Support Laurier Part-Time Faculty
Only sign one petition. If you signed one at school, please do not sign this one.
The Top Ten Reasons to Support Contract Academic Staff (CAS)
10. Although CAS make up roughly half of all the professors at Laurier, you may end up being taught almost SOLELY by part-time rather than by full-time faculty, as has happened in some Arts departments!
9. CAS receive no health and dental benefits. If they have bad teeth, they won't smile at us anymore!
8. CAS earn less than half what even junior full-time faculty earn for teaching the same number of courses.
7. Many CAS members teach six [6] one-semester courses as they try to make a living as professional scholars or commute between universities (5 = full-time courseload). That's why they have less time for meeting us one-on-one!
6. CAS are like turtles, carrying their offices around with them, because they're never sure if they'll have office space to prepare for classes or meet with students.
5. CAS have limited or no job security. Here one semester, gone the next!
4. A majority of CAS have the same levels of education, expertise and experience as full-time faculty.
3. If CAS can't get a good contract, decent pay or are treated poorly by Laurier, they are more likely to take jobs elsewhere. And since Guelph and UW pay better than Laurier, will our "part-time" professors stay here?!
2. For all our tuition fee hikes the Administration has not been investing in our education in hiring more full-time profs, spending the money on endless construction projects instead.
1. If CAS get a fair contract, then we'll all benefit because our learning conditions are their working conditions.
STUDENTS SUPPORT CONTRACT ACADEMIC STAFF!
STUDENTS WANT A FAIR SETTLEMENT FOR CAS NOW!
We the undersigned call on the negotiating team for the University of Wilfrid Laurier to listen to the demands of the contract part time staff. As students we receive the brunt of the poor treatment to which the CAS are subjected. It is the students who ultimately suffer when the staff cannot find office space to meet us. It is the students who suffer when we cannot get references due to never being able to establish long-term academic relationships because of the high turn-over of staff. It will be us who suffer when we seek positions in academia only to find that this poor treatment still exists after we have obtained our graduate degrees that are advertised to us.
As a student body, we are disappointed that the resources we pay for do not seem to include the people who directly interface with us the most.
