Oh, man. You know things are bad when you’re advocating for the shitty jobs that you ordinarily complain about. I’ve been getting notes from CUPE local 3913 in my inbox about this:
Enrolment at the University of Guelph is up, provincial funding is up but the administration plans to cut more than 100 sessional lecturer positions. Fewer sessional instructors means:
bigger class sizes
less time for individual students.University of Guelph sessionals have won the undergraduate student association’s teaching excellence award five times in the past decade. Students value the experience and personal support sessionals provide. Sessionals are hired on four-month contracts and must apply for their jobs each semester. The university using the economic downturn as an excuse to target workers already in precarious positions.
Fore more info, go to the CUPE local’s site.
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You’d think faculty associations would be joining them. Because this can only mean bad things for the workloads of tenure-track and tenured folks.
This is not only a university of Guelph phenom. It’s happening in universities across the province of Ontario. My sense, or hope (!!!), is that there will be a bunch of last minute appointments for people seeking work. It’s a worst case scenario kinda hope, but academia sucks balls at the moment, in terms of tenure-track jobs, post-docs, and now, getting a fucking course contract!!! They can’t stick all undergrads in a bunch of large survey courses, right? (cries into sleeve…)
Conclusion: now is not a great time to be finishing your PhD.