STLHE 2016 SAPES

The STLHE Ethical Principles in University Teaching (hereafter ‘Principles’) outlines the expectations for ethical conduct for instructors in higher education and provides guidance for navigating ethical dilemmas and decisions in teaching. The Principles are explicitly targeted to university teaching, and implicitly take tenure-track and tenured instructors as their audience.

With an increase in the number of contingent instructors (Brownlee, 2015) this session revisits these nine principles considering the specific instructional contexts of contingent instructors. Contingent instructors include those employed in casual, contract or sessional positions in both college and university settings. Contingent instructors occupy precarious labour positions in the academy and their teaching contexts engenders ethical situations unique to their positions.

This session begins by reviewing the Principles as outlined; it then explores through case studies and discussion the possibilities and limitations of the Principles in supporting contingent instructors in navigating ethical dilemmas and decision-making. Participants might expect to leave the session with an ability to recognize the unique ethical circumstances of contract instructors in higher education as well as with refined principles for how to support contract instructors encountering ethical dilemmas unique to their positions.

This session touches on several threads of the conference theme, including educational development and educational leadership. With one in three courses taught by contingent instructors (Brownlee, 2015), a refined understanding of the ethical dimensions of contingent instruction allows a consideration of the possibilities and limitations of learner ‘empowerment’ in these contexts. This session will be of interest to contract instructors themselves, educational developers, administrators and faculty allies.