This is how “Our Working Conditions Are Their Learning Conditions”

PT faculty spend less time with students.
Why? We work multiple jobs, are not on campus that often, and often do not have dedicated private office space.

What’s the impact? We are less able to offer face-to-face meetings with students, have less time and flexibility for meeting with students due to other jobs, and are less able to foster strong connections with students and to provide mentorship to students.

How to change this? With higher wages and (some) job security we wouldn’t need to work other jobs (as much) and would have more time for students. With contracts issued earlier in the year we would be more able to prepare in advance of the semester leaving more time during the semester to meet with students instead of doing last-minute course preparation.

PT faculty have less time for course development and class preparation.
Why? We work multiple jobs and have to make decisions about how best to allocate our time across all those jobs, which means less time for any individual course development and/or class preparation. Low wages disincentivize spending too much “extra” time on course development or preparing for class as more work simply brings down our hourly wage (often below minimum wage) because we are only paid per course, not for any set number of hours for that course.

What’s the impact? PT professors are disincentivized from putting in a lot of time and effort into course development and class preparation to make the courses students are taking more academically rigorous, up-to-date, engaging and/or accessible/inclusive.

How to change this? With higher wages we would be able to give more time to individual courses because it would no longer be at such a financial loss to invest more time. Higher wages would also reduce our reliance on other sources of income, which would free up more time overall. With greater job security (like knowing you will teach a course more than once), we can take more risks to innovate in or update an old course or design a new course. With contracts issued earlier in the year we would be able to start course development and class preparation much sooner and have more time to thoughtfully consider how best to run a new course or update an old one.

PT faculty have a high turnover rate.
Why? Most PT faculty hold a graduate degree and possess significant expertise. However, low wages, no job security, and no benefits make this financially unsustainable as a long-term career for most people. In addition, most PT faculty have other jobs which means their schedules change a lot and they may not be able to teach the same courses each year.

What’s the impact? Students end up taking courses from new faculty who are not integrated into the department and are unaware of departmental culture or instructional practices. This high turnover rate means courses taught by PT faculty may not be (fully or at all) aligned with departmental goals or culture, and may vary significantly year-to-year or even semester-to-semester. In addition, new PT faculty lack institutional knowledge and may not be able to effectively refer students to important university support resources.

How to change this? Any improvement to job security and higher wages would make teaching as a PT faculty member much more attractive and decrease turnover rate. In order to both attract and maintain talent such as industry experts, professionals with graduate degrees, and PT faculty with PhDs, teaching a course at a university needs to be financially worth it and a positive experience.

Support PT Faculty. Support Student Learning.

Dear Isabelle and Members of MSVU Senior Leadership and Board of Governors,

As a Mount Part-Time Academic and member of the Halifax community, I am writing in response to the Campus-Wide Bulletin circulated earlier today. I found this message both a disappointing breach of good faith bargaining and a disingenuous representation of the offers currently on the table.

I ask that you please take a moment to hear me out. As many of you know, the Mount’s part-time faculty are among the lowest paid in the country. We design and teach over half of the university’s courses, support and mentor your students, and contribute meaningfully to the intellectual and cultural life of this institution. Yet we do so with little to no job security and for a per-course stipend that ranks near the bottom nationally.

The Board’s decision to present its offer in percentages obscures a stark and persistent pay disparity between Mount contract faculty and our peers across the country. Our current per-course stipend is 29.59% below the 2024 national median Step One stipend of $8,058. The raise you have proposed for 2025 would still leave us 11.14% below that national average. Meanwhile, the Local’s request for a flat-rate stipend of $8,435—which you have characterized as unreasonable—remains 11% below the national average flat-rate stipend ($9,371 across 18 Canadian institutions). These figures show that our bargaining team is asking for a modest and long-overdue correction after years of undervalued teaching labour. This correction is all the more urgent as Halifax’s cost of living continues to rise, now ranking among the highest in the country.

As a proud member of this community, I believe deeply in the Mount’s publicly stated values and its social justice mission. Yet it is difficult to reconcile that mission with an employer that continues to extract as much labour as possible for as little pay as possible from its most precarious academic employees. Like most of my colleagues, I hold a PhD, have completed postdoctoral research, published in my field, and have a strong record of research, teaching and mentorship. Unlike my full-time colleagues, however, I lack access to a regular office, job security, health benefits, and pension contributions. My income is not sufficient to meet the cost of living without ongoing financial strain and debt.

I love teaching Mount students—they are among the hardest-working, most engaged, and most conscientious students I’ve encountered in my career. Like so many of my part-time colleagues, I’m deeply devoted to undergraduate teaching and learning. But I also know that we cannot give our students the time and attention they deserve when we’re stretched so thin—many of us, myself included, are commuting between multiple teaching jobs just to piece together a living. We do this work without the security of an institutional home, reapplying for our own positions term after term. We do it because we care deeply about post-secondary teaching and about our students’ learning. But I, like many of my colleagues, am increasingly exhausted and disheartened by the sustained exploitation and institutional disrespect that come with being treated as second-class academics.

You describe the Board’s offer as “reasonable,” yet it includes no pay increase for 2024 and continues to signal that the Mount undervalues the most vulnerable members of its academic community. I stand firmly and proudly with our bargaining committee in their refusal to recommend any agreement that fails to demonstrate genuine respect for the essential contributions of part-time academics; all of whom are highly trained professional educators who are central to the Mount’s teaching mission and to the success of its students.

We are indispensable to the functioning of this institution, and we expect a fair deal that reflects that fact.

Sincerely,
Larissa Atkison, PhD
Part-Time Academic
Mount Saint Vincent University

I have never picketed before and was not sure what to expect when I showed up last Monday for the first of three full days of picketing. I’m an introverted person and had planned to mostly keep to myself, but I quickly found that it was much more enjoyable than I had expected. Yes, I did still keep my earbuds in so that I could take a break from talking and listen to an audiobook every now and then. And yes, I did spend more time by myself than others did so that I wouldn’t get too overwhelmed. But it was genuinely a positive experience, despite the biting winds, the signs blowing away, and the cars that didn’t seem to notice when we tried to cross the street!

On Monday, I donned a pink CUPE hat, pulled a pink CUPE t-shirt over my hoodie, wrapped a warm pink fleece scarf around my neck, and picked up a pink CUPE flag and started walking back and forth along the street. I chatted with colleagues in my department that I hadn’t seen for years, as after Covid, most of the part-time profs started to only come to campus just for the hours they were teaching. I rediscovered the camaraderie I didn’t know I had missed in talking to them. However, I hadn’t appreciated just how physically draining it would be to walk for five hours straight. So I took a colleague’s advice and brought my own chair on Tuesday. I’ll admit, I felt a little awkward bringing a camping chair on the bus Tuesday morning, but it was definitely worth it.

I started Tuesday by making my own sign. I’m no artist – I successfully avoided doing most crafts when my children were little by encouraging them to craft with relatives! – but I channeled my inner artist nonetheless. My sign said “Part-time profs teach (at least) 1/5 of SMU classes” to highlight the fact that part-time faculty are an integral part of SMU and most students are likely affected by this strike given how many courses part-time faculty teach. I felt a little self-conscious sitting down for much of the day, but I knew I didn’t want to have the same hip and leg pain as the previous day so I held my sign down to avoid it blowing into my face (a futile endeavour to be honest!) and smiled and waved at passing cars and students. We sang and danced to music to keep our spirits high – and ourselves warm – and appreciated the students who took pink scarves and small flags and pins to wear in support.

By Wednesday, I was getting into the groove of picketing and felt a lot more comfortable talking to other profs from different departments and swapping stories. So many of us had similar experiences of loving what we do, but not loving the working conditions or the pay. It was encouraging when people from other local unions stopped by to show solidarity, and it felt like a collective hug to know others were rooting for us. As introverted as I am, it was a lovely experience, and it felt really good to be doing something so important with so many other passionate and thoughtful people. It’s not always easy to be on the picket line, but the people on the picket line with me those three days made me feel welcome and valued. And ultimately, that’s what we all want to feel. 

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.