"I have found that this year in particularly academics are behaving very strangely and not even responding to very polite emails just looking for people with an interest in niche subjects."
Full disclosure.... I am an academic in another subject area. In the good days I was happy with a 20% return rate on speculative enquiries, now it seems slightly better. I did have some patronising, bordering on the offensive, responses in the past but mostly zero response, n.b. some have been extremely positive. From inside the bubble things are very pressured in academia right now and have been throughout covid. Academics are currently in the marking phase which is significantly extended now with lots of late submissions so maybe August there will be more room to respond, but then you are deep into recovery, field work and planning. Most are facing permanent internal management pressure on a level never seen including respected departments being taken down for no good reason.
Just a little plea, don't judge them/us too harshly at the moment.
Full disclosure.... I am an academic in another subject area. In the good days I was happy with a 20% return rate on speculative enquiries, now it seems slightly better. I did have some patronising, bordering on the offensive, responses in the past but mostly zero response, n.b. some have been extremely positive. From inside the bubble things are very pressured in academia right now and have been throughout covid. Academics are currently in the marking phase which is significantly extended now with lots of late submissions so maybe August there will be more room to respond, but then you are deep into recovery, field work and planning. Most are facing permanent internal management pressure on a level never seen including respected departments being taken down for no good reason.
Just a little plea, don't judge them/us too harshly at the moment.
