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By Methuseli Dube

Thank you to Gretchen Ferguson, Director, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Global Engagement for hosting this zoom call. This week saw a focus on the position in which precarious instructors find themselves in the post-pandemic academy. To help us better understand this point, our guest speakers Anis Rahman, Asst. Prof University of Washington and Nicole Stewart, sessional faculty at UFV and term instructor at ´óÏó´«Ã½ offered a raw look into the lives of precarious instructors, highlighting fears concerns and possible solutions.

#Resources

1. The origial synthesis by our guests and their colleagues: by Nicole Stewart, Anis Rahman, John Hughes, and Philippa R. Adams.
2. This 2013 article offers a fair look at the challenges faced by sessional instructors and it explores what has not been fixed or improved. 
3. A chance to submit articles about precarious instructors and their labor in Academia. The deadline will be early 2021. The page offers a good look at the challenges faced by Sessional professors. 
4. The next article focuses on the Precarity of Sessional instructors during COVID-19 and shows the fear that non-tenured staff normally feel and how COVID-19 has amplified these fears. 
5. When Dalhousie University administration and faculty bring a conciliator into contract negotiations this week, COVID-19 will almost surely factor into the conversation. The Dalhousie Faculty Association — the union that represents about 1,000 Dalhousie teaching staff, librarians and counsellors — says the shift to online courses this year has drastically increased instructors' workloads. The article below offers further information.