Julie Frearson is on the cusp of marking four decades of teaching maths at the University of Melbourne.
"I love the interaction with students. I love teaching. I love the light-bulb moments," Ms Frearson said.
Her love for her students is tempered only by her anger with university management.
Following a public outcry, after revelations from ABC News about widespread insecure work practices at universities, many institutions began processes to convert casuals to full-time work.
The University of Melbourne assessed whether Julie Frearson should be made permanent in 2021.
To her amazement, she was initially rejected.
"At that stage, that was after 36 years' teaching, and I thought 'what, after 36 years, do I not qualify for? That's bizarre'," Ms Frearson said.
After raising objections, she was made permanent.
But now, she is putting her hard-won job at risk to speak out for nine of her colleagues who also teach maths at the university and are facing the axe at the end of semester.
"I feel really sad," she said.
"I don't know that they're the sort of people I want to work for anymore and that's sad because I have loved doing this work."
In a statement, the university said it had made progress on reducing the number of staff employed casually and fixed term.
"The university places a high value on all its employees, including casual and fixed-term staff members and the significant contribution they make to the university community," a spokesperson said.
"We recognise workforce structures which rely heavily on casual and short-term employment are neither desirable nor sustainable."
Nevertheless, the latest showdown with staff is headed for the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, with accusations of discrimination.
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Back at work four weeks after emergency caesarean
Dr Javeria Jalal is a mother-of-two and one of Julie Frearson's teaching colleagues in the school of maths.
She too loves to instruct students and has worked at the university for six years since arriving in Australia from Pakistan to complete a PhD.
"I just think I'm a natural teacher," Dr Jalal said.
"I thought it was something that I could make my career in, but I've never known job security."
The pressure to keep her job led her to rush back to work after the birth of her second son in 2021.
"I had to return to work four weeks postpartum after a C-section. That was not a choice, really," she said.
"I knew if I have to teach summer, I will have to do semester two."
She does not believe the university reciprocated her commitment.
Dr Jalal and eight other "level-A staff" who were teaching only were not converted to permanent employment and have been told they will no longer receive work at the university after this semester.
They have been told their jobs will be filled by a mixture of PhD students and staff employed at a higher "level-B classification" that includes teaching and research.
"I have thought that a career for me in academia would be teaching, along with research," Dr Jalal said.
"I've not got an opportunity to do research, because of my young children, but I thought that teaching would always be there.
"It turns out that teaching at a university is not as valued, I think."
Dr Jalal and two other colleagues have filed complaints with the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.
The three maths tutors have alleged indirect discrimination on the basis of gender or parenting responsibilities.
Indirect discrimination is about institution-wide policies that disproportionately impact groups of staff, rather than allegations about an individual.
The tutors are seeking reinstatement as permanent staff.
They believe their family responsibilities and gender disparities weren't considered when the university decided which staff would be made permanent.
"I had a C-section, which was an emergency C-section, so I was just recovering. Even if I had wanted, I could not work more than that," Dr Jalal said.
"So, I think if a decision has been made based on what my availability was at that time, it's really unfair."
The University of Melbourne has not yet filed a response to the complaints but said it viewed concerns about discrimination seriously.
"The university takes its obligations in relation to discrimination extremely seriously and standards of behaviour that do not meet expectations as set out in university policies will not be tolerated," a spokesperson said.
The university would not comment on individual staff members.
Maths weighted heavily to men
The commission has yet to assign a conciliator for the dispute, but said it would do so as a priority.
Internal university staffing documents obtained by the ABC show the school of mathematics struggles to recruit women.
"Mathematics and statistics is very heavily weighted towards men at all levels," a report from 2022 stated.
"The greater number of women is at level A, particularly in 2022. There has been no growth of woman FTE [full time equivalent] since 2017 except at level A and B and a very small increase at level E," it concluded.
The University of Melbourne's National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch president David Gonzalez is supporting the women's action in the commission.
"The faculty of science's own report showed that, especially within mathematics, there have been years where there have been no senior academics that were not male," Mr Gonzalez said.
He said the NTEU would continue to push the university to provide permanent jobs for all of the nine tutors facing the end of their university careers.
Two of those tutors are men.
"We just really believe that these people should have jobs," Mr Gonzalez said.
Julie Frearson said she could not say if there had been discrimination but believed it would be a win-win for the university to reverse its decision.
She said it was unfortunate that while it was popular to talk about women and diversity in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) the follow-through was missing.
"It pretty much says that don't think you're going to get a long-term career here, and don't think that if you have to take a break to look after family for any reason that you'll be given any quarter at all," Ms Frearson said.
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