The precarious path to professorship Students pursuing higher levels of education with an eye on a professorship have found a jarring reality awaiting them: shortterm contract positions with no job security, benefits and little chance of becoming tenure track professors. While these sessional professors have been around for many years, their role at universities is changing. Amy O’Kruk investigates. Amy O’Kruk NEWS EDITOR @AmyAtGazette
Many of Western’s incoming students associate university professors with ivy clad lecture halls, research sabbaticals and maybe a tweed jacket or two. But for a rising proportion of post-secondary teachers across the country, the road to tenured professorial positions is disappearing. The changing face of academia means that in 2014, there are profs who are living paycheque-to-paycheque. While contract academic staff have been around for a long time, their role at Western and other universities across North America has changed. Contract positions have gone from a choice to an inevitability for some. This is most easily seen in the rising number of parttime teaching staff at universities. In 1999, only 15.5 per cent of Canadian university professors were non-permanent. By 2005, that number had doubled to 31 per cent. The University of Western Ontario Faculty Association estimates that, at present, 39 per cent of its members are contract academic faculty. These contract staff, sessional instructors or limited duties teachers are hired part-time on a courseto-course basis — making between $6,800 to $7,250 per half credit course. In lieu of benefits, included in the sum is an additional four per cent of their base rate of pay. On September 21, the Campaign to Support Contract Academic Staff at Western University was launched
through a video where tenured faculty members and students were interviewed. The video participants called for better wages, job security and benefits for the university’s contract faculty. Travis Welowszky, a member of the Faculty of Information and Media Studies Undergraduate Students’ Council and creator of the video, said the campaign isn’t the work of a specific organization but a grassroots movement that includes members in faculties across campus. “It was deans, associate professors, contract academic staff and students that are networking and who are talking about this, trying to bring it to light,” Welowszky said. The video has been shared upwards of 80 times on the campaign’s Facebook page, which itself has accumulated over 300 likes. The Twitter handle the video endorses, #SupportWesternCAS, has been retweeted by members of the Western community, alumni and by supporters outside of the school. Eric Cortens, a lecturer in the Faculty of Music, said it might be possible to make ends meet with a full course load but for many contract academic faculty, that’s not the reality. >> see PROFESSORS pg.2
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