Katy Hamilton

I have four e-mail addresses. I marvel at this on a rather regular basis – not least because, when you have four e-mail addresses, remembering to check them all frequently is a constant process of re-remembering their actual existence. The simple reason for this overabundance of communicative channels is that, being a freelance sort of person, a number of organisations which employ me require me to have an institutional address. (Why we can’t just have carrier pigeons  beats me – it’s not like London doesn’t have an overabundance of unemployed birds that could be put to good use. I’m staggered that the government hasn’t suggested this yet.)

Of course, having an institutional e-mail address is usually an indication of being linked into a whole network of systems that run from a single account: a computer profile, access to an online learning portal of some kind, printer account, web editing access… and sometimes also an ID card that is linked to the same thing. Without such information, you are something of a non-entity in these institutions. If you can’t get through the front door, or into the classroom, let alone work the photocopier, you’re a bit stuffed.

But I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t occasionally rather frustrating. Where am I teaching today? Which bag/set of boardmarkers/card/badge/password do I need to remember on this occasion? The set-up is geared absolutely to one who is in full-time employment at one or another of these places. Internet security makes e-mail forwarding impossible. Turning up without ID means that someone else has to waste their valuable time vouching for you so that you can pick up the key to your classroom. And, to return to the profusion of inboxes, about 80% of the mail I receive from one of my employers, in particular, is complete gobbledy-gook to me. It assumes knowledge of systems, regular meetings and other initiatives of which I am wholly unaware.

It’s no different, in this way, from the fact that it’s now impossible to buy a ticket online to anything, anywhere, without signing up for an account. Is it any wonder that people start running through grandma’s middle names trying to think of a password for each of the five railway lines on which they need to travel, plus the theatre, the concert halls, Amazon, book shops, grocery deliveries, eBay, iTunes, taxi booking, flight details, and so on? I remain unmoved by the number of passwords that have been set as ‘password’ out of simple desperation to get the registration process over with. It is a gloriously high percentage, completely unsafe, and utterly understandable.

Still, there is a subtle and important difference here. Most of those sites we are required to feed our credit card details, inside leg measurements and date of birth into, are trying to get us to spend money. They are attempting to tie us into a system that encourages us to go back; nudges us with enticing messages about sales and hot products. They bombard us and ensnare us in order that we return and hand over more cash.

Employers, on the other hand, have already got us. We are signed up, signed in, contractually connected, and so forth. And within higher education, part-time staffing is increasingly common. Over the past few years, the newspapers have been full of articles about zero-hours contracts, limited hours of teaching, the difficulties of making ends meet for such staff in both the UK and the US, where the adjunct system works in much the same way. So if you can be fairly sure that part-timers are on your staff, why would you not look at your infrastructure and systems to make it easier for those part-timers?

I’m not claiming to have the answers, because I do appreciate (despite occasional grumbling at all those email addresses, some of which require frequent password changes, just to advance my mental collapse that little bit further) that this sort of thing is not easy, and large organisations can be slow to change. I understand, too, that part-timers are often in the minority, and might not be there for a long as a full-time member of staff, which presumably means – if you are in the habit of counting beans rather than valuing humans – that they are not worth the same level of investment of time and resources.

But I find it fascinating that, in the latest round of articles warning of the serious decline of part-time students in higher education, exactly the same things are being discussed. A recent survey, reported in the Guardian, uncovered a feeling among many that the organisation of universities was generally planned to meet the needs of full-time students, leaving part-timers feeling out on a limb; and also, that life was so geared around an anticipated take-up of 18-year-olds that mature students were struggling to fit in, even if they were full-time.

There are tremendous advantages to part-time staff and students, in higher and further education. These people bring skills sets and experiences from other walks of life: other business sectors, other branches of education, other kinds of work-life balance, other ages and, in some cases, allowing for a theoretical complement to the practical work that they are doing when they are not studying. That makes for more interesting discusssions in seminars and tutorials, more direct experience bases to draw upon in teaching, and so on. Yet the fundamental driver for this barcoded, e-mail-centric system, is neither teaching nor learning, but administration. I find it impossible to believe that there are not ways of providing lines of communication and spaces for community that don’t rely upon my having to delete at least 10 pointless emails a day. If that means organising two after-work drinks at the end of term so that everyone, part-time and full-time, can come, is that really such a hardship? Or a seminar that starts an hour later so that part-time students can get there from work? With all the skills of reason and logical thought that we can boast in the education sector, surely someone can help us work out some answers?