Welcome to a new space for adjunct faculty

By Kane X. Faucher. Planning, collaboration, and other issues of importance to contract faculty in Canada.
The number of contract faculty members in Canadian universities is growing, outpacing more secure forms of employment, while tenure-track hiring is lagging. Members of this constituency -- sometimes called the “precariat” or “academic industrial reserve army” – have, in some cases, taught for more than 10 years, PhD in hand. They work part-time in name only, as many of their other efforts at the university are unseen and uncompensated. Members of this constituency, as well as some of our tenured peers, feel frustration by how too many universities fail to collect or publish data about contract faculty and how so many of us are paid a fraction of full-time wages for almost the same work, while universities market their graduate programs to prospective students as the path to high earnings. More...