Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing (WOW)-affiliated PhD student, Robyn May, was the national keynote speaker at a seminar on benchmarking leadership and advancement of standards for sessional teachers (BLASST) held at Macquarie University on 22 February.
The BLASST Summit involved academic development staff from 34 Australian and New Zealand universities, and included an international keynote address by Colin Bryson from Newcastle University in the UK. At the Summit, participants were also involved in presentations about initiatives underway at their own universities to improve standards and working conditions for sessional/casual academic staff. Robyn presented results from her PhD research about sessional/casual academics’ motivations for working casually, and survey results about the level of support and training sessional/casual academics were receiving from their employing institutions. The research was well received by participants who were keen to have a perspective on the issue that went beyond their own institutions.
Robyn is the APAI scholarship holder on the ARC Linkage project ‘Gender and Employment Equity: Strategies for Advancement in Australian Universities’, led by WOW member, Professor Glenda Strachan.
Robyn’s travel was facilitated in part by the fiscal initiatives of the Griffith Business School and WOW, for which she is grateful.
Author: Robyn May