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So hey. Some good news from me: Last week - without warning - I was told my position at Bristol Uni was being made permanent. Having been on temporary contracts for 12 years , to call this a relief is ... Something of an understatement
I got my PhD in 2008. Since then I've worked for 3 universities on temporary, teaching focused contracts. The longest contract I've ever had was 24 months , the shortest 10, and I wouldn't hear about my contract renewal until around 2 months before one was due to expire.
People would constantly remind me I was temporary, and any long term plans I was making (eg for my units) needed to be transferable to someone else - just in case. My ability to do things that would help me - eg applying for grants or taking on PhD students - was strongly limited
Very early on in my career, I was advised to do the bear minimum to meet my teaching obligations, so that I could focus on research and escape the "trap" that I was told I was in. Doing my job badly in order to escape it never sat well with me, so I did my job well instead.
I've won awards for my teaching , and get really lovely feedback from students - but at the same time I was always working with the knowledge that I could be let go at any time , and the classes I'd designed would disappear with me. Feeling temporary is really, really hard
The stresses and strains of precarious working are real, and took a real toll. My mental health took serious dips twice because of this, but I've always loved working in a HE setting , and I love teaching anthropology in particular, so I stuck it out. I'm glad I did.
It took me a few days to get my head around being made permanent, because I honestly never thought it would happen. Now that it has, I feel as if I can breathe for the first time in over a decade.
As good news as this is for me, there are a lot of other people in my position. The stats on casualised working in UK unis are staggering , and deeply worrying . @ucu has an ongoing campaign against the excessive use of fixed term or zero hours contracts https://www.ucu.org.uk/stampout
So what I'm saying *is* - being permanent is amazing, and I'm so grateful for ALL the support from colleagues, from students, and from my wonderful bf @andybitesdog . But I'm not going to stop talking about issues with precarity in academia , because this system needs to change.
