I am a Reader in Social Justice and Inclusion in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education. I have worked at Canterbury Christ Church University for over 20 years including being a Research Assistant on short-term contracts, working as a sessional teacher on the old green form hours, being a course director and module leader, teaching late into the evening and over long and exhausting weekends, to being heavily involved in strategic leadership, including supporting several of our REF submissions.
Although I am currently working in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education, I do not have a one faculty mindset. I have worked very closely with colleagues from all faculties we have (and have had) at CCCU. I am able to see the bigger picture and work.
Throughout my various roles at CCCU, my guiding principles of inclusion, transparency and fairness have remained absolutely consistent. I believe communication, and full and open transparency should be the underlying principle behind every part of our professional lives. My commitment to supporting colleagues has been paramount in every strand of my work and I have been the UCU Representative for the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education since 2023. During this time, I worked extremely hard to support colleagues, whether they had difficulties negotiating workload planning with line managers, or were fighting to even retain their jobs. Whilst I consider this role to be completely distinct from the role of Academic Staff Governor, it allowed me to demonstrate my commitment to teamworking and the importance of open discussion with colleagues and senior management.
During my 20 years at CCCU, I have seen significant change to our working lives and the lives and needs of our students. However, the most change I have seen has been in the last few years, which as we know, has brought some real challenges for us as colleagues, and as an institution.
One of the duties of the Governors are to: Set a framework for the appointment, assignment, grading, appraisal, suspension, dismissal and determination of the pay and conditions of staff…’ Our university claims to be inspired by Christian values. For me, this means that any policies CCCU has in relation to any of our working conditions must be fair, equal, transparent, and importantly - compassionate. I have been thoroughly committed to supporting colleagues in order to try to ensure a better work home life balance, and if elected as Governor I will work to ensure our workload planning is reviewed so that it is a fair and equal representation of the work that we do, removing the need to provide many hours of unpaid overtime to simply try and stay on top of the workload. I will also work hard to ensure that the appraisals are supportive of our work and contributions and provide meaningful opportunities for career progression support and advice. This still remains far too inconsistent across our institution.
In my time at CCCU, I have experienced 8 restructures. Many of these were effectively ‘done’ to us, whilst in others, I was in a more privileged position of being able to fight the corner for colleagues. Having been here for over 20 years, I know how these things tend to work, and I am not afraid to stand up and speak up for colleagues and for what I believe to be right.
I would be honoured to support colleagues and the university in the role of Academic Staff Governor, and if elected, would commit to fulfilling this to the very best of my abilities.