Confluence is planning to publish a series of articles on the moral/ethical duties and responsibilities of academicians towards their profession, the student community and society at large. What is the purpose of doing academics? What ought to be the ethical values which guide teaching, research, supervision and mentoring? How is academics relevant (or, how can it be relevant) in contemporary socio-economic, socio-political and cultural contexts? What is the ‘vocation’ of a teacher/researcher in contemporary times? Can we think about reorganizing and restructuring academics so as to make it more inclusive, democratic and ethically committed?

We invite articles from students and academicians (i.e. teachers, lecturers, professors etc) belonging to diverse social and disciplinary backgrounds (both natural and social sciences, as well as humanities), that pose interesting and significant questions / comments / observations / answers on this theme. People who are neither students, nor academicians, but have interesting views on the topic, are also welcome to contribute. Thus, the articles shall be divided into three classes, based on the backgrounds of the authors, namely:

a) Students
b) Academicians
c) Others

 

The following guidelines should be observed:

a) The style of the article should be simple, precise and lucid, presenting your thoughts and reflections on the theme. No personal attacks or statements targeting individuals please, such articles will be summarily rejected.

 

b) The articles should focus on generic issues and not on personal problems. Messages like “I have not got my scholarship for the last 3 months, please look into it” are not welcome for this series. Also, focus on issues related to academicians (i.e teachers/professors) rather than the system (i.e. administration, scholarships, admissions etc). We will run a separate series of articles on academic administration later.

 

c) The articles should be approximately 1,000 to 1,200 words.

 

d) The articles should be written in English. Please distinguish between data and opinion. Cite sources for the former.

 

e) The editorial team will read and decide the merit of your article, and decide whether to publish it or not. We are primarily looking for well-written, logically well-constructed articles that present a relevant, and preferably fresh, point-of-view. We may also suggest you to revise the draft before publishing. In any case, the decisions of the editorial team will be final and binding.

 

f) Please email your article IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL to confluence.caretakers@gmail.com on or before 10.03.2020. Please note that we are NOT going to open any attachments. Therefore if you attach your article, we will simply not read it, and not get back to you either. It can take up to 2 weeks for us to get back to you with a decision.

 

g) Contributions must carry the real name of the author and aliases are not allowed. Please include a statement at the end of the article stating the name, status and affiliation of the author.
A sample author statement will look like: ABCD is a PhD scholar at XYZ University.

 

h) Please also indicate the author background: student, academic or other.

 

i) In case of any queries, please email: confluence.caretakers@gmail.com.