McProfs

Ryerson profs are talking about Marusya Bociurkiw’s article “Toiling at Sweatshop U," which appeared last week in NOW magazine, with the cover line “Your Part-Time Prof Makes Less Than You Do.” (I'd provide a web link, but I can't seem to log onto the NOW site.) As a part-time teacher at Ryerson I, too, was asked by my union to keep a log of my hours, but I regret that I was too busy trying to make a living to fill out the forms. Perhaps I was afraid of finding out what Bociurkiw discovered -- that I make less per hour than my students do in their part-time jobs. Describing the reliance on part-time teachers in the university system (which is remarkably heavy) as a threat to academic freedom, Bociurkiw quoted a Ryerson spokesperson who said that part-timers censoring themselves isn't an issue because they “don’t as a rule do research.” In the next breath she said that the university hires part-timers “to expose students to [teachers with] real-world experience.” In other words, they get our research for nothing. (And without disrespect to my colleagues on the full-time faculty, at a career-oriented university like Ryerson, a teacher's real-world experience is a big draw for students, as it was when I was in the Radio and TV Arts program at Ryerson 30 years ago. When a teacher breezes into class a couple minutes late, muttering about having just had to solve a real-world problem in the field her students aspire to work in, they sit up and take notice).

This Ryerson spokesperson may assume that part-time teachers have full-time salaries somewhere else, but many of us are self-employed and must spend our own money on computers, office supplies, books, periodicals, conference fees. These expenses cannot be written off against our earnings from the university. Some benefits are available to those who surpass a certain threshold of teaching hours. However, I’m not the only instructor who teaches (pretty much the same subjects) in both an undergrad program and a continuing education program; both jobs fall under CUPE, but because they’re completely separate bargaining units, I cannot combine the hours to be eligible for benefits.

I’m grateful that Ryerson provides me with some office space--the folks there are really pretty good to me--and I recently received some much-needed professional development funds from CUPE (20 applicants receive $500 each semester). Ryerson’s part-time teaching rates are higher than those at most other local post-secondary institutions, particularly in Continuing Education. But they still don’t cover the amount of work that goes into delivering a university course, in my opinion.

While writing this -- on a sunny Saturday afternoon, taking a break from grading papers -- I received an e-mail from a student I taught two years ago containing a long list of questions on how to find freelance work in our field. I get about one of these a week, and I’m happy to help out, as people have helped me out when I needed advice. Full-time professors get e-mails like this, too, and they also work on Saturdays. But while their salaries don’t go up if they decide to take a half an hour to help out a former student (or read professional journal articles, or attend a faculty meeting), if I do those things, mine goes down.