Keskustelua
Foreign academics in
Finland - in the silence
of the shadow
Gareth Rice and the anonymous 'International Finnish
Academic' are to be thanked most warmly for
exposing the truth about academic life here. It desperately
needed saying - but is anyone listening?
A particular problem is the position of foreign academics
who live and work here. These are almost
always lecturers; after all, who in power in Finnish
universities believes that such people are entitled to
anything else but a job (not a career) which subjects
them to a punishing workload and deprivation of any
real opportunity for job satisfaction, let alone advancement?
When issues of a research
career come up, they
denied. After all, if a foreigner
got such a job, a Finn
would miss out and that
would never do. They are
patronisingly told that there
are things to do in research
which will help shine up
some professor's career (but
not their own). They are pointedly excluded in both
major and minor ways, academically and even socially.
They are denied seniority and even the slightest
degree of academic or scholarly responsibility,
irrespective of what they might have achieved in the
larger academic world. It all means nothing to the
Finnish professoriate who call the shots. I'm alright
Jack.
They come here under the misleading, not to say
fraudulent impression that there will be a career,
as at any other university, and are then ruthlessly
exploited until they either give up and accept their
fate, or die inside from demoralisation. Yes, there are some Finns who end up in this position, but the
crucial difference is that all practically foreigners
do. Any complaint or protest is met with lumpish
silence or complete incomprehension. No explanation
of the real position, let alone an apology for it,
is ever offered. Now and then you are told that you
are being paid a little more, but is that what an academic
career is about? It is hard to think of a case of
a Finnish professor who would relinquish his or her
chair in order to accept a higher salary.
The 'international Finnish academic' mentioned
a sense of entitlement, but this was an understatement.
It is a God-given truth. Not only are Finns
entitled to their opportunities and their professorial
careers, while their foreign inferiors rot, but the entitlement
is often generations old, and even mothertongue
bound. Who does not know the NAMES that
litter the history of Finnish academic life, and must
perforce be recognised by
further entitlement?
It is extremely galling to
watch less-qualified Finns
rise to professorial rank while
you rot. It is also galling to
think that you will stay as you
are no matter what you do,
how much you publish, or
what involvement you might
have in the larger international world. Whatever
you do achieve will be done knowing that those who
succeed will have been offered things that for you
are unthinkable, such as research assistance, supervision,
research funding, post-graduate responsibilities,
just simple encouragement and support, and
sufficient time to think and write-all impossible or
extremely limited for a lecturer. Just go and stand at
the back of the queue, please.
R. W. McConchie
- Painetussa lehdessä sivu 39
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