This paper presents a research on the professor's work at Universidade Federal Fluminense, in the context of higher education expansion. The methodological procedures adopted were the following: bibliographic and documentary research, application of questionnaires and conduction of 28 interviews with professors of different areas, campi and poles. The discussion focuses exclusively on the results of the analysis of interviews. In those carried out with "gestors" and "trade unionists", polarized political positions about the educational policies, the process of expansion and interiorization and the underlying corporate projects were detected. In those carried out under the life history methodology, it was verified that life projects are mediated by work trajectories, involving the dimensions of ethics, affectivity and politics, as well as the biographic and institutional intertwining. In the face of work and university practices, limits were observed in the creative and particular forms of dealing with adversities, illness and mechanisms of refraction that did not result in evident illness, but involved strong conflicts and even subjective splits.
professor's work; subjectivity; expansion of higher education; REUNI; Universidade Federal Fluminense.