The Association of Academic Staff University of Alberta (AASUA) represents both research faculty and teaching staff. Research faculty make up the majority of the members and the executive, so have the deciding say in negotiations.
Canada’s inflation rate averaged 4.7 % per year for the past three years.
Recent contract negotiations have resulted in the AASUA accepting a 16 % cut in the maximum instructor salary!
Terminology comparison
Other Canadian universities recognize the importance of quality undergraduate instruction. They also recognize the opportunity and importance of the scholarship of teaching and learning. Instructors are ideally qualified to develop textbooks and other instructional resources, develop and test instructional techniques, develop new learning models, etc. Instructors at other Canadian universities are mandated to do these things.
Instructors at other Canadian universities are referred to as teaching faculty, with ranks of assistant, associate, and full teaching professor.
The University of Alberta has research faculty and teaching staff. Instructors are not even considered faculty!
Salary comparison
At other Canadian universities, teaching faculty are paid comparable to research faculty. At some universities, it is a 1:1 correlation. That is, a full teaching professor is paid on the same scale as a full research professor. At other universities, teaching faculty are one step down from research faculty. That is, a full teaching professor is paid on the same scale as an associate research professor.
At the University of Alberta, teaching staff are on their own scale, which is below that of assistant research professor. Adding insult to UAlberta teaching staff, UAlberta and the AASUA just agreed to cut the maximum teaching staff salary by 16 %. This change was probably pushed through by the research faculty majority in the AASUA.
Workload comparison
At all universities, including the University of Alberta, teaching faculty teach three to four times more courses than research faculty. Additionally, teaching releases are commonly given to research faculty as awards and incentives for research success. Faculty are also able to buy teaching releases with their research grants. (Yes, some research faculty despise teaching that much.)
Assuming a 3:1 teaching differential and the same payscale, teaching faculty are 33 % the cost of research faculty. At UAlberta, this value is around 20 %.
If the University of Alberta wants to save money and rebalance the teaching and research priorities, replace retiring research faculty with teaching faculty, and ensure that 50 % of university administrators are teaching faculty. The AASUA is encouraged to mandate 50 % of executive positions be filled by teaching faculty. (Not surprisingly, being on the AASUA executive gives one or more teaching releases.)
This adds to my arguments that many UAlberta Administrators — exclusively research faculty — and UAlberta research faculty care little about junior instruction and instructors. Despicable.
The AASUA executive are also primarily research faculty.