YUFA

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30 Mar 11 – The Rationale and Key Points, below, were provided by the Employer. The Employer’s position with respect to the remaining provisions is gisted, below.

Note Added: The following is a framework proposal for discussion and not a final proposal.

Rationale:

As supported by recent analyses of teaching and learning in the university sector, the professorial tenure stream approach to delivering high quality teaching while ensuring appropriate support for professional contributions in research-intensive universities has only been managed by an increasing reliance on contract teaching. A major factor contributing to this situation is the typical teaching load associated with most professorial tenure stream faculty – teaching responsibilities tend to represent no more than 40% of total workload – generally requiring more faculty complement than can be sustained within existing funding models for post-secondary education (PSE) institutions in Ontario. Universities have therefore increasingly turned to contract faculty to manage unmet teaching needs. While contract faculty are an invaluable teaching support, they have similarly raised the issue of the resulting casualization of academic work, and the preference for full-time positions that would involve better integration into departments and schools. Large comprehensive and research-intensive universities such as McMaster University and the University of Toronto have therefore introduced teaching stream appointments in order to provide a sustainable means of supporting professorial stream faculty at teaching loads deemed to be critical for research intensivity while also addressing the casualization of academic work and supporting teaching excellence. It is in this context that York is similarly proposing a teaching stream appointment that would seek to attract colleagues with an interest and passion for teaching and make significant contributions to the University’s teaching and learning mission.

Key Points Regarding Terms and Conditions for a new Teaching Stream Faculty Category:

1. The principle professional expectation and responsibility of Teaching Stream faculty is teaching. Teaching Stream faculty will also have service responsibilities. In terms of proportion an 80%-20% split.

2. Teaching Stream faculty will have a teaching load of 4.0 FCEs.

3. Teaching Stream faculty will not be required or expected to devote any portion of their time on behalf of the University to research, scholarly or creative work similar to the research, scholarly or creative activity required and expected of professorial tenure stream faculty. Teaching stream faculty may, as part of their professional responsibilities, undertake scholarly activities directly relating to their teaching responsibilities, in addition to their teaching and service responsibilities on behalf of the University.

4. Initial appointments are for a maximum of 3 years in length. Such appointments will be considered probationary and, on a successful review in the third year of the appointment, may be renewed for a second term for up to three years. A probationary Teaching Stream faculty member reappointed to a second term may be granted a continuing Teaching Stream appointment following a successful review in the second or third year of the renewed appointment. The review of teaching stream faculty will be based primarily on an evaluation of their teaching, and to a lesser extent, service.

5. The University suggests that the parties negotiate and agree on a new Teaching Stream Article or Appendix to the current collective agreement.

Gist of Remaining Provisions:

In the Collective Agreement, Articles 1 to 10 inclusive would be applicable as well as Articles 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32. Appendices A, D, E, F, G, H, K, N, P and Q would be applicable with appropriate revision where necessary.

Article 12 would need to be modified to add a new category of Teaching Stream as well as other revisions.

Article 14 (Retirement) would be applicable for continuing Teaching Stream appointments. Discussion will be required to decide on the full range of Article 14 provisions which would apply.

Much of Article 18 would be applicable with teaching and service workload provisions to be in a Teaching Stream faculty Article or Appendix.

Much of Article 19 (Leaves) would be applicable, save for Terminal Leave and External Release Time Fellowships. Leaves under “Internal Support for Teaching and Research” would be applicable only as related to teaching.

Article 20 (Sabbatical Leave). Sabbatical provisions would be included in a Teaching Stream faculty Article or Appendix. The Employer proposes a six-month sabbatical but would be willing to discuss the issue of term of sabbatical further.

Article 24 (Lay-off….) would not be applicable, however, lay-off provisions relevant to Teaching Stream faculty would be in a Teaching Stream Article or Appendix regarding circumstances in which, following normal academic planning and decision processes, curriculum to teach becomes unavailable and redeployment is not possible. The Employer has indicated that Teaching Stream faculty could not be laid-off by the subsequent hiring of Professorial Stream faculty to teach their courses.

Article 25 (Compensation) would not apply as compensation provisions would be included in a Teaching Stream faculty Article or Appendix including starting salary floor and negotiated Across-the-Board (ATB) increase; also included would be Professional Expense Reimbursement (PER), Overload Rates, Sabbatical Leave Support and additional compensation provisions to be negotiated. The Employer does not propose to include Progress-through-the-Ranks (PTR) increments in compensation for Teaching Stream faculty.

The Employer is not proposing any provisions by which Professorial or Alternate Stream faculty members could be made to transfer to the Teaching Stream.

The Employer’s position is that the Teaching Stream would be distinct from the Alternate Stream.

The Employer would be willing to discuss a limitation on the proportion of Teaching Stream faculty relative to Professorial Stream faculty along the lines existing for Contractually Limited Appointments (Article 12:11), which applies to the bargaining unit as a whole and not to individual units.