Part-time teachers deserve much better

Re: Striking college professors picket MPP Bob Chiarelli’s office, Oct. 31.

In this story, Jacquie Miller wrote that partial-load faculty member Colleen MayoPankhurst “is paid $80 an hour for the nine hours she teaches each week, or $720 a week.”

While this is true, it does not adequately reflect the precarious nature of Mayo-Pankhurst’s situation.

As a partial-load professor, Mayo-Pankhurst does earn $80 per hour for her classroom time for a total of $10,800 a semester, but her hours of lesson planning, marking and student support are completely unremunerated (unlike her full-time colleagues).

Furthermore, her partialload status is a rare and coveted privilege, and she only carries this status in about one in six semesters.

More typically, MayoPankhurst is a part-time professor, during which time she earns only $60 per hour for three to six hours per week. This winter, she’ll teach for six hours, earning $360 per week, or $5,400 for the semester. If she isn’t fortunate enough to be contracted for the summer term (part-time and partial load faculty must apply for a position every semester), her gross income will be $16,200 for the academic year (a full-time colleague in her department could expect between $61,000 and $106,000).

Once tax and other deductions are withdrawn, that means she’ll take home an average of $249 per week, $1 less than OPSEU offers as strike relief.

Mayo-Pankhurst is a highly qualified subject-matter expert with two university degrees, two college certificates (one specializing in teaching adult learners), 20 years of related business experience, and 15 years in postsecondary classrooms.

Despite the wealth of experience, knowledge and expertise she brings to the college, her income leaves her below the poverty line. Her story is not unique; the same can be said of many of the 70 per cent plus of Ontario college faculty in the same situation.

Such precarious conditions undermine the excellent teaching offered by our part-time faculty. They deserve better. Jack Wilson, First Vice-President Algonquin College, OPSEU Local 415