It's the calm before the storm! In two consecutive weeks, I have sent out two very important applications. They have both, in a way, been approximately five years in the making, and they matter. So now I get a few months of respite before I find out whether they have been successful.
The first one was my application for promotion to senior lecturer. I got my permanent contract as lecturer in the last days of 2017. And I didn't realise it at the time, but lecturers seem to come in two flavours: lecturer one and lecturer two. And I had become lecturer one. My line manager at the time told me after a while I should apply for lecturer two. I did that, and it was successful. So in 2019, I had my last promotion! And that means that it took me five years to apply for the next step. And it is the big one. Firstly; the increase in salary is a lot bigger than it is between lecturer one and two, or between senior lecturer and reader. I'm not sure about professors; I think they can negotiate their salary, and are not on some standard scale. They might not actually give me the pay increase even if the application is successful, but that is a topic for another post.
The other reason why it is a big step is that it is where most women fall by the wayside. We hire female lecturers by the dozen! But few make it to senior lecturer. And given that that is the case, even fewer make it beyond senior lecturer. So if I get this, I have escaped the woman trap. I have kicked through where the glass ceiling is thickest! That is important to me. I will not have let the job wear me down. Since I started working here, I have seen five women quit. To the best of my knowledge, four of these were lecturers; one was either a senior lecturer or reader. The only man I have seen quit before reaching the stage of professor was the husband of one of these women! When she got angry and quit, she organised a job elsewhere both for herself and for him. So there's your leaking pipeline in action. I hope I am being part of the solution, and a role model for the women coming after me. Women are not just the most junior staff! I know much more work has been done by our three female professors, but smaller achievements count too.
The Athena Swan application matters for the School. To be entirely honest, I'm not sure what the consequences would be if we wouldn't have an Athena Swan award. I know there has been talk of potentially, departments that don't have accreditation not being allowed to apply for certain types of funding, but I don't think that is reality (yet). But it certainly would look bad! We got our first accreditation in 2018, and if we are successful this time, we will be okay until 2029. We can apply for the next level up; silver, any time we want, but I think we now need a bit of time to let the dust settle, and execute our action plan. You can't get silver until enough time has passed that shows you have made progress since your bronze!
I expect the outcome of both applications in June latest. Fingers crossed!
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