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What would the professors think if it was anyone else? That question haunts me as I read news stories about how much of the university teaching load is now carried by poorly paid, insecure sessionals.

Canada’s research-heavy universities make curiously little effort to track the data or publicize it. But about half of all undergraduates are now taught by sessionals. I do not think it is what parents believe they are paying for. Nor should it be.

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I am myself a sessional. I love teaching, and for me the money isn’t a big issue because I have a real job … or did until Sun News Network collapsed. But the way the system exploits young sessionals who would be professors strikes me as a singularly unjust, complacent example of entrenched privilege.

According to the CBC last fall, “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.” Minus benefits and pensions. And while professors are expected to research, publish and serve on committees, part-timers usually try to do the same in a mostly futile quest for the coveted tenure-track job.