A new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that a majority of university instructors across the country are now temporary, contract appointments — some are paid only $5,000 per course.

At the University of Windsor, two-thirds of faculty appointments are temporary contracts. Chandra Pasma, co-author of the report, said this kind of hiring is hurting students.

"The working conditions of faculty are the learning conditions of students," she said. "Even though most contract faculty are excellent teachers, this can't help but impact the quality of education in many cases."

Pasma said many contract faculty either don't get their own office or must share one with other teachers in the same situation, making face-to-face meetings with students "very crowded" and "less than ideal."

Chandra Pasma, who ran as the NDP candidate in Ottawa West–Nepean during the 2018 provincial election, says long-term security is needed for contract faculty. (@ChandraPasma/Twitter)

"It's hard to develop a real mentor relationship and often their email addresses are cut off when the semester ends, which means that it's hard for students to track them down later and get a reference letter for grad school or for a job."

She adds contract faculty aren't given the resources needed properly build interpersonal connections with students, or to ensure their material is up-to-date.

"That can be really different when the faculty have to leave the second class is done, whether it's to teach a job at another university down the road or whether it's to go work at a local restaurant as a server," said Pasma.

Contract faculty contribute 'applied skills'

The number of temporary contracts at University of Windsor may suggest sessional instructors are the backbone of teaching at the university. But for associate vice-president academic Jeff Berryman, that's an "unfair" sentiment.

He said 2,500 courses in the 2017-18 year were taught by full-time faculty, making up 72 per cent, while sessional instructors taught 979 courses.

Berryman added faculties with the highest number of sessional instructors are organized that way because they bring specialized skills to their respective disciplines.

Besides serving as the associate vice-president academic for the University of Windsor, Jeff Berryman is also a former dean and current professor in the faculty of law. (Michael Hargreaves/CBC)

One example he pointed to is the nursing program. He said temporary contract faculty in that program work as professional nurses, whose knowledge can't be duplicated by other professionals.

Berryman said all sessional instructors are paid a standard rate of $8,600 per course, but there are variances for professors in the faculties of education and nursing.

"We also have a category of sessional lecturers in our collective agreement, so these are people who are teaching six courses, but they are on salaries that are somewhere in excess of $54,000 and they are on eight-month contacts."

Berryman said he can't speak to Pasma's critique that the treatment of sessional instructors by universities in Canada have an effect on students as a whole. He said any notion of "a sub-class of teachers being exploited" is not the case at the University of Windsor.

"For the University of Windsor, the sessional instructors are very important in terms of their applied skills, but they are people who have professional jobs as their normal living and they bring those particular skills into the university."