Committee Reports

ANSUT (Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers) by Bruce Sparks As the AUT’s representative to the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers (ANSUT) I attended the three regular meetings held during the academic year 2015-2016. Unlike last year (the year of Bill 100) there were no obviously dramatic issues. Meetings continued to be very useful forums […]

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Dear StFXAUT, We Need to Talk About Service…

Written by Rachel Hurst and Charlene Weaving, this article appears in the Spring 2016 issue of The Beacon Recently, the topic of service has come up for discussion in the StFXAUT; the last issue of The Beacon included the article “The Value of Service,” by Mathias Nilges and the recent Contract & Benefits survey assured […]

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The Value of Service Work

Written by Mathias Nilges, this article first appeared in the Winter 2016 edition of The Beacon One of the unwritten rules of fine dining is that good service be prompt, attentive, and competent and at the same time practically invisible. The less one notices the service, in other words, while feeling expertly taken care of, […]

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Issues impacting Part-Time Academic Instructors

Written by Philip Girvan, this article first appeared in the Winter 2016 edition of The Beacon. Canadian post-secondary institutions have become increasingly dependent on temporary or Contract Academic Staff (CAS). CAUT director of research and political action, Sylvain Schetagne, notes in the October 2015 issue of the CAUT/ACPPU Bulletin, that “[m]ore than 30 per cent of […]

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Fair Employment Day

Today, October 7, 2015, is Fair Employment Day. Fair Employment Day is a dedicated toward highlighting the increasingly precarious nature of work in post-secondary educational institutions and takes place in solidarity with the World Day for Decent Work. The StFX Association of University Teachers would like to acknowledge all our academic colleagues working around the […]

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Exploitation in the Ivory Tower

From The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright:  “Exploitation in the Ivory Tower” (September 7, 2014). Description from the CBC page: Documentary – Exploitation in the Ivory Tower: (49:25) In Economics 101, they might call it a new-fangled form of feudalism. Wage slavery. Certainly a caste system. The modern Canadian university is quietly kept afloat by low-paid, contract […]

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