I've tried twice to post this message--I originally composed it
yesterday. Third time lucky, I hope!
=============================
Hello Pat, and thanks for opening up an important topic.
At the University of Winnipeg, our Tutoring Centre is embedded within
the Centre for Academic Writing, which stands alone as an academic
unit--for all intents and purposes, it's a department. The
administrative activities of the Tutoring Centre primarily include
designing academic courses for training paid student peer tutors, and
then supervising and providing further professional development
opportunities for these tutors--as well as providing face-to-face and
computer-mediated resources for all students seeking tutoring. All
this is coordinated by a full-time, continuing or tenured faculty
member who receives a partial course release each year. So certainly,
Tutoring Centre coordinators are considered academic staff and are in
our union.
Because we're obviously a tad smaller than U of T(!), we don't really
strongly differentiate "teaching" from "faculty"-stream academic staff.
We expect next year's Tutoring Coordinator to be from the
tenure-stream ranks, but up to this point, most coordinators have
tended to be in the Instructor rank. Our instructors have access to all
the research/sabbatical opportunities that tenured/tenure-stream
faculty have. Our Tutoring Centre coordinators are invited or expected
to engage in research, and all have done so.
I would strongly argue the position that all Writing Centre/Tutoring
Centre coordinators be considered full academic staff and thus be
members of their faculty associations.
Best, Amanda
====================================
Dr. Amanda Goldrick-Jones
Centre for Academic Writing
University of Winnipeg
(204) 786-9848
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~caw/amanda.htm
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