, emphasising on the need for business education. In this context, the present study examines how academics reflect and adapt to an HEI and enhance their workplace literacy and work-related practices inside and outside the foreign language classroom. The participants were 36 academics of all ranks involving part- and full-timers working in a private English-speaking HEI. The findings indicate that participants could need more support with the subject area that is English, and an extended access to the shared repertoire of their communities, which may strengthen their connections with other academics and reduce high job demands, resulting in better adaptation to new workplaces.

Benchmarking Age-Friendly University Practices: AFU Inventory and Campus Climate Survey (ICCS) Study Insights

The Age-Friendly University (AFU) initiative endorsed by GSA’s Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) provides institutions of higher education with guiding principles for addressing the needs of aging populations. Benchmarks are now needed for assessing age-friendly academic, workplace, and physical campus environments, perceptions of campus constituents, and recommendations for advancing age inclusivity. This symposium will discuss what the AFU Inventory and Campus Climate Survey (ICCS) administered to a national sample of colleges and universities is revealing about the study of age-friendliness in higher education. The sample includes data from over 10,000 faculty, staff, students, and older learners surveyed in 2020-21. Whitbourne will introduce the conceptual model that served as the foundation for the ICCS, with special attention to the need to assess and compare “objective” age-friendly practices with “subjective” perceptions of these practices. Bowen will describe the utility of examining age-friendliness across institutional units with different functions: outreach-engagement, personnel, physical environment, research, services-resources, student affairs, and teaching-learning. Beaulieu will present data demonstrating the importance of assessing perceptions of specific constituent groups including faculty, staff, students, and lifelong learners. Montepare will discuss insights gained about the definition and manifestation of what it means to be ageist, age-friendly, and age-inclusive in higher education. Silverstein will describe strengths and challenges observed across campuses along with recommendations and promising new directions for advancing age inclusivity in higher education.

From bystander to ally among faculty colleagues: construction and validation of the bystander intervention behavior scale

PurposeBystander intervention mitigates the negative impact of bias incidents in the workplace. However, intervention tends to be viewed as binary: intervention occurred or it did not. Consequently, research has focused on conditions under which witnesses of bias incidents choose to intervene, and less is known about how witnesses may intervene. This paper elucidates the intervention behavior choices available to witnesses of bias incidents and develops a bystander intervention behavior (BIB) scale.Design/methodology/approachTo develop the scale, the authors used the three-phased act frequency methodology. In phase I, the authors surveyed faculty who had both witnessed a bias incident and seen someone intervene to address it. The authors asked these faculties to list the observed bystander intervention behaviors they had personally observed. In Phase II, different survey respondents and subject matter experts assessed the prototypicality of each of the behaviors in relation to the concept of bystander intervention. In phase III, the authors tested the validity and reliability of the resulting 18-item scale and assessed the ability of bystander intervention behavior to mitigate the negative impact of bias incidents on the academic workplace.FindingsThe BIB scale consists of two theoretically derived, empirically validated and reliable dimensions; it can be used as a summary score to evaluate the extent to which colleagues intervene indirectly and directly when a bias incident occurs in the academic workplace.Originality/valueThis scale is valuable in advancing efforts to mitigate the negative effect of bias in the workplace and training colleagues to intervene in various ways when bias occurs.

Peer Pressure of Publishing or Perishing (PPPP)

Researchers create or improvise knowledge by innovating concepts, methods and/or interpretations. Scientific research and scientific writing seem to be inseparable in this modern world for professional existence. Publications are important to give a thrust and positive boost up in your career. Since last decade, research has taken a new horizon. Medical schools and universities frequently use the quantification of publication as the measure of a scholar’s academic competency. Publications are an essential and sometimes the sole criteria considered during recruitments. The numerical value of the published work is taking a leap step ahead of the quality of research. Scholars, who do not have the aptitude of publishing frequently or who focus more on their clinical work and teaching activities to shape up the undergraduates’ and postgraduates’ future, may find themselves out of this professional race. Each individual faculty of the medical institutions is unique research scholar. There is an upcoming trend that unless they pen down their research, they will be undervalued in the academic workplace. This undue “Peer Pressure of Publishing or Perishing” is floating as the new “Catch Phrase” of the professional era.

EXPRESS: “And we gossip about my life as if I am not there.” An autoethnography on recovery from infidelity and silence in the academic workplace

In this autoethnography, I engage with betrayal trauma from my husband’s infidelity as it relates to my recovery and my academic identity, and my work performance. As I navigate between the trauma, the stigma and taboo, the shame and lack of knowledge, my responsibilised academic self, the collegial interactions, and the question whether keeping silent robbed me of my voice, I distinguish toxic secrets, hurtful silencing, and healing silence. Although the exploitative nature of the academic workplace had never been more visceral, I also found that a tending silence contributed to my protection and my recovery. In silence, my academic life is opening up to embracing needs rather than enduring hardships, to inviting rather than striving, to vulnerability rather than empowerment.

The Relationship between Research and Casework in Forensic Entomology

Research is a vital component of all forensic sciences and is often stimulated by casework, which identifies gaps in our knowledge. In such a niche area of forensic science as entomology there should be a close and mutually beneficial relationship between research and casework: to some extent there is a continuum between the two and many forensic entomologists are involved in both to a greater or lesser degree. However, research and casework involve quite differing challenges, from the replicated, highly controlled, sometimes esoteric aspects of research to the very individual, sometimes chaotic and disruptive, but highly applied aspects of casework. Ideally casework will include the full involvement of a forensic entomologist, who will collect the insect and climate evidence at the scene and produce a robust expert witness statement based on a full analysis of this data. Unfortunately, it can also include situations where samples, if collected at all, are poorly preserved, not representative of the full cadaver fauna available and presented to the entomologist months or years after the event, without local temperature data. While research is recognised through publications and their citation indices, casework and its associated expert witness statements often receive no credit in an academic workplace, although they do have a positive societal impact and many other benefits of teaching and public engagement value. This manuscript examines the relationship between research and casework from a UK perspective, to raise awareness of the need to create an environment that values the contribution of both, for future generations to flourish in both areas.

Demonstrating Equitable and Inclusive Crisis Leadership in Higher Education

Academic leadership faces tremendous pressure to build sustainable environments that demonstrate a commitment to the principles of inclusive excellence. Currently, the convergence of dual global crises—the COVID-19 pandemic and reckoning of systemic violence and racism toward individuals from historically marginalized and oppressed groups—has led to prioritizing impactful inclusive excellence leadership processes that address justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. However, too often, in times of crisis, the strategic prioritizing and, more importantly, allocation of resources to support inclusive excellence initiatives are seen as secondary, tangential, or nonessential to the core operational mission of academic units. In this article, the authors discuss the unique realities, challenges, and opportunities academic leaders face when leading an equitable and inclusive academic workplace and culture during and after a crisis. The authors provide fundamental inclusive excellence and justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion terminology and definitions. In addition, the authors provide attributes, behaviors, and action steps for demonstrating equitable and inclusive crisis leadership.