Most university undergrads now taught by poorly paid part-timers
Kimberley Ellis Hale has been an instructor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., for 16 years. This summer, while teaching an introductory course in sociology, she presented her students with a role-playing game to help them understand how precarious economic security is for millions of Canadian workers.
In her scenario, students were told they had lost their jobs, their marriage had broken up, and they needed to find someplace to live. And they had to figure out a way to live on just $1,000 a month.
What those students didn’t know was the life they were being asked to imagine was not very different than the life of their instructor.
.. A full course load for professors teaching at most Canadian universities is four courses a year. Depending on the faculty, their salary will range between $80,000 and $150,000 a year. A contract faculty person teaching those same four courses will earn about $28,000.
.. According to figures provided by the Laurier Faculty Association, 52 per cent of Laurier students were taught by CAS in 2012, up from 38 per cent in 2008. But of all the money the university spends during the year, less than four cents out of every dollar goes towards CAS salaries. So the university spends less than 4 per cent of its budget to teach more than 50 per cent of its students.