Contractuals
unite!
By Tony Chadwick - From The
Muse
During the week of Oct. 27 to 31, universities and colleges across
North America will mark Fair Employment Week in various ways. The
purpose is to draw attention to the contributions of contingent
academic staff members, also known as contractuals, sessionals,
part-time, or per-course instructors, to academic life. It also
focuses on the conditions under which they work, and the low level
of remuneration they receive.
At Memorial University, this group of instructors is now more than
250 strong. They include retired academic staff members, retired
high school teachers, professionals from the community with special
expertise, recently graduated PhDs who have yet to find a tenure
position, PhDs who can’t apply for positions outside the province,
and graduate students who teach as part of their program. Some members
of this group have been given 4- or 8-month contracts – about
65 in total – and as a result, are members of the Memorial
Faculty Association Bargaining Unit. However, the majority teach
a few courses per semester, often for many years at a stretch, under
less than optimal conditions. While some have an office, shared
with other per-course instructors, many have no office space, no
computer facilities, and are not even listed in the MUN telephone
book. This situation makes it difficult for students to contact
them, and for the instructor to conduct meetings with students.
The use of contingent academic staff appointments is not distributed
evenly across the university. Some academic units have no such appointments,
while others find it impossible to deliver their programs if it
weren’t for the presence of contingent academic staff. Certain
departments in the arts faculty, the education faculty, and the
faculty of business administration are particularly dependent on
a systemic, as opposed to an occasional, use of contingent academic
staff appointments. In some units, this group of people deliver
more than 50 per cent of the teaching effort. For example, in French
and Spanish, there are 13 tenured or tenure-track faculty members,
and 25 contingent academic staff who currently teach 56.7 per cent
of this semester’s undergraduate courses. The situation in
the English faculty is similar. In the education faculty, the information
available points to a continuation of the pattern in the 2002-2003
academic year, when over 48 per cent of graduate and undergraduate
courses were taught by per-course instructors. It is possible to
complete an undergraduate degree, and possibly a graduate degree,
in education without ever meeting a tenured professor.
The contingent academic staff who teach a full load and are members
of the Bargaining Unit have their salary determined by the lecturer
scale, which is capped currently at about $16,500 per semester,
or by the fixed rate of $3,800 per course – whichever is greater.
Those outside the Bargaining Unit receive the flat rate of $3,800
per course, an amount that has not changed since the last Collective
Agreement, signed in 2001. Compare those amounts with the amount
MUN collects in each course section. If there are 40 students, MUN
receives $10,800 in tuition. If there are 120 students in a section,
then collected tuition amounts to $32,400. Attempts during the last
round of negotiations to include all instructors in the Bargaining
Unit were unsuccessful, resulting in per-course instructors who
have no health benefits, no opportunity to join the MUN Pension
Plan, no access to the protections available to those covered by
the Collective Agreement, with salaries that are completely out
of sync with their educational attainment.
It is understandable that the university administration would use
a limited number of contractual positions either to fulfill specific
or short-term needs. However, Memorial University currently includes
approximately 750 full-time faculty, and over 280 contractual faculty.
It is evident that the administration chose to use contingent academic
staff to satisfy long-term staffing requirements at MUN, exploiting
contractual academic staff and their students.
Contingent academic staff is often made up of excellent teachers,
but they work under very adverse conditions. These include poor
pay, no institutional support for research and scholarly activities,
professional marginalization, inadequate facilities to assist students,
and little opportunity for course development work. This is an unhealthy
situation for the university, MUN students, and of course, contract
academic staff.
Drop by one of the information desks that will be set up in the
QEII lobby or in the Student Centre. Pick up your Fair Employment
Week button to help in the fight against the exploitation of contract
academic staff, and demand that MUN students are taught by instructors
who are supported and encouraged to invest in the long-term goals
of their program and Memorial University.
Tony Chadwick is a French professor and the president of Memorial
University’s Faculty Association.
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