Precarious college faculty: the silenced majority

For this entry I welcome a guest writer who, as a part-time college professor, brings a very important perspective.  In the coming months, along with further reports on my visits to Ontario colleges, there will be other contributions from guest authors, with the intention of presenting several different views on college education today...

I am an Ontario college professor. I have been teaching in the college system for over 20 years. I have a post-graduate degree and good standing in my profession. But, I am a precarious worker.

For the entire time that I have worked as a college teacher, I have been on a part-time contract. I am in the part-time category called, Partial-Load, which means that I am, very luckily, part of the faculty union.  But, I still do not have the most basic protection, job security.

What does this mean? My teaching contract lasts one term only. So, when I start teaching in September I never know if I will still have a job in January. If I am teaching in the spring term, I never know if I will have a job the following September.

If I raise a complaint of any kind about my working conditions, about harassment, or if I get on the wrong side of my boss: the dean or associate dean; I risk not getting another contract--without any explanation.

This is why I am must write anonymously. I do not have a voice in my workplace.

The surprising fact is that I am now in the majority. 70% of faculty in my college are precarious contract workers. I share this situation not only with the faculty, but also with support workers in the colleges, many who are also part-time, precarious workers.

The number of students accepted in our colleges is rising steadily, a 53% increase in the last decade. During the same period, the number of full-time faculty with full job protection has actually decreased by 22%. The colleges are hiring more precarious workers instead of creating good, stable jobs. Why? We have been told, in this age of austerity, that it is a lack of money.

My college currently has a surplus of over $225 million. Money is clearly not the problem. And clearly the political will is not there to create good jobs.

Ontario college faculty and support workers are both entering the next round of bargaining with our employer, the College Council.  

In the last round of bargaining my union was able to win a small gain on the issue of job security. Partial-Load faculty who have worked more than two years experience who are not rehired to teach the courses they previous taught can fight this through the union grievance process. This is a small but significant step.

This round of bargaining college faculty and support workers will need to stand together to continue fight for better jobs and to maintain quality education.

Cambrian College: Back to the North!

On Halloween day I drove back up to Sudbury to visit with faculty at Cambrian, the other college that calls the city home.  The professors, counselors and librarians at Cambrian are represented by President Carolyn Gaunt and the stewards of OPSEU Local 655. 

Carolyn Gaunt - a most memorable local president

With over 4,000 full time students, Cambrian is the largest of Ontario's northern colleges.  Originally, Cambrian had campuses in Sudbury, North Bay and Sault St. Marie, but in the 1970s North bay and Sault became independent colleges in their own right - Canadore College and Sault College.  In 1995, the french language programs at Cambrian were transfered to the newly created College Boreal.

During an LEC meeting, the stewards at Cambrian discussed a host of pressures that they are experiencing as programs are rationalized.  Like most colleges, a primary challenge at Cambrian concerns the declining number of full time faculty.  Local 655 currently has 182 full time members, approximately 35 partial load, and over 200 part time.  This ratio of full time to part time faculty is better than at many colleges, but full time numbers continue to shrink as retirements aren't replaced.

The impacts of management cost-cutting are apparent in several other areas.  Stewards in the trades describe classes in which students are doubled up on machines designed for a single student to learn on.  Apart from the health and safety flags this raises, one steward expressed his concern for student learning: "they're not paying for half an education, so why do they put up with this?"   Increasing class sizes and mandatory online courses were also mentioned as negatively impacting student learning.  However, without faculty academic freedom, professors, counselors and librarians are finding it difficult to be advocates for academic standards.  Faculty that complain can face serious repercussions, including termination, and college student associations tend not to get involved in academic issues.  At the end of the day then, who is speaking up for students?

Near the end of our discussion, Cambrian faculty switched to the big picture, and asked where the current trajectory of college education is taking us.  If it's business as usual, they argued, the future looks like a largely part-time academic workforce, university-sized classes, mostly online courses, and an ever-expanding army of administrators.  All the while, students will keep paying higher tuition, and getting less in return. 

Only by taking control over our academic work can faculty reverse a management-driven austerity agenda, and refocus on the raison d'etre of college education - the relationship between student and faculty in the classroom.  Carolyn Gaunt summed up what this change could mean for our students, noting: "When you think back to your own time in college, do you remember your favourite professors, or do you remember your VP Finance?"

I sure know who I remember...

In Transition at Sheridan College

In late October I took a short trip down the road from my home in Hamilton to visit Sheridan College.  Sheridan is one of the larger community colleges, with just over 17,000 full time students.  The College has an international reputation as a centre for excellence in media and animation, a status gained by the hard work of committed faculty.  President Jack Urowitz and the stewards of OPSEU Local 244 represent faculty at Sheridan, and over lunch and an LEC meeting we talked about the challenges they face as their college transforms into a university.



Sheridan's Hazel McCallion building

The announcement that Sheridan was moving toward university status was made by College president Jeff Zabutsky in 2012.  Reasons cited for the transition were that Sheridan students are demanding more degree programs, and that the degrees now being offered weren't being given full consideration by other universities. The provincial government has indicated it wants to open three more universities in Ontario focused on undergraduate education, and Sheridan sees itself as one of them.

Sheridan's transition serves to highlight faculty concerns over academic freedom and educational standards.  In the first place, the fact that Sheridan degrees weren't being seen as equivalent to university degrees indicates that college professors' lack of academic freedom has a direct impact on how their work is perceived outside of the system.  This is a disservice to the world-class education that professors at Sheridan College are already providing, and it also shows that full recognition of this work only comes when faculty have the same level of academic freedom their university peers possess.

Sheridan's transition also reveals a tension between academic and practical knowledge, and between university credentials and workplace experience.  Local 244 members are concerned that an integrated theoretical and practical model of education is being threatened by the transition.  The fear is that professors teaching in more skills-based programs, or those with extensive industry experience instead of academic training, will be marginalized.  Instead, faculty argue that academic freedom - the right of professors to teach according to their expertise and to be openly critical of their institution - are as important for professors in practical programs as for those teaching more academic courses.

Ultimately, academic freedom is about the integrity and quality of the educational process. Our society sees fit to support these goals in relation to classical university-based subjects like philosophy, social science, and humanities.  However, are these standards any less important for professors training airplane mechanics, I.T. specialists, or electricians?  Would Canadians want to know that the nurse looking after their sick relative was trained to an academic standard determined by full-time, credentialed professors, or by managers with no relevant qualifications, and a mandate to offer the cheapest possible education?

According to the college president, Sheridan is increasing the number of full time faculty and enacting academic freedom, including a senate structure, in order to increase the quality of the degrees it offers.  These standards for ensuring the rigor of university education are laudable, but they should apply equally to Ontario's colleges.