Canadian universities and colleges talk a lot about the importance of equity and diversity on campus.

Yet when it comes to the academic workforce, little has changed in the last decade, with only a handful of Black and Indigenous professors, fewer women with coveted full-time positions than men, and “significant wage gaps” that penalize female and racialized staff, according to a new report.

The result is faculties that fail to reflect the range of backgrounds and identities of the students they teach, says the study, released Friday by the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

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Based on data from the 2016 census, it provides a snapshot of university and college workforces and incomes, and highlights entrenched differences in pay and positions.

“The findings are discouraging,” says Pat Armstrong, a York University sociology professor and co-chair of the association’s equity committee.

“Progress is very slow,” she said in an interview. “It’s pretty clear there’s a big gap between the student body and the faculty that’s teaching them.”

Armstrong said of particular concern is the significant decline in tenure-stream jobs and the shrinking number of assistant professor positions — which should be the pathway for new teachers from a range of backgrounds needed to shift the demographics within academia. Without those positions, it will be a major challenge to address the current imbalances.

According to the report, assistant professor positions declined 22 per cent in the 10-year period ending in 2016-17, a trend it said “will impede progress” for women, Indigenous academics and other racial groups seeking secure tenure-track positions.

The report, released as the university teachers kick off a two-day equity conference, also found:

Aboriginal academics made up about 1 per cent of university professors in 2016 and 3 per cent of college instructors, even though they constitute 4 per cent of the labour force and 5 per cent of undergraduate students.

The number of Black university teachers has barely budged in 10 years, accounting for 2 per cent of all teachers in 2016.

The share of racialized university professors rose to 21 per cent in 2016 from 17 per cent in 2006. However, they represent only 15 per cent of college instructors.

More women have full-time positions but primarily in the lower ranks, representing 49 per cent of assistant professors but only 27 per cent of full professors.

The most prevalent wage gap is for racialized women college instructors, who earn 63 cents for every dollar earned by white males, and racialized women professors who earn 68 cents.

Last fall, Canadian universities released an action plan aimed at promoting equity, diversity and inclusion at all levels, including in teaching, research, governance and their communities. The plan, announced by Universities Canada, also committed to collecting demographic data about students and teaching staff.

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Armstrong said the most effective strategy to change the makeup of the workforce would be reducing the reliance on part-time or contract staff. The vulnerability of precarious workers was at the heart of the strike by Ontario college faculty last fall and job security is also central in the ongoing strike by 3,000 contract staff and teaching assistants at York University, who have been off the job for a month.

The report’s findings came as no surprise to Sharon McIvor, an Indigenous lawyer, activist and professor at Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in British Columbia.

But she stresses that diversity isn’t just about changing the faces in a workplace. It also means embracing different world views and ways of approaching teaching, learning and evaluating that come with them, she adds.

In the traditional hierarchy of Canada’s university system “that hasn’t changed very much.”

Correction - April 11, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version to update an incorrect photo caption. The previous caption mistakenly referred to students coming out of the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall.

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