Hi everyone. I'm in a very fortunate situation to have full funding for my phd ( about 18 months in) and things are progressing fairly well. I have got through with vicarious support from these threads, so I'm posting now because I'm not sure who to approach at my university about this matter. I have accepted a full time job elsewhere, and recently told my supervisor about it. I was nervous, but luckily I was supported. (While I am glad I have the funding, I really can't manage to support my family on the stipend, so it was inevitable that I take work. I wasn't applying for ft jobs but the offer was too good to refuse). My query is the following: as part of my funding, i am expected to teach or engage in RA duties as discussed by the supervisory team. Ther is no contract at all, and certainly no stipulation of how much time that is meant to take. I have asked repeatedly. I was doing the teaching for the last 18 months, but realised almost NO OTHER AWARDEES WERE DOING SO! I lived about 100 miles from the uni and had to pay my own way ther to teach. Now, I was told by my supervisor that I was being expected to teach in the coming year, despite the fact that I had made it clear that I could not afford to, and that no-one else was doing so. How do I navigate this? How can I navigate this without exposing myself to bullying?

A difficult situation...

The only thing I can think of is speaking to your head of department and/or your Student Union. If noone else is taking on these duties apart from you then that is inherently unfair... and I would be asking what the penalty is for not undertaking the teaching AND therefore why haven't the other awardees suffered the same fate already?

I know you didn't mention this but are there any conditions of your funding for external paid work? I'd be surprised if there wasn't a clause that states you can't do more than 6 or 8 hours a week paid work elsewhere. I know the ESRC have guidelines like this and my (university) full studentship reflects this also.

I completely sympathise with the need to support a family financially but would have it been possible for you to take part time work instead? Unless you go mega part time on the PhD you won't be able to complete on time...