2019: Thinking Strategically about Fixed-Term and Casual Research

Are you a sessional or casual researcher at the university? Have you thought about your research career strategy? Do you know what steps to take next and what to avoid?

This workshop for sessional or other casually employed early career researchers will provide some suggestions for thinking strategically about pursuing your research career while employed on short-term or part-time contracts. A panel of researchers* from different areas across the university will offer some tips on how to maximise the opportunities you take on and how to curate your career to build a research portfolio. You will also get an opportunity to share with each other some key strategies you have used to shape your research career.

This session will be facilitated by Dr Megan Brewer and will suit ECRs who are employed as a sessional teacher or casual research assistant. 

Panelists include:

Dr Karina Luzia, Program Coordinator, Professional Learning with the Learning and Innovation Hub

Dr Karina Luzia is a social geographer, academic developer, researcher and higher education professional. Prior to her current role, over a 14 year period Karina held more than 50 casual or fixed term contracts over five universities and across 9 discrete disciplines. She has held many roles including sessional teaching, casual academic, research assistant, early career researcher, project manager to name only a few, as well as serving on a number of significant university committees. She now plays a leading role in higher education professional learning and recognition: she coordinates the Advance HE Fellowship program at Macquarie University, collaborates on re/developing professional learning and recognition programs for teaching and learning support, and she sometimes writes for Macquarie University's learning and teaching blog Teche. 

Dr Elizabeth Austin, Post-doctoral Research Fellow with the Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science 

Dr Elizabeth Austin worked as a casual tutor on a number of subjects in the Department of Psychology and on a casual contract as a research assistant with the MQ Department of Education during her PhD, which she received from Macquarie University in 2017. She is now on a fixed-term part-time contract that is amended to full-time from time to time for her post-doctoral fellowship. She is also involved in the supervision of Master of Research and Honours students. Her current research is primarily in the application of complexity science to healthcare and using social-psychological theories to understand hospital organisational culture.  

Dr Dale Tweedie, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance

Over 15 years as an academic, Dale has taught as a casual, represented casual staff at university, state and national forums, and researched trends and issues in precarious work. Prior to his first ongoing appointment in 2017, Dale taught for 9 years in academic casual positions, followed by 4 years in fixed term research. During this time, he represented casual staff on the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch committee at Macquarie, and was part of the University's first combined staff-management working party on casual academic employment. He was also elected to represent NSW casual academics at a national NTEU bargaining conference to improve working conditions for casual staff. Dale has also published on the nature and impacts of precarious work, and on 'just work' more generally, in journals incluing Human Relations; Work, Employment and Society; and The Economic and Labour Relations Review. 

Please register on this page. To help us understand what you would like to get from this session, after registering please fill in the pre-session survey at the link below.

https://mqedu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7Oj4ZLV73yTq5xj

Mid Career/Senior Researchers

Early Career Researchers

Graduate Research Students