Editor’s Note: This poem was submitted by a brave academic currently facing redundancy. I am very pleased to share it anonymously (in accordance with the poet’s wishes) on #DireEd.
An Ocean of Emotion
Emotions
Like the ocean
Roll in
Waves come crashing down
Pulled below by the undertow
Swimming against the riptide
At risk of being swept aside
The stigma
The shame
The sense of disgrace
Put on a brave face.
Nothing more than a mask
Of those that mattered
None really bothered to ask
A lack of sympathy
An abundance of faux empathy
Emotions
Like the ocean
Roll in
Waves come crashing down
Divide and conquer
The primary strategy
A lack of transparency
Little in the way of honesty
The outcome a tragedy
Nothing less than a travesty
So much for solidarity
The deathknell of collegiality
Emotions
Like the ocean
Roll in
Waves come crashing down
Another restructure
Rationale lacklustre
The state of higher education
A dire situation
What future for the next generation?
Increased casualisation
Another fruitless grant application
Endless pursuit of a citation
More centralised bureaucratisation
Never-ending managerialisation
A stifling of innovation
Emotions
Like the ocean
Roll in
Waves come crashing down
Pulled below by the undertow
Swimming against the riptide
No longer at risk of being swept aside
Redundancy has finally arrived
By no means the end
A chance to survive
An opportunity to thrive.
– Anonymous poet
This article is published under a Creative Commons 4.0 License.
To submit an article to Dire Ed, visit http://dire.ed.com/submissions/
dire-ed.com 
Heartbreaking. That’s such a powerful and visceral metaphor — academe must feel very much like the ocean for our colleagues with precarious appointments. It’s unpredictable and you can be totally at its mercy.
My own role is quite stable (for now), but I know for certain that I don’t deserve this stability any more than my precarious counterparts. Frankly, none of us do. I know you know that. I can only imagine how bitterly unfair that must feel.
I’m sorry we’ve lost you. I hope you’ve found peace with how things are and whatever is coming next for you. Thank you for sharing your beautiful poem.
LikeLike
How about solidarity with the students and their families who are paying obscene amounts of money and receiving an outdated, obsolete, inapplicable, subpar education, with absolutely no recourse for innovation because of tenured, self serving faculty who think universities exist mainly to provide them with jobs…?
LikeLike