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[anon23]

What advice will you give to a new lecturer on probation?
Should one speak up at faculty meetings? I read that TTs in US mostly attend meetings without saying anything. Is that true here as well?
How many journal articles or books should one have for promotion to SL nowadays? What other factors will be judged?
Thanks!

[expatinuk]

We don't really have faculty meetings like in the US. We have all kinds of different committees and boards... tons of boards (bored). You might have program area meetings. But again they are different from a US Faculty meeting.

My suggestion is to keep your mouth shut until you know what the heck is going on. It's a very different system than in the US and it took me about 2 years to realize what 10% of the acronyms meant. The other 90% I'm still working on... and I've been here since 98.

[orienteer]

It never harms you to say, to any colleague, senior or junior, academic or administrator, whenever you can:

"can I get you a drink?"

Your career will thrive.

[science_expat]

More seriously, I don't see the same need to STFU as our US colleagues seem to feel.

This may be because the system is so top down to start with - an awful lot of meeting time is devoted to ratifying what has already been decided.

So, if you behave decently I don't think there's any problem with expressing opinions. But it never hurts to do so deferentially, e.g. "Look, I'm new here and maybe this is a stupid suggestion. But what if we..." or "Has anyone considered...."

[porcupine]

The OP's question and responses are really interesting to me. I've been working in the US this year having trained and worked in the UK, and latterly in a developing country. While in the UK, I never encountered the kind of STFU mentality that seems to pervade US academia - I always got the impression that, as science_expat suggests, there is no problem with making suggestions or voicing disagreement in a collegial  and constructive manner.

Recently I've been told by US-trained academics in my humanities field that, in addition to staying quiet in meetings, I shouldn't even publish anything too critical of senior colleagues in the field at this stage in my career. Suggestions have ranged from withholding material that contradicts senior scholars in my field to rewording critical sections of my writing so that these display less of a challenge to the senior scholar/s. I'm still quite shocked by this, but as I've been away from the UK for over two years now, I'm beginning to second-guess myself - I worry that maybe I'm just being naive.

So, following up on the OP's question, is keeping quiet something more senior people in the UK would advise where new lecturers' research is concerned?

[science_expat]

At the risk of getting flamed, I think that to some extent this is a humanities vs. science thing.

In science we are constantly challenging hypotheses - be those of senior or junior researchers. This is how the field advances.

As an example, one review of my first ever Research Council proposal began with "So, Dr. Expat doesn't think that my method of .... is appropriate. I agree that this should be tested..." This review came from THE senior scientist in this field and the application was funded.

But, my impression is that many things in humanities are less testable and hence are often more opinions instead of hypotheses. Hence, perhaps challenges are taken more personally.

*SE - watching with interest...*

[porcupine]

I don't want to flame you, but I don't agree. For me there's no difference between sciences and humanities here - the humanities certainly advances through scholars challenging one another's work. For instance my supervisor's take on something once got thoroughly shot full of holes in a paper by a junior scholar. Of course I can't vouch for my supervisor having avoided all private ire at this turn of events (just as it remains possible that THE senior scientist you mentioned had to chew a whole bottle of antacids after approving your proposal!), but generally, I heard only widespread approval of that particular debate being reopened.

Any senior UK humanities people out there who can help with this one?

[baoloa]

As a scientist, I think porcupine has a point.  I got my PhD in the UK, and postdocced in the US, now back in the UK.  In my own experience there is definetly much more freedom of speech in the UK than in the US. One is really taught to STFU in the US... where the PIs rule quite autocratically.  Whether that translates to any greater impact of what you might say in the UK versus the US is another thing.

Just compare Prime Minister's question time with the POTUS's press conferences and you'll get the idea.

However, I would add that a non-UK person should spend a year a least just listening, since the way people communicate in the UK is quite different from in the US - things are not always as they seem, and the English reputation for understatement extends to obscurity in other matters too.