The neoliberal university has transformed professors into front-line workers and their students into consumers of higher learning. Research has shown there is a positive correlation between a student’s perception of supportive faculty and the completion of a degree. Professors are expected to support their students and to engage in emotional labour, labour that tends to be invisible and, thus, often unrewarded for faculty members. An online survey of professors - contract, tenure-track and tenure at three southwestern Ontario universities - indicates that many professors perform affective work as they mediate increasing institutional and student demands on their time and emotions. Data, from the survey and semi-structured interviews, highlights how emotional labour is not just about meeting student expectations, but also about dealing with job insecurity and institutional pressure to provide an educational product where the emphasis is on student satisfaction. The result is that many professors experience high levels of stress and burnout. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / This study examines the workloads of professors at three Ontario universities. Through the use of an online survey and in-depth interviews, the working conditions of professors are revealed as well as the emotional labour professors perform in order to cope with the intensity of both institutional and student demands. It is hoped that these findings would be useful to faculty associations to better working conditions through contract negotiations and to increase public awareness of the changing and challenging environment of academia.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/25020 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Bresee, Anne-Marie |
| Contributors | Lewchuk, Wayne, Work and Society |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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