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Free Film Premiere Screening on May 3!
In Search of Professor Precarious, the award-winning documentary film by Edmonton filmmaker Gerry Potter about the exploitation of precarious faculty in universities and colleges, is generating buzz and has played on campuses, at film festivals and has won awards around the world. Yet, to date, there has been no public, in-person, Edmonton screening of this powerful documentary. Now the good news is: the film will have its Edmonton In-Person Premiere Screening on
May 3, 2024@ 7 pm at CO*LAB, 9641 102A Ave. (1 block east of the Art Gallery of Alberta), Edmonton. Admission is free!
Admission: If not fully booked, a few tickets are available at door, but to be sure to get in, click on this link for your free tickets.
The screening will be followed by a short panel discussion of the film and the gig economy and its implications for all of us, then a Q&A , followed in turn by a short mixer. The panel will consist of Moderator: Glynnis Lieb, co-chair at CUPE 3911 and board member of COCAL International; Dr. Alvin Finkel, interviewee in film and Professor Emeritus of History at Athabasca University and labour history specialist; Gerry Potter, filmmaker and former sessional instructor and member of AASUA, ULFA and GMUFA; Sandra MacDonald, participant in the film, former longtime sessional instructor and GMUFA member; Steve Nixon, IWW member, theatre, event, gallery, radio and television production manager and gig worker; and an activist gig worker or representative.
This Edmonton screening is sponsored by IWW(Industrial Workers of the World) Edmonton GMB and co-sponsored by AASUA (Association of Academic Staff, University of Alberta), GMUFA (Grant MacEwan University Faculty Association) and CUPE 3911 (representing the part-time academic instructors of Athabasca University).
Recent Film Reviews
“Great!… this ranks with the best!”
– Dr. Joe Berry, author of Reclaiming the Ivory Tower
“An important and compelling film!”
– James DeFelice, Canadian Screen Award Winner
“Moving and informative”
– Change Alberta
“This film tells several tragic stories of individual human consequences of this unjust system. But it also points to a potential way out.”
– Chantal Sundaram, International Socialists
“A useful tool…for anyone trying to understand and challenge the hidden casualization of post-secondary education.”
– C. Sundaram, CAUT Bulletin, Oct. 2020
Awards
Award of Excellence
Docs Without Borders Film Festival
Best Directing of a Short Documentary
West Europe International Film Festival
Best Film about Teacher Welfare
Helsinki International Education Film Festival
Watch the Trailer
Buy the Film
Blu-Ray, DVD & Institutional Sales
Home & Personal Use
You can buy a Blu-Ray or DVD for personal or home use by e-mailing gerry@redheelermedia.com. Blu-Ray and DVD discs are $28 + GST within Canada, and $28 USD + $11 USD shipping to the United States.
Institutional Sales
Ask your public, college or university library, or your union, faculty association or student association to purchase a copy or a license for the film.
If you are faculty or a lecturer, email Gerry for a licence to use the film in your classroom.
IN SEARCH OF PROFESSOR PRECARIOUS is a new documentary feature in which the director, a long-time precarious contract instructor, travels Canada to lift the curtain on higher education’s dirty little secret. The search takes viewers into the lives of precarious contract faculty and tells their compelling stories. We also hear from permanent faculty, students, administrators, activists and experts. We see artists in action, experience an outdoor biology class on the shores of Nova Scotia, fight alongside a group of Alberta sessionals trying to make their faculty association more democratic, and watch in awe as the biggest higher education strike in Canadian history unfolds.
Meet the Precarious Professors
struggles on contract faculty pay for 8 years as she teaches, raises her two children, co-writes a widely used textbook, strains to complete her PhD in Earth Sciences, and wonders what kind of employment and life lie ahead.
Sandra
is a lively contract professor in massage therapy who, after 22 years teaching, is fighting a pay cut to all in her classification amounting to nearly a quarter of their wages.
is a professional dancer and choreographer, who wonders after 30 years of teaching how she’ll get by in her senior years with a tiny pension. She's a leading activist, fighting for contract faculty equality and was a strike leader in the huge, history-making Ontario College Strike of 2017.
Marco
is a contract English professor, scholar and musician. He leads a group of precarious contract faculty who are struggling to make their faculty association understand their crucial needs and the urgency of the issues.
Meet the Production Team
Gerry has written twelve professionally-produced stage plays, eight professionally-produced films and has directed 48 professional theatre productions and eight films. He taught drama, screenwriting and film studies for 27 years on precarious contracts at three different Alberta universities. He has won two Canada Council Arts Awards, the Mayor's Award for Artistic Innovation, the MZD Progressive Artist Award, the Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Award, and is in Edmonton’s Cultural Hall of Fame.
Ray Harper
EditorRay Harper has worked in film and television since 1975 on over four hundred documentaries and series for organizations such as Access Television and Canada's National Film Board. He has earned numerous national and international awards including the Japan Prize, and a New York Film Festival Award.
A lifetime musician, known as a composer, keyboardist and sound designer, Jan has composed original soundtracks for over 30 documentaries and has created award-winning music and sound for film, television, radio and theatre.
Jerry Krepakevich
Sound Design and MixProducer of more than 130 films for the National Film Board of Canada, Jerry won a Gemini Award for Best Nature Documentary and an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Youth Special. Jerry has worked on more than 200 productions as a sound recordist, editor, designer and/or mixer.
Learn More
Precarious Professors Moving Forward: A Discussion of Current issues in the Time of Covid-19. Featuring leading Canadian activists and researchers and guest panelist Dr. Joe Berry, author of Reclaiming the Ivory Tower and COCAL Updates, a news aggregator on contingent faculty issues, available by emailing joeberry@igc.org
Making Professor Precarious
This award-winning professionally-made film is my passion project. After my forty years as a professional writer-director in drama and screenwriting and 27 years as precarious contract faculty, I traveled across Canada over four years, recording the stories of precarious contract faculty and talking with researchers and experts about the issues.
During that time the film became much more than a personal project, as, to help finish the film, many individuals, faculty associations and unions became sponsors, crowdfunders or contributed to the film. Sponsors include OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union), FPSE (Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC), ACIFA (Alberta Colleges and Institutes Faculty Association), CAFA (Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations), CUPE (Canadian Union of Public employees) and CUPE 3911, ULFA (University of Lethbridge Faculty Association), AASUA (Association of Academic Staff University of Alberta), OPSEU 560, CUPFA, TSSU, FNEEQ, SCCCUM, APTPUO, CUFA and more.
Get Involved
Learn how you can help and learn more
Screenings and Spread the Word
If you, your faculty association, student association or union local would like to ask about or arrange a screening of this 55-minute film, please contact gerry@redheelermedia.com. And please spread the word!
For Researchers
You can also help the cause by researching the issues. Talk to precarious contract faculty at your local college or university. Or pick up Keith Hoeller’s excellent book Equality for Contingent Faculty: Overcoming the Two-Tier System.
- Read the CAUT’s report on the Canadian situation.
- Read the CUPE/CCPA Contract Faculty Report.
- Read Jamie Brownlee’s book, Academia, Inc.
- Read Power Despite Precarity by Joe Berry & Helena Worthen
- Visit the COCAL International website
For the situation in the United States, visit the New Faculty Majority web site which features many resources on contract staff issues.
For Students
If you’re a student, you can ask your teachers about this issue, which affects you in ways you may not even know.
For Teachers
If you teach, tutor, lab assist or research in higher education, talk to your colleagues and your faculty association or union local, if you have one. If you don’t have a union or a truly democratic faculty association, get your precarious contract colleagues to share their experiences with one another, and build from there. Together we are strong. To that end, I recommend Joe Berry’s foundational organizing book Reclaiming the Ivory Tower.
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