The sessional teachers of English 101 at UPEI are worried they are going to be out of a job in the fall.
On Wednesday night, the non-tenured part-time instructors of English 101 held a meeting to discuss
the university's plan to discontinue their course and offer a new course in its place.
The UPEI Senate approved the new course in principle on Feb. 1.
It's called University 151: World Issues and will be administered through the faculty of education.
Catherine Mullally has been a sessional teacher of English 101 for the last 25 years. She said if this
new course is adopted she expects she is going to lose her job.
"I don't feel very happy but I'll probably be able to find something else to do. I do some private teaching."
The English department approached the university and said it no longer wanted to administer the first-year composition and rhetoric course currently required for all UPEI students.
University officials told The Guardian the department asked for the course to be "deleted from the curriculum," but the English department said it wanted the university to take over administration of English 101, as it was becoming a strain on the department.
"The English department wanted it to be administered outside the department of English because it's such a big course," UPEI English department chair Dr.
Brent MacLaine told The Guardian in an interview Wednesday.
"We were just feeling overburdened. We wanted it taken to have its own administrative support system outside of English - a university-wide one."
The University Writing Council - a senate-approved council of faculty and students from a variety of departments and programs - made a recommendation to UPEI senate to adopt a revitalized English 101, as opposed to dropping it altogether.
But the new course was approved instead.
Now, about a dozen sessional instructors are wondering if they're going to have a job when this new course starts in the fall.
This course is essential for any student, I took it in 1995 and I am very glad that i did.
Any thoughts?
Adam Affleck BBA
Charlottetown Remax Realty
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