Academics who work cloistered lives in the Ivory Tower of the university belong to a past era in tertiary education. Today’s university staff are expected to juggle teaching responsibilities and research projects, find time to collaborate for mutual benefit with relevant industries, and to participate in community life, including the formal programs of knowledge transfer, whereby research results are communicated in an accessible way to the public.

Academia is a demanding career path, requiring continued and demonstrable success in all the areas of an academic’s work life.

This month, Science Hub talks to a successful young senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, about the challenges and rewards of academic work, and the importance of finding balance.

Dr Stuart Barber is a PhD-qualified, certified veterinary surgeon with teaching awards to his credit, and a regular columnist with Australia’s leading rural newspaper.  He is actively involved in his family’s farm, and busy with his own young family.  He is employed as a senior lecturer in Australia’s oldest veterinary school, which this year celebrates its centenary.

We asked Dr Barber to summarise the professional responsibilities he took on with his lecturing role.

“In the first two years of the veterinary course, I teach animal health, welfare and management – which covers animal handling skills and animal production.  I coordinate the first year of that subject, but I also teach into the second year.

“In terms of research, I’m currently studying sheep mastitis, around Victoria and Australia, and continuing to look at drugs to kill parasites.  I’m also trying to do some research on student-education related issues within veterinary science and more generally.

“In terms of knowledge transfer, I’m writing one article per month for the Farm Magazine Weekly Times supplement, and I also write for the Australian Poll-Dorset Journal three or four times a year.

“I’m on the livestock industry consulting committee as a member of the Australian Veterinary Association and participate in a number of different groups that discuss industry issues.

“I also help my father on his farm in north-eastern Victoria, where he runs a stud sheep property.  I help him with the genetics and management side of that.  And that’s enough to keep me busy!”

Teaching

As an academic, Dr Barber is expected to manage teaching, research and knowledge transfer activities, but as a senior lecturer employed by the university to teach, Dr Barber’s first responsibility is to his students.  He delivers approximately 80 hours of lectures and practical classes per semester, averaging seven contact hours per week.  The time he requires to prepare lecture material and assess student work is additional to this, and at least four times the number of his contact hours.  This calculates to a minimum average commitment to teaching of 35 hours per week.

As well as maintaining his lecturing and examination commitments, Dr Barber is also actively researching best practice methods for teaching, and developing new methods to improve student learning.

“I’m interested in trying to improve the first few years of student experience within the veterinary course.  I’m trying to work out ways of delivering material to improve their education, but also their quality of life.  It’s a difficult course and it’s important to work out methods that help them learn the material while keeping their time commitment to the university at a minimum.

“We’re also looking at practical ways to help them improve their knowledge, particularly regarding the agricultural industries.  It’s important for veterinarians to understand what happens on a farm.

“Last year, we took the students to Dookie College, in northern Victoria for a three day intensive farm visit program combined with communication and leadership building skills.”

Dr Barber and other first year lecturers in the veterinary course are also committed to helping students integrate earlier into their peer group, having observed that isolated students are less happy, less motivated to study, and at higher risk of failing or withdrawing from the course.

For a vocational and clinical course like veterinary science, helping students to network and develop good social skills also enhances their professional development and employability.

“Practising veterinarians certainly need to have a wide circle of peers they can rely on for assistance and having people to ask professional questions of, or just to have a chat with, is something that’s very, very valuable.

“And when clinics are looking for a veterinary graduate, what they’re really interested in is people skills.  Does the graduate, for example, know how to talk to someone when they have to put down their dog?  Do they understand that telling a farmer that their stock has certain diseases means they might have to get rid of their entire flock?”

Time-management

In tertiary education, it is widely expected that staff employed to teach should also have an active research program.  Involvement in research activities ensures that lecturers are up-to-date with recent developments in their field – information they can pass on to their students – and encourages staff to exercise high standards of critical thinking and investigative discipline – favourable attributes that the next generation of researchers should absorb.

As a result, in addition to his lecturing activities, Dr Barber runs a research program on sheep mastitis.  In the coming months, Science Hub will take a detailed look at the science of his research program in our Spotlight article, Dr Stuart Barber: boom and bust in agricultural science.  His work was funded until recently by two industry bodies representing primary producers in Australia, the Meat and Livestock Association and Australian Wool Innovation.  While Dr Barber has one PhD student with whom to collaborate on the laboratory and field demands of his projects, he still commits five to ten hours per week to his research activities.

On top of this work, academics at the University of Melbourne, and other tertiary institutions, are encouraged to transfer their knowledge – to contribute to activities that improve the uptake and flow of information between the university and wider community.  For his part, Dr Barber writes regularly for industry newsletters and a monthly column on farming and animal care for the Herald and Weekly Times newspaper, a commitment that requires up to five hours per week from Dr Barber.

In all, his lecturing, research and writing responsibilities take up about 35 to 40 hours of Dr Barber’s working week.  Add to this program the miscellaneous administrative tasks, meetings, seminar presentations, conference participation, manuscript preparation and peer-review responsibilities required of most academic staff, and time-management becomes a very important skill.

“One of the messages we tell our students is that they must make time for themselves as well as for their work. One of the risks you run is becoming a workaholic and having your whole life ruled by veterinary science, or science, or whatever it might be,” says Dr Barber.

“Time-management is really important, but there are times, particularly when a research project is finishing up, but the teaching load remains, where it can be difficult to manage that load.

“The biggest [consideration] in managing time, is having time with my family, that’s very important to me.  It’s also important to have a bit of time, whenever that might be, for me as well, so I can evaluate where I’m at and what’s happening.”

For Dr Barber, a practical strategy to managing time involves setting out short and longer-term goals, so he knows when he wants to finish things.  He suggests that if you’re coming close to the deadline and finding you can’t meet those goals, then you need to either change goals or bring in some help.

Another good piece of advice is to learn to prioritise.  “At universities, there’s always more work to do somewhere, so it’s a matter of working out what’s most important and focusing on that,” he says.

“There’s a reasonable amount of pressure to perform in the university environment – to put out a certain number of publications each year, as well as get reasonable teaching scores.  I wouldn’t call it an easy job, but it’s certainly fulfilling.”

The rewards of academic life

In recent recognition for Dr Barber’s dedication to his students, and his own professional development as a teacher, he was awarded the 2009 Australian Veterinary Association’s (AVA) Excellence in Teaching Award.  Each year the AVA recognises one teacher from among the eight Australasian veterinary schools for their contribution to learning.

“My name’s on the top of the certificate,” says Dr Barber, “but I felt more compelled to accept it on behalf of the team I work with at the university, and also our external colleagues.  In teaching, you can’t really do it very well by yourself.”

Despite his modesty, the award is timely public recognition for work that Dr Barber already finds satisfying, and an added incentive to continue improving his teaching skills.

“Teaching is very rewarding when you see students really enthusiastic about the topics you’re teaching, or when they finally understand a certain idea.  It’s exciting to see students learning … Hopefully, I’m improving over time and students are benefiting all the more, because when they do, it makes it better for me.

“I’m happy doing what I’m doing and I’d like to stay in research and to keep teaching.  From a research point of view, I always like learning new things.  I’m quite happy being involved with industry and getting out to work with farmers.  I’d like to continue on that line.

“I really like being able to help people.  If I can do something that makes someone else’s day better or that improves someone else’s abilities, it makes me very happy.  That’s one of my drivers.   If I can learn something new about myself or about other things, that also makes me happy.

“The role I’m in currently in is a very good role for me, it allows me to achieve those things, and hopefully on a daily basis.”

Dr Barber is employed by the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Melbourne and his research until recently was funded by Australian Wool Innovation and the Meat and Livestock Association.

Related articles:

• Spotlight – Dr Stuart Barber: boom and bust in agricultural science
• Skills – communication: Dr Stuart Barber: pitching to your audience