I’ve taught the same course every single year at SMU for over a decade but every single year I have to apply for it again and hope I’ll be able to teach it again. I just wish I could have some job security and could actually plan ahead!
While I have a lot of control over how I run the courses I teach, I have no control at all over whether I’ll be able to teach in any given semester or what courses I’ll be able to teach. That uncertainty is really hard to deal with as I’m the primary source of income for my family.
Although I’m a “part-time professor”, this is my full-time job! I have cobbled together a full-time job in terms of hours by teaching multiple courses each semester across SMU, MSVU and Dal but there are no “full-time” benefits that go with it.
If I wasn’t so passionate about teaching my students, I would definitely find a different job – one with job security, benefits like health insurance, and higher pay!
Being a professor is a source of passion and joy for me. But it’s also a source of stress as I work contract-to-contract and can never plan ahead more than a few months as I don’t know what I’ll be teaching or where!
I’m on strike because students deserve to be taught by professors who are being paid fairly for their work.
Being paid low wages to teach a university course disincentivizes part-time professors to put in a lot of work and really make the class amazing! I still DO put in lots of work, but it ultimately means my “hourly pay” is way below minimum wage. If I put in 1000 extra hours of work or 0 extra hours of work, I still get paid the same. (Poorly!) It would be lovely to just focus on how to have the best course possible, without always worrying about how little I’m being paid to do the work.