By Cindy Oliver, Catherine Christie, Petra Ganzenmueller, Geoff Martin, George Davison, Sandra Hoenle, Kelly MacFarlane & Anne Skoczylas (excerpted from the CAUT Bulletin November 2008).
When is an academic not an academic? This is not a rhetorical question, since in most Canadian universities, contract academic staff do not have the same status as a tenured or tenure-track staff, regardless of qualifications and experience.
Remuneration and access to support for scholarly activity are usually the source of employment disadvantage for academics working on per course or limited-term contracts when compared with permanent colleagues. This disadvantage is particularly noticeable when the availability of both in-house and external research money is involved. CAUT’s contract academic staff committee believes academic staff associations should direct their attention to redressing a situation which deters, and often prevents, contract staff from engaging in the vital research required in order to participate in a full academic career.
In conjunction with pro rata hiring policies, access to internal and external funding programs would allow contract staff to achieve a real degree of parity with their tenured colleagues. Only then could the designation “part-time” be a true measure of employment choice rather than a euphemism designed to disguise the exploitation of members of the academic proletariat.
Access to research funds is an important feature of the continuing and uphill struggle with increasingly market-driven university administrations to create a more equitable professional environment for contract academic staff.
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