About Acknowledgements, Needs, and Vulnerability in Academia

One of my students recently began his BA-Thesis with a very heartfelt and very personal page of acknowledgements: He thanked not only his supervisors and teachers, but also many other people, friends, his family, for their individual support. In my eight years of teaching at our university, I had never seen a student do that in their bachelor thesis and it immediately resonated with me.

While I imagine that to some academics and teachers, this gesture may feel too personal (“Too much information”), unprofessional (“You can do that once you have written a book”), or even worthy of patronizing ridicule (“Sweet, but it’s just a BA-Thesis”), this page of acknowledgements does not only pay tribute to the fact that academic work is a communal, communicative effort, but also spoke to me about something else with an unintended but brilliant clarity:

Research and therefore the exploration of new intellectual horizons becomes possible because we as academics are being supported.

Because this student’s way of phrasing was so honest and heartfelt, so raw in a sense, it immediately and beautifully exposed the humanity in the academic project. We don’t do research all by ourselves. Research and therefore the exploration of new intellectual horizons becomes possible because we as academics are being supported.

This support comes in many different shapes: Researchers that sparked ideas in us. Teachers and lecturers who inspired us and told us that we can do the thing. Parental figures, who ask whether we need anything and remind us to eat, and sleep, and shower once in a while even when deadlines are pressing. Grandparents that bake us good cake and listen to our most recent academic ideas even when they don’t always understand what we are rambling on about. Pets that keep us company and listen when we practice our first conference talks at home and love us unconditionally when we feel terrible about ourselves and accomplishments. People who keep us from falling apart when the imposter syndrome rears its ugly head and the mere idea of working on a research paper seems too big for us to handle. Friends and lovers who are genuinely excited when we finally reach our goals and celebrate them with us.

In other words: Academic research is done by real people, with real needs, who need real support for their research to exist and who want to genuinely thank the people who supported them when the job is done.

Academic research is done by real people, with real needs, who need real support for their research to exist and who want to genuinely thank the people who supported them when the job is done.

Academic publications are often entirely void of any sign of the person writing in order to uphold the nimbus of objectivity (the hotly contested use of the first-person pronoun in academic writing is just on example of this erasure of the researcher) that it is easy to forget that academia exists and lives and grows because of researchers who are real people with real, human needs.

Acknowledging this can feel uncomfortable: When I read my student’s page of acknowledgements, my first instinct was to feel a bit embarrassed and a bit ashamed, simply because of how honest and vulnerable this person showed themselves to me – and how, in turn, it reminded me of my own needs, my own vulnerability. After all, we don’t learn very well to cope with these things in our profession.

But I realize now how good it was for me to read this introduction to his BA-Thesis: A lot of our students understand the communal aspects of academic research and they take themselves and their work seriously enough to thank their support network for helping them in their quest for knowledge and growth. Writing a thesis like this is no small feat: It requires more than intellectual vigour and mental stamina to pull this off. And the pride and gratitude that we may be able to feel is something that – just like the research itself – is most beautiful and fulfilling when it is a shared experience.