I have been relatively quiet about the #UCUStrikesBack on twitter because, as a HoD I was asked by my Uni to be careful about what I say on social media, and because as a HoD I am embroiled in many of the decisions we are campaigning about, esp. workloads + casualisation 1/9

As a HoD I have a responsibility to improve our working conditions + raise issues internally, request more resources, reduce our workloads, reduce staff stress, limit our bureaucracy, avoid casualisation, identify gender + BAME pay gaps 2/9

I have been on strike all week, been banner making, on the pickets + on a digital picket. I had no doubt it was important for me as a professor + a HoD to strike, to stand with fellow @UCU members, to show solidarity + I was open with department staff about my intentions 3/9

But it has been even harder to strike than in 2018 because I feel even more responsible. I know how structural these problems are, especially in how pensions and pay are nationally determined, and that workloads + stress are national problems 4/9

Yet there is obvious complicity in the system once you are a prof + especially a HoD. We make decisions, we have power, we determine where (albeit scant) resources are directed. As a HoD I am continuously conflicted about how to do this role ethically, fairly + justly 5/9

I became HoD knowing it would challenge my politics, principles + practices, but I love geography + wanted to do my bit in supporting the discipline + hence department. I have had many wonderful HoDs to model myself on + wanted to pass on what they gave me 6/9

But to stand alongside colleagues on casual contracts that you can’t find a way to make permanent, to hear the stories of exhaustion, stress + despair, + to recognise my own utter exhaustion with my own 127% workload, has tested every element of my belief in British academia 7/9

Please don’t think that profs + HoDs don’t care. Many of us care deeply about the conditions we now work in. Many of us are trying in all sorts of ways to change them. We need structural national change to help us to improve life at department level 8/9

I don’t have any quick solutions. I am working right in the mess of the current system, powerful in some ways + powerless in many others, in a Uni I genuinely believe is doing a lot right + with amazing colleagues. We *can* make things better for all, see you on the pickets 9/9