How an academic position outraged an entire faculty
After giving her weekly Intro to Gender Studies lecture, Dr. Jessica Kean squeezes in a quick lunch break before her office hours where she expects to have one-on-ones with five students. During exam seasons, her office hours are followed by several hours of marking students’ semester-long projects. While the university expects instructors to grade each report in just 15 minutes, she doesn’t feel like that’s enough to provide genuinely thoughtful feedback, especially when some assignments are over 4,000 words on topics such as “Contemporary Fluidity of Gender Identity.”
Kean is a “scholarly teaching fellow,” in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies as an Education Focused Role (EFR). “These newer ‘education-focused’ academic roles require staff like me to do almost double the amount of teaching as their colleagues,” said Kean. “This means staff on the more intense teaching workload are given more teaching than it is humanly possible to fit into a working week, especially when marking comes around.”
This was a key reason for members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) to take strike action in the past months. Union members accused the University administration of exploiting EFR positions by hiring one academic to do more teaching than they’ve agreed to since they’re not doing research. “The kicker is that the university is also known to radically undercount how long teaching activities take,” said Kean.
In EFRs teaching takes up to 80% of an academic workload, leaving little time for research. A tenure track role is made up of 40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% administrative work, often referred to as the “40:40:20” model. In these roles, the time allotted for academics for teaching and research is equally balanced. Compared to instructors and professors at Sydney University, EFRs are expected to do more while being paid less. The base pay for an EFR, which is classified as a Level D position, was just over $150,000, while that of a professor was over $190,000.
Kean, 35, has worked at Sydney University since 2017, when she received her Ph.D. She teaches 250 students in two classes every semester. While the University suggests that it should take 63 hours to grade all the papers from her classes, the reality for Kean is that it takes more than a week to finish the papers, often working weekends. “I have a pact with my partner and close friends that they’ll be on standby every marking season to remind me that I don’t usually hate my job and that any breakdown I experience will be temporary,” she said.
Another issue with EFR positions is that they often limit an academic’s career progression, by leaving little time for research. What does this mean for Kean? As an academic, her career progression is contingent on her research quality. Under her EFR contract, teaching and marking papers seems to occupy over 90% of her time, leaving her barely any time to research. Over time, she is at risk of falling behind other academics in her field. “I just don't have time to read much of anything other than whatever I'm setting for my student, which means that [my] bank of information and [my] currency in [my] discipline diminishes over time,” said Kean.
The teacher’s union is asking the university to limit the number of EFR positions and improve conditions for those currently working. However, the University management is proposing to add more positions. In a message posted on Twitter by Derrick Armstrong, former Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Chair) of Education-- who introduced EFRs to Sydney University—referred to EFRs as, “namely, a teaching workforce through which the University can reduce its costs by extractive labour.” Despite union members’ requests for more ethical employment contracts and fewer EFR positions, Armstrong along with the university administration remain in support of EFRs and even plans to increase the number.
Sydney University, located outside of central Sydney, currently enrolls over 70,000 students and 8,000 staff members, so the issue of EFRs is not isolated to faculty. Many students feel there not receiving adequate attention and feedback from professors.
Lia Perkins, 21, president of the Student Representative Council, has noticed that a major course that averaged 65 students at the time of her enrollment in 2019, now exceeds 150 students. Following the pandemic, Sydney University, and many others, have significantly increased their student body while decreasing the number of courses they’re offering. Many faculty and students blame this on the universities increasingly corporate outlook. “It happens across the board in this country,” said Perkins. “We take the position that we don't like the course cuts and the increases to class sizes that we’ve seen.”
In April of this year, NTEU members voted to call off further strike action. Instead, staff hope to proceed with negotiations towards a final agreement with management, without striking action. The union slogan throughout the long process has been: Our working conditions are student learning conditions.
As the semester comes to a close, Kean hopes to catch up on research and spend time outside of the classroom. While negotiations between the NTEU and university administration continue, passionate instructors and professors are being “run into the ground,” according to Kean. Balanced academics, with a more traditional workload, will have better access to research and career opportunities. “These are often super dedicated and skilled teachers who are being loaded up with so much teaching that they get burnt out and heartbroken,” said Kean. “Knowing they are not doing what’s best for their students but not having the time to do it better.”
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