Tone-deaf professor finally starts answering emails
I found this self-congratulatory LinkedIn Post hilarious: guy doesn't answer unsolicited emails from interested researchers or potential applicants but now thathis children are not getting answers from other academics, he realised he was wrong and now congratulates himself that he answers emails now.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7478120110411649027/
Here is the full text for your enjoyment:
For many years, I received unsolicited emails asking about PhD positions, postdoctoral opportunities, internships and research projects.
And, if I'm honest, I usually deleted them.
Not because I wanted to be dismissive, but because, like many academics, my inbox is full and time is limited.
Then something changed my perspective.
Over the past year, I've watched two of my children approach academia from the other side.
My daughter designed her own undergraduate research project on perinatal mental health. She contacted academics and clinicians for their expertise while also recruiting mothers to participate in the study.
The contrast was striking. Mothers responded in large numbers. From academia, only one academic or clinician replied.
My son has been applying for PhD positions to study how autism is perceived by neurotypical people. Again, he has encountered far more silence than replies.
Seeing this as both a father and an academic made me realise how discouraging silence can be.
Since then, I've started replying to unsolicited enquiries. Usually the answer is still "no". Sometimes the application isn't a good fit at all. Occasionally I offer a suggestion on how to make future approaches more personal and more relevant to the recipient's research.
It takes less than a minute.
Will it solve the pressures on academia? Of course not.
Will it create opportunities where none exist? No.
But perhaps it reminds someone that there is a person at the other end of the email.
Academia is under enormous pressure. We are all juggling too many responsibilities, and none of us can respond in depth to every request. But maybe we can respond with humanity.
A brief acknowledgement. A polite rejection. A sentence of constructive advice.
If enough of us did that, perhaps we could make academia feel just a little more human, especially for those taking their first steps into research.
Perhaps change starts small.