Contract Faculty - Sharing Your Experiences to Drive Change

Your Association wants to bring the realities of your work to light through your own experiences. The goal of this brief survey is to collect anecdotal evidence regarding the specific working conditions, structural barriers, or lack of resources that prevent you from fully engaging in your faculty role on campus.

Your shared experiences are a powerful tool for advocacy. To be most effective, as you respond, feel free to share specific examples. Please note how your feedback will be used:

Supporting Bargaining Efforts: The results of this survey will be shared directly with our Bargaining Team, providing them with crucial, real-world evidence to support negotiations.
Building Awareness: With your permission, your stories may be incorporated into a video compilation that will be shared with the broader community, including (but not limited to) during the 2026 and/or 2027 Fair Employment Weeks and Advocacy Weeks.

This survey will ask about your experiences as contract academic staff, and it can be completed by both current contract members as well as by Full-time faculty who have previously worked at MRU on sessional contracts. Completing this survey is anonymous. At the end, you will indicate if you want insights/quotes from your experiences to be shared only anonymously, or be given the opportunity to share your email and to have your quotes attributed to you for even greater impact. This choice is entirely yours.

Your voice matters, and your experiences will help us push for meaningful institutional change.

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1. Role Identity How long have you been employed as a contract faculty member with MRU, and how do you view this appointment within your broader career trajectory? For example, is this your main or sole employment, or one role among many? Would you seek full-time employment with MRU if it were available?

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2. Barriers to Engagement What specific working conditions, if any, most significantly prevent you from fully engaging in your faculty role? This may include structural barriers, (lack of) access to resources, or other aspects of your working conditions.

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3. Timelines and Precarity How do the timelines for hiring and contract renewal affect your ability to prepare for your courses, engage in departmental activities, and balance your overall well-being?

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4. Precarity Challenges To what extent do you experience challenges related to job insecurity, financial precarity, or limited access to health benefits as arising from the nature of semesterly contract appointments? How have these challenges impacted you and/or your family?

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5. Student Impact How do your current contract terms impact your ability to support students and facilitate their success?

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6. Campus Access What is your level of access to campus spaces like (e.g., parking, office, equipment, etc)? How does this impact your ability to support students and facilitate their success?

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7. Campus Community and Belonging How has your contract employment status affected your sense of belonging within the university community?

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8. Career Opportunities How has your contract employment status affected your opportunities to engage in scholarship, service, related, collegial activities, or to advance these aspects of your career? Do you feel like there’s institutional support for your personal career advancement?

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9. Health and Well-being How has your physical and mental well-being been impacted by your role as a contract faculty member? This may include job insecurity, financial precarity, access to resources or benefits, other stressors from campus life or opportunities, or aspects of the role not listed here.

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10. Meaningful Change If you could identify one or two specific changes to working conditions or institutional support that would make the biggest difference for contract faculty at MRU, what would they be?

Permissions and Next Steps To help us advocate effectively, we may want to highlight the voices of contract faculty through the use of selected quotes and narratives.

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11. Please check all the ways you consent to us using your feedback (select all that apply):

I grant permission for a committee member to read anonymized quotes from my feedback.

I grant permission for my comments to be used as anonymized text in advocacy materials and reports generated by the committee.

I grant permission for a committee member to read quotes from my feedback and attribute them directly to me by name.

I grant permission for my comments to be used and attributed to me by name in advocacy materials and reports generated by the committee.

I would be willing to participate in a brief follow-up interview to share my experiences in recorded format. (If selected, please provide your email address below).

Other - I would like some of my remarks attributed to my name and others as anonymized, as follows:

Contract Faculty - Sharing Your Experiences to Drive Change

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* 2. Barriers to Engagement What specific working conditions, if any, most significantly prevent you from fully engaging in your faculty role? This may include structural barriers, (lack of) access to resources, or other aspects of your working conditions.

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* 3. Timelines and Precarity How do the timelines for hiring and contract renewal affect your ability to prepare for your courses, engage in departmental activities, and balance your overall well-being?

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* 4. Precarity Challenges To what extent do you experience challenges related to job insecurity, financial precarity, or limited access to health benefits as arising from the nature of semesterly contract appointments? How have these challenges impacted you and/or your family?

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* 5. Student Impact How do your current contract terms impact your ability to support students and facilitate their success?

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* 6. Campus Access What is your level of access to campus spaces like (e.g., parking, office, equipment, etc)? How does this impact your ability to support students and facilitate their success?

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* 7. Campus Community and Belonging How has your contract employment status affected your sense of belonging within the university community?

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* 8. Career Opportunities How has your contract employment status affected your opportunities to engage in scholarship, service, related, collegial activities, or to advance these aspects of your career? Do you feel like there’s institutional support for your personal career advancement?

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* 10. Meaningful Change If you could identify one or two specific changes to working conditions or institutional support that would make the biggest difference for contract faculty at MRU, what would they be?

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* 11. Please check all the ways you consent to us using your feedback (select all that apply):

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* 12. Email Address (Optional). All input is anonymous: provide your email address here if you would like to be identified.

2. Barriers to Engagement What specific working conditions, if any, most significantly prevent you from fully engaging in your faculty role? This may include structural barriers, (lack of) access to resources, or other aspects of your working conditions.

3. Timelines and Precarity How do the timelines for hiring and contract renewal affect your ability to prepare for your courses, engage in departmental activities, and balance your overall well-being?

4. Precarity Challenges To what extent do you experience challenges related to job insecurity, financial precarity, or limited access to health benefits as arising from the nature of semesterly contract appointments? How have these challenges impacted you and/or your family?

5. Student Impact How do your current contract terms impact your ability to support students and facilitate their success?

6. Campus Access What is your level of access to campus spaces like (e.g., parking, office, equipment, etc)? How does this impact your ability to support students and facilitate their success?

7. Campus Community and Belonging How has your contract employment status affected your sense of belonging within the university community?

8. Career Opportunities How has your contract employment status affected your opportunities to engage in scholarship, service, related, collegial activities, or to advance these aspects of your career? Do you feel like there’s institutional support for your personal career advancement?

10. Meaningful Change If you could identify one or two specific changes to working conditions or institutional support that would make the biggest difference for contract faculty at MRU, what would they be?

11. Please check all the ways you consent to us using your feedback (select all that apply):

12. Email Address (Optional). All input is anonymous: provide your email address here if you would like to be identified.