Adjusting to a world without Limited Term Appointments

Concordia’s decision not to renew LTA contracts has left faculty members with serious concerns about their departments’ futures

NewsFrances Smith — Published September 8, 2026 6 minutes

The Concordia University Part-time Faculty Association (CUPFA) reported that 63 LTA faculty members would not have their contracts renewed this year. This threatened not only staff employment but also the stability of departments that rely on LTA positions, particularly their ability to maintain autonomy and plan courses.

This stems from the November 2025 decision in which Concordia’s president, Graham Carr, announced in a fall budget update that the school would not renew LTA contracts.

Kate Stearns is the coordinator of Concordia’s creative writing program. She described the LTA cuts as a devastating blow.

“The administration took a very short-term, brutal approach to a problem that is now going to be far worse and long-term,” Stearns said.

Several Concordia departments that lost LTA faculty also worry about finding qualified instructors to teach courses previously taught by LTAs. Many courses will be taught by part-time instructors; CUPFA said its course postings would increase significantly in May 2026, raising concerns about expertise and course quality.

Stearns noted that seniority is prioritized in part-time faculty hiring, which can result in a part-time instructor being assigned a course outside their specific expertise.

“If somebody with seniority has even [any] sort of peripheral skill that can be claimed to be useful for that course, they may get the course,” Stearns said.

The creative writing program and English department saw several courses come under threat of being cut.

Stearns highlighted its drama course, part of its core program, which former LTA Alex Haber had taught for four years. Without a dedicated full-time LTA with the experience to teach the drama course well, Stearns stepped in, as she has experience teaching drama.

However, the future of the drama course remains uncertain. Stearns had to give up teaching one of her courses to teach it. She said that if she cannot find an instructor who can offer the expertise and mentorship Haber provided the drama students, she may need to rethink whether drama can be part of their program moving forward.

She also noted that creative writing LTA faculty not only taught courses but also mentored students, sat on awards committees, and overall, helped run the program.

Stearns emphasized that there are very talented part-time instructors, but there are not always part-time instructors available with the specific background required. She said this affects not only the creative writing department, but all departments where an LTA was lost.

The department of classics, modern languages and linguistics (CMLL) was one of the departments hit hardest by the non-renewal of the LTA positions, according to CMLL chair Dario Brancato.

As a department with seven distinct programs spanning disciplines that differ significantly from one another, the department hired LTAs with the expertise needed to teach and serve each discipline. According to Brancato, hiring part-time faculty or delaying full-time faculty sabbaticals to teach these courses may not be an adequate solution.

“You cannot take a linguistics professor and make them teach, say, Arabic,” Brancato said.

Although many former LTAs at CMLL kept their courses as part-time instructors or transitioned into administrative roles, which helped to maintain consistency for students, Brancato describes this as a patch that cannot replace the full-time roles those positions once played in sustaining the CMLL disciplines.

LTA faculty not only taught but also served their departments by sitting on committees, doing research, applying for grants and supervising student theses. Brancato explained that part-time faculty's only obligation is to teach courses and have no obligation to attend department meetings or serve on committees.

“An LTA, being a full-time faculty member, gets more involved in this,” Brancato said.

Anna Sheftel is the principal and a professor of the School of Community and Public Affairs. She expressed the need for universities to be collegially self-governed.

“We are all supposed to have a hand in actually running things. The fewer full-time professors you have, the fewer people you have to run the university,” Sheftel said.

Sheftel noted that the departments hit hardest by the LTA non-renewals were those not currently favoured in the political climate, such as classics, ancient languages and English literature.

“These are departments that relied very heavily on LTA labour because they had been denied the positions they needed for full-time faculty," Sheftel said.

While the faculty each recognize and sympathize with the university's budget constraints, they emphasized the need for more humane financial solutions.

A report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that Canadian universities face severe budget constraints due to reduced federal government funding. The report stated that in the early 1970s, the federal government's funding for post-secondary education represented over 3.5 per cent of all federal government spending, but that by 2024 it had fallen to 1.9 per cent.

When faculty had become aware of the severity of Concordia's financial situation, Sheftel had asked, “What if we took this moment of crisis as an opportunity to imagine a model that serves everybody well?” However, as austerity measures were announced, such as the LTA cuts, Sheftel said she was disappointed that Concordia had “done exactly what every other university does."

Concordia is one of several Canadian universities implementing budget cuts that significantly impact humanities and arts programs. Arts and humanities programs at the University of Calgary, York University and McGill University have also been significantly affected by budget cuts.

Amid these financial crises and threats, faculty remain hopeful about the future. Brancato believes that reduced staff across the CMLL programs could encourage collaboration and renewed interest in somewhat isolated disciplines.

Brancato also said he feels confident that this is just a phase and will be over in the next few years.

“We’re ready to take the challenge […] we most importantly will continue to provide the same quality to [our] students,” Brancato said.

Both Sheftel and Stearns emphasized the importance of student involvement in fighting against university austerity measures.

Sheftel said that students can help by attending university senate meetings as spectators, getting involved in anti-austerity activism through Concordia student associations such as the Concordia Student Union, staying up to date on information released by Concordia administration and unions and attending teach-ins and mobilization events.

Stearns highlighted the important role students can play in these issues.

“The administration will listen to students far more than they will listen to us,” Stearns said. “Don’t underplay your influence here. You’ve got a lot, and I hope you feel absolutely entitled to use it.”

In response to questions regarding the LTA non-renewals, Concordia’s deputy spokesperson, Julie Fortier, told The Link that the university has had a large deficit for multiple years and is obligated to reduce it as part of a “multi-year financial recovery plan.” The decisions around the LTA renewals and the deferral of sabbatical leave led to savings of $3 million.

“All sectors of the university have had to reduce their expenses to help achieve this,” Fortier noted.

The Link questioned how Concordia will support full-time faculty who must now absorb additional teaching loads while maintaining their department service obligations.

“Professors work under collective agreements that clearly state the teaching duties they can be assigned,” Fortier responded.

Fortier also emphasized that prior to the LTA non-renewals, there were “62 LTA contracts compared to almost 1,000 full-time faculty members,” and almost the same number of part-time faculty.

“The teaching capacity at the university does not depend on LTA contracts,” Fortier said.

This article originally appeared in Volume 47, Issue 1, published September 8, 2026.