Fair Employment Week takes place October 21-25, and is a time to reflect on the contributions of academics with limited term contracts. At Queen’s, appointments that are for limited terms are those for Term Adjunct, Special Appointments, and Non-Renewable Appointments. The most numerous group at Queen’s are Term Adjuncts, so this Grievance Corner speaks to rights of reappointment for those Members, the detail we are most commonly asked about.
There are two Rights of Reappointment for Term Adjuncts: a Specific Right of Reappointment (SRoR) to a particular course and a General Right of Reappointment (GRoR) to course load. SROR is granted based upon the number of times a specific course is taught, and is predicated on a Member having 100% responsibility for teaching the course. Eligibility for GRoR is based on the number of years teaching at Queen’s and the cumulative number of courses taught. GRoR gives a Member the right to a teaching load equivalent to the course weight of his/her SRoR (Teaching Load Equivalent). This Teaching Load Equivalent can be satisfied by assigning any course the Term Adjunct is “demonstrably qualified to teach”. Please read 32.2 (SRoR) and 32.3 (GRoR).
Receiving SRoR is automatic as long as the Member has a record of good teaching and satisfactory performance of any other assigned duties. The GRoR process requires a Member to submit an application. Applications for GRoR should include everything a Member could teach, not just those courses already taught. Any experience or education that would allow the Member to teach beyond the courses currently on offer should be included. Members should also indicate any service work, academic or otherwise, they would be willing to do because, while work load entitlement is based on courses taught, Term Adjuncts can be hired to do more than just teaching. At the last stage of appointment security, Continuing Adjuncts may be able to negotiate to have service work make up part of their ongoing work entitlement.
Having a right to be reappointed does not necessarily mean that a Member will be given work if a specific course is not being offered or there are no further courses being offered that a Member is qualified to teach. Bumping provisions based on seniority and level of RoR still exist. Members who are not appointed to some or all of their courses will not be paid for that missing work. However, the right to the work remains for a number of years. Expiration or loss of this right is explained in 32.4. How to maintain this right despite there being no work to do is explained in 32.4.3.
The final stage of appointment for Adjuncts at Queen’s – Continuing Adjunct – is not a contract appointment. A Continuing Adjunct has the same job security as a Tenured appointment at Queen’s (compare Articles 25.1.2.3 and 25.1.3.2).
If this sounds confusing, don’t hesitate to contact QUFA staff to help you figure it out.
Ramneek Pooni can be reached at poonir@queensu.ca.
Susan Fitzgibbon can be reached at fitzgibb@queensu.ca.
This Grievance Corner was taken from the October, 2013 edition of QUFA Voices.