Incorrect data put SFU in top spot in study
Co-author says proportion of contract faculty is nowhere near the reported 78%
Data showing Simon Fraser University with the highest percentage of contract faculty in the country at almost 78 per cent is inaccurate, according to one of the two co-authors of a study on precarious employment in Canadian universities.
Chandra Pasma said SFU provided incorrect information in response to a Freedom of Information request for information about contract faculty at the university. The data was published in a study Pasma was a co-author of called Contract U: Contract faculty appointments at Canadian universities.
“The information that they initially provided is not accurate,” Pasma said by phone from Ottawa.
“They included categories that should not have been included, including tutors and markers. They did not include other faculty categories. It is very clear that number is wrong.”
SFU has said that, in fact, the percentage of faculty on contract is closer to 28 per cent.
“I can’t speak to the accuracy of the new number,” Pasma said.
On Thursday, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released Contract U which said that 53.6 per cent of all university faculty positions across the country were contract jobs in 2016-17.
The data was collected based on FOI requests to 78 publicly-funded universities; 73 responded. Emily Carr University of Art + Design had the third highest number of contract faculty at 74.48 per cent.
Peter Keller, vice-president academic and provost for SFU, said it was unfortunate that the study placed SFU in such an “extreme category.”
“What the report said is that 78 per cent is done by contract faculty,” he said. “There is no way you could come up with that number. It is more like 28 per cent.”
Keller said the CCPA has asked SFU for revised information which the university has sent.
“We are in conversation with them,” he said. “They have agreed that after review, they will consider modifying the report.”
Keller said SFU uses contract faculty for three reasons: as a method of teacher training for doctoral students, to fill vacancies due to retirement and study leaves, and to bring into academia professionals from the working world.
Pasma said when there’s clarity around the numbers, the information will be updated.
“What we want is to have the most accurate representative snapshot of contract faculty that we can have,” she said.
“It’s in nobody’s best interest to have a data set that has inaccurate information in it.”
Pasma said no other university has contacted her or Erika Shaker, the study’s other author, to say that inaccurate data was provided or that Contract U wasn’t accurate.
“Our data from all the other universities — which hasn’t been challenged — shows really clearly that this is a systemic problem across the country, across universities,” said Pasma, a researcher with the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
The confusion around the data sent by SFU tells Pasma of the importance of having an agency such as Statistics Canada collecting employment data from universities.
“We said clearly in the paper we have to depend on the universities themselves for the accuracy of the data,” she said.
“Statistics Canada has greater power than we have to set clear definitions and categories and to compel universities to release that information.”
Contract U also found that among faculty on contract, part-time appointments account for nearly 80 per cent of all contracts in 2016-17.
Contract faculty accounted for 39 per cent of jobs in science, 50 per cent in social sciences, and 56 per cent in humanities, the study found.