黄色直播

Several 黄色直播 English professors unexpectedly found themselves spearheading an international protest recently. A joke I proposed to point out the problem of high administrative salaries in today鈥檚 climate of 鈥渁usterity鈥� went viral, and we found ourselves on 鈥淐BC Halifax鈥檚 Mainstreet,鈥� CBC鈥檚 鈥淲orld at Six,鈥� among others, and featured in articles in publications such as the , ., , , the supplement, , , and various blog posts around the world.

It started when a friend, who is a seven-years-and-counting sessional teacher at another university, posted the job ad for the University of Alberta鈥檚 President/Vice Chancellor鈥檚 position, pointing out the $400,000 minimum salary. Facebook banter about splitting the salary between us turned into an idea, and we decided to apply in groups of four. In the end 14 groups applied, with applicants from across Canada and internationally, including such familiar faces as Len Diepeveen, Lyn Bennett, Judith Thompson, Mary Beth MacIsaac, Erin Wunker, Kit Dobson and Archana Rampure.

Across Canada, universities seem to be depending more and more on poorly-paid, insecure, sessional and contract labour, while tuition is sky-rocketing. Our goal was to point out the disparity between the 鈥榬hetoric of austerity鈥� that universities such as the University of Alberta use to justify these trends, and the increasing costs of administrative salaries and the size of university administrations.

Many of us here in the English department are concerned by these trends, which see core teaching areas and traditional fields such as the humanities losing out in the funding game to more peripheral areas often seemingly driven by corporate priorities and agendas. We hope that Dal English students and alumni who are equally concerned by the direction Canadian post-secondary education is heading in, who want to see our excellent undergraduate students taught by tenured professors with academic freedom and stable working conditions, will let their alumni and development offices know these priorities when they get the 鈥榞ive us money鈥� telephone calls.

We didn鈥檛 get the job.