QUESTION 18 Which workload issue is MOST import to you?

Increased recognition of thesis supervision workload

Increased faculty complement.

None

increase faculty complements.

Value assigned to teaching labs, as mentioned above.

faculty complements

Of those listed, I would like to see co-ordinators treated the same as chairs, since their work is comparable and they are severely under-recognized. While I am not a co-ordinator, and their numbers are small, this is the kind of fundmental injustice that a strong faculty union should not permit.

class size

reduce the number of courses

Currently the Administration's systems do not seem to be concerned about creating extra work for faculity members or making their jobs more difficult, ITSS, payroll and finance seem to put more barriers in place for faculty members to get around. Not an easy thing to negotiate, but the administrative burden on faculty members has increased a lot recently and much of it is being driven by the administration rather than student needs.

Making 3-2 load automatic. Now it is punitive.

Better recognition for service.

better recognition for thesis supervision

As above.

Recognition issues for specialized/increased/administrative services (any/all academic staff)

invigilating exams should be the responsibility of the university and not instructors.

Equitable instructional load defined by number of students involved vs number of course sections taught.

Reducing class size is a critical issue, along with reducing reliance on part-time or term-appointed faculty.

Adequate recognition of service, supervision, and research work, which in turn increases the excellence of the outcomes of these areas.

Better recognition for service.

More opportunities for teaching load reductions.

Recognition of overall workload, i.e., amount of teaching should be carefully assigned with
a recognition of the total workload of the individual. A consideration of the professional workload
of the individual should include work at Saint Mary's such as teaching, student supervision, and
research, as well as other activities off campus such as co-supervision of graduate students at
other institutions, work on editorial boards, work on national and international professional societies, work on research grant selection committees, etc. The teaching reduction for research program offered by FGSR makes a preliminary effort in this direction but more is needed.

Class size.

Teaching load and Class size

Increase faculty complements
Decrease and limit class size

Of all these, better recognition for Programme Coordinators.

I think the workload should be 3-2 and can be increased to 3-3 instead of research.

Teaching load (number of classes and class sizes). If this is a research institution, then faculty must be able to dedicated 40% of our time on research (i.e, 20% service, 40% teaching, and 40% research. As it stands, teaching eats up about 80% of work time).

- the implementation of full-time teaching faculty; this would reduce pressure on current teaching+research faculty to teach extra courses to ensure good service to students (and thereby reduce their ability to conduct research)

The university - wide rule of full-time over part-time ratio in teaching (70 / 30) should be applied within faculties but also Departments, i.e. no less than 70% of each Department's COURSES should be taught by full-time faculty. When the Administration is asking individuals from Departments to head institutes or assume other obligations that entail administrative releases, FCES should be added and Departments should be provided with the appropriate number of full-time positions as secondments or permanently, depending on the nature of the appointment.

all of the above.

#16

1) Coordination.
2) Class size.
3) Stop overscale payments in Commerce and Sciences on the backs of those in the Arts (who are routinely negotiated down in the hiring process).

Increased faculty complements

Making the 3-2 load automatic

Class sizes in my department are creeping up and the collective agreement language is too weak to prevent it effectively. This really needs to change in the new agreement.

Decreased course load if possible. Otherwise course reduction for service.

Not getting a course release for Coordinating Irish Studies as unternured faculty.
We don't have ten majors, but in a system where no one is required to declare their major until the end there is no clear sense of how many we, in fact, do have. And as unternured faculty we are meant to be protected from excessive duties in order to fulfill the requirements of a successful tenure application.

no

make 3/2 automatic

We need to maintain a reasonable full-time faculty-student ratio on a faculty if not departmental basis. And if we do not have the full-time faculty to offer courses to students in a quality environment (i.e., on campus in a relatively small class at the higher levels) then we cannot admit more students. Hiring more part-timers and introducing on-line courses is not the answer.


I am writing in here my thoughts about teaching only positions as per the questions below:

They are positive on the one hand because:
1. You get people who are passionate about teaching in the classroom and let the people who have stronger skills in research focus on that
2. The people who are teaching at a university level would still spend a lot of time staying current in the field that they are teaching - or they should.
3. It would create positions for many of the part-time people who would like full-time jobs - a problem with this though is our requirement for the job - would these people need a PhD? In a way that seems unnecessary for many of the teaching positions - but not if you consider the advanced training in a field that you get from the PhD.

They are negative on the other hand because:
1. It creates a potentially two-tier system between the teachers and the researchers - the pay scales have to match and the university has to value the teachers as much as the researchers
2. It would be easy to offload the courses that the researchers did not want onto the teachers - so the researchers would teach all the smaller higher level courses that match their research interests and the teachers would be left with a lot of the first year large classroom teaching. This might be okay - but there are inherent problems.
3. This would create communication barriers and conflicts within the department if the two sides did not appreciate each other - the teachers would be a risk of being excluded if they do not participate in service in the university and sit on decision-making bodies, etc.

Reduced course load for faculty in their first two or three years.

Making 3-2 automatic and increasing faculty complement

See #17. Time, time, time.

I am judged almost exclusively on research for advancement, yet can't in good conscience do a 70% job at teaching and outreach to compensate for the lack of time.

See above

employment equity

3-2 workload.

For me personally the issue of a variety of options to permit senior faculty to work full-time, or 3/4 time, or 1/2 time or even 1/4 time is really important both for the individuals and for the university. The more flexible options built into the contract the more likely it will be possible for faculty renewal to continue.

We should seriously consider a merit-based approach to salary supplements or another reward system for excellence in teaching, research or service.

3/2 workload

A flexible workload.

At the moment Appendix C or the Reduced Duties clause is only available to faculty within 5 years of retirement. What about the earlier phases of life when a flexible workload would be beneficial (young children, returning from maternity or parental leave, caring for an aging parent). This could be temporary ( from one term to one academic year) as long as teaching commitments were organized in advance to accommodate an 80% load or 60% load.

OR in the last couple years the Deans have removed the possibility of courses taught in the summer sessions counting (or banked) towards Fall/Winter programs. Why not put this back on the table? This could create a more flexible workload without cost to the university as long as the summer sessions were wide-ranging courses that attracted sufficient enrollments and the core courses were covered.