Modern academia fails us

Pernicious system needs to be changed to meet needs of students and community

I am an associate professor emeritus at the University of B.C., where I taught for more than 30 years as a tenured faculty member.

Following this career I taught on contract at the University of Regina and the University of South Australia, where I saw and experienced firsthand the plight of sessional staff.

They are the academic counterparts to “temps” in the broader marketplace; they have no job security, no benefits, are paid poorly, and have little say in the workings of the university. They are used by the system to allow the administration to stay on budget.

I was told by a conservative colleague at UBC that fully 90 per cent of undergrad courses in his faculty are now taught by sessional staff. They become lackeys in a flawed system wherein professors keep as far away from undergrads as they can to concentrate on the real rewards of the system that involves publication and gaining financial grants for research.

In much earlier times, a university faculty member was judged by the quality of teaching, research, and community service. Now the criteria are grantsmanship and publication in obscure journals. Community service is most often equated with highly paid consultancies. An added shameful development is the burgeoning bureaucracy in academia that is a significant factor in the exorbitant tuition increases faced by students today.

This system is pernicious and needs to be changed if we are to meet the needs of students, young academics and the community at large. GARY PENNINGTON Roberts Creek