LA TROBE
MEMBER STORIES
Coping with COVID changes Harm, hope & hypocrisy Having worked for over twelve years at Monash University in a variety of sessional and fixed-term contract roles, I moved to La Trobe University in November 2019. I work as an Academic and Language Skills Advisor and the new position offered me the exciting chance to extend my work with graduate and higher degree research (HDR) students, within a very different institutional context. There was also the benefit of a (slightly) more secure position that was closer to home. It started well, then COVID-19 came. Trying to establish myself in a new position in the shadow of a pandemic has certainly had its challenges, although there have been benefits as well. Fortunately, I had some time to get to know some of my colleagues and tentatively start to plan for how my new position would function. However, the academic year had only just started when the chaos of COVID-19 descended, and we were forced into crisis management and the whole online, workingfrom-home adventure.
Dr Lynda Chapple La Trobe University
Since March, we have made rapid shifts in the ways we work. Gone is the belief that working from home means lower productivity – indeed, many of us feel guilty moving away from the screen, and others work early in the morning or late at night to accommodate
To tell your COVID-19 story to the NTEU member community, please contact Helena Spyrou
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Sentry
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november 2020
