YUFA Elections are coming up, with the voting period starting November 21, and there are several key issues, including workload and collegiality, that deserve serious attention.

Joy Mannette
Faculty of Education

I wish I could say that I am astounded that YUFA members are even considering teaching stream appointments. Sadly, there is little that surprises me in the market-driven, instrumentalist university. In this article I address how institutionally segregating seconded faculty from research has resulted in a de facto practice/theory split which is an ongoing feature of the work in the Faculty of Education despite discourse to the contrary.

Lykke de la Cour
Department of Social Science

As a long service CUPE member now holding a CLA position, my current employment location affords a bit of a 'borderland' view, between YUFA and CUPE, on the renewed proposals for a teaching-only stream. This proposal, like its TSA predecessor, is extremely flawed, contradictory, and illogical, and will do absolutely nothing towards improving teaching and learning conditions at the university.

OCUFA
September 2008

Whatever the reasons universities may have to establish full-time teaching-only faculty positions, and however they may propose to structure these positions, they have not been without drawbacks for faculty members and the faculty associations that represent them. For their part, faculty associations have dealt with the range of scenarios with a variety of their own strategies to contain or make the most of teaching-only appointments. In this respect, a policy on teaching-only positions will likely be a composite of positions addressing different characteristics and conditions.

Janice Newson

The purpose of teaching-only streams in full-time faculty bargaining units is to enable significant technological change. Although universities have been wired for almost two decades and university support functions are now provided mainly on-line, technological change has not had significant impact on the delivery of teaching. In order to more fully technologize teaching, administrations need teaching to be severed from research, not just de facto, but de jure, meaning, in the contractual provisions of collective agreements.

Craig Heron
Department of History (LAPS)

Teaching-stream appointments are fundamentally antithetical to all that our university stands for, and, in the name of cost-cutting, would do grave damage. I am opposed to their introduction because I strongly believe they will have a negative effect on us, our students, the young scholars we have recently trained, and those filling the new positions.

Bob Hanke
Departments of Communication Studies, Humanities, Political Science (LAPS)

It’s a dilemma for universities: how do they promote and enhance the research that brings prestige (and funding) to the institution, and at the same time provide a high-quality learning experience to undergraduates if all they can offer are sessional contracts? The answer to this dilemma is not TSAs: CUPE Unit 2 members should resist the “teaching only” trend found in Britain and the U.S. As the core tenure-track faculty shrinks, CUPE Unit 2 members should reject any offers that expand the periphery of an “ever-green” academic underclass of cheap teachers.