Deborah Simpson has always dreamed of having a lifelong career in academia and has worked very hard to get where she is today.
“Preparing for class, so writing lectures, giving lectures, marking assignments, student office hours, departmental meetings,” said Simpson.
For past three years, Simpson has been teaching as a sessional lecturer with the University of Regina. After a total of eight years of teaching at the University of Regina, Simpson is leaving the field for good.
“I’m sad that I’m not going to pursue the career I thought I would have the rest of my life,” said Simpson.
Simpson’s reason for leaving is job stability, better pay and better benefits. Simpson and the University of Regina’s Faculty Association Sessional Advocacy Committee says the university relies too much on sessional lecturers.
“This is something that is going on across North America. Losing someone like Deborah, it will not be the first and it won’t be the last unfortunately,” said Marianne Jacobsen, the chair of the U of R’s faculty association sessional advocacy committee.
“Living the sessional life, if you’re relying solely on sessional contracts, it’s hard. Every four months you have to apply for a new job, you don’t know whether you will be teaching the class repeatedly. Quite frankly, it gets to a point where the stress gets so severe and so bad it starts affecting your mental health and who wants to continue with that?” added Jacobsen.
Simpson says she has all the requirements needed to secure a more permanent position but the university says she needs more of her research published. Simpson says this can be difficult to do with the expected workload of a sessional lecturer, among other barriers.
“Sessional instructors do have a hard time keeping up their research because they’re not paid to do research and because they’re not eligible for grants through the 3 major funding bodies Canada has to offer,” said Simpson.
“The situation is regrettable. There is financial forces at work, some of which are not within our control,” said Thomas Chase, provost and vice president academic of the University of Regina.
Chase says the university receives their essential funding from two sources, the government and tuition and fee revenue. The university lost $7 million in last year’s provincial budget and that has forced the university to make cuts to nearly every operating unit on campus.
“Again, we are looking across the country at tuition levels and try to determine an appropriate tuition level that would we hope allow us to re-invest in staff to an extent, while keep fees reasonable for students. We certainly would like more permanent academic positions but our ability to do so is constrained by the budget that we have available to us,” said Chase.
“At this moment and time, this university is not prioritizing its faculty, the government is not prioritizing education at all whatsoever and that needs to change and the public needs to speak up,” said Jacobson.
Simpson says she has mixed emotions about leaving her dream career but she remains optimistic. Now focusing on a possible job postings in Ottawa.
“I feel it’s a good decision. There are people who end up working their whole career as sessional lecturers which is embittering. To know you are paid so much less than the faculty. I would like the university to invest in more tenure track positions or even transitional positions to help move people from sessional into permanent positions,” said Simpson.
Simpson says the U of R has not reached out to her since she decided to leave academia.
