Carleton’s senate passed a motion at its Oct. 31 meeting which added two voting seats for contract instructors at the university, according to the Graduate Students’ Association’s vice-president (academic) Michael Bückert.
The academic governance of the university introduced the motion and senate members voted unanimously in favour, said GSA president Christina Muehlberger, who was present at the meeting.
“I am very excited that it finally passed,” Muehlberger said. “With senate being the highest-governing academic body at the school and contract instructors playing such a vital role in academics at Carleton, they should have representation.”
Daniel Preece, CUPE 4600’s vice-president Unit 2 (contract instructors) said representation in Carleton academic governance bodies was one of the issues addressed at last year’s collective bargaining with the university.
CUPE 4600, the union representing contract instructors on campus, was in negotiations with the university from September 2013 until March 2014, with issues like low wages and lack of representation being the main topics of debate.
“Over 800 contract instructors teach approximately 25 per cent of the courses at Carleton and we are a significant part of Carleton’s community that is, all too often, invisible,” Preece said.
Preece said he hopes contract instructors’ inclusion on senate will reinforce their role as members of Carleton’s academic community and give them a voice that other members already have.
“Our exclusion from the academic governance of our community, up until this point, has meant that our contributions were not seen as valuable,” he said.
Muehlberger said although she is happy that contract instructors now have a seat on senate, there should be more security in their positions, as a certain number of teaching credits are required to be eligible for a voting seat.
“If a contract instructor is quite active and vocal on senate, there should be protection that their teaching load doesn’t decrease so they can no longer sit on senate,” she said.
Preece said, along with contract instructors being active in senate, it is necessary for them to also have representation on faculty and department boards.
“Without representation on these boards, we remain excluded from both academic debates and decision-making, and remain only partial members of our academic community,” he said.
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