When part-time teachers took to the picket line at York University they became canaries in an ivory tower no different from a coal mine.

Campus cataclysms, like mining disasters, are best avoided by heeding the warning signals: Students lost three months of classes in the strike of 2009, leaving York’s reputation in ruins.

This time, contract lecturers reached a deal within days and classes are resuming. But perennial labour strife has exposed the fault lines in university faculties — a reminder of the byzantine hierarchies that persist on campus, where part-time teachers toil in classroom sweatshops for low pay while full professors are protected in their rarefied perch.

All those part-timers — otherwise known as sessional lecturers who work on contract — say they’re overworked and underpaid. Their university employers counter that they can’t afford to pay more because they’re forever underfunded (graduate students who work as teaching assistants are still on strike at both York and U of T).

With student enrolments exploding in Ontario, and post-secondary funding at record levels, does anyone believe we’re getting value for money?

While a hardy band of low-paid contract lecturers bear the brunt of teaching, a coddled elite of tenured professors are among the best-paid on the planet — while teaching fewer courses than ever, and sloughing off research duties.

Universities teach us to think critically, but they’re mired in old think. They spend huge sums on teaching, but pay teachers in ways that are unproductive and unsustainable.

Contract teachers do largely the same pedagogical work as full-time professors for a fraction of the pay. Unlike permanent faculty who enjoy tenure — jobs for life — they don’t get salaried sabbaticals every seven years, nor do they enjoy paid summer breaks from May through August.

Universities are like legacy corporations frozen in time, sticking to an outdated tenure model that made sense hundreds of years ago when academic freedom merited extraordinary protection. Why should today’s part-timers toil without any job security whatever?

Little wonder the number of courses taught by contract faculty in Ontario has soared by an estimated 87 per cent since 2000. When they’re on the job, part-timers teach 100 per cent of the time — unlike full-time professors who spend as little as 40 per cent of their time in the classroom, thanks to the traditional formula that tenured professors swear by: 40-40-20.

Under their hallowed rules, most professors spend a mere 40 per cent of their time teaching; 40 per cent on research; and 20 per cent on “service work” (which can mean helping out their department or other activities).

That formula can be justified for a few talented and disciplined academic stars who excel at both research and teaching. But why make it a template for all tenured employees, many of whom aren’t doing research of discernible value?

A 2014 study by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario found 27 per cent of economics professors hadn’t published in peer-reviewed journals or received grants over the past three years. It noted that older professors decrease their research output. And that teaching loads have been decreasing over time in Canada.

If these “non-active” faculty doubled their teaching loads to make up for their slack research, Ontario’s universities could increase their overall teaching capacity by 10 per cent — worth about 1,500 additional positions across the province. And that’s a conservative estimate.

The report found the average course load was just under three courses — two in the first semester, another in the second semester (half what it was in the 1980s). Interestingly, a 2012 study of public universities in 28 countries found that Canadian professors were the best paid (after accounting for differences in currencies), with salaries rising 46 per cent from 2001 to 2009, three times the inflation rate. That’s likely because far more of our professors are tenured.

Academics will argue that research can’t be given short shrift, because innovation is a major driver in the new economy. But Canadian universities have never been proficient at either collating or commercializing the intellectual property they produce.

How can they continue to justify reduced teaching loads for full-time faculty at the expense of students (and taxpayers) who pay the bills — while contract teachers pick up the slack? Restoring greater balance, efficiency and fairness to university teaching roles won’t be easy after decades of drift and centuries of tradition.

But as other sectors adjust to upheaval — from manufacturing to media to hospitals — we should demand greater accountability and clarity from universities. It’s not just students who deserve a better deal, but part-time teachers, too. Listen to the canaries in the ivory tower.

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Martin Regg Cohn’s Ontario politics column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn