Are Canadian-trained PhDs disadvantaged in the academic labor market?
Wilkinson, Lori ; Bramadat, Janine ; Dolynchuk, Rachel 等
HOW DO WE SUMMARIZE half a century of accomplishments by thousands
of Canadian sociologists? This is a question we repeatedly asked
ourselves, and one repeatedly asked by the many colleagues from whom we
asked for advice about this seemingly "impossible task." The
authors of the other articles for this special issue celebrating 50
years of the Canadian Review of Sociology (CRS) have covered a wide
range of topics where Canadian sociologists have made significant
contributions during the past half-century, so we knew that our task
needed to be different. It became clear that although many of the vast
accomplishments of our peers had already been summarized, we wanted to
investigate an important issue in Canadian sociology, so we selected a
problem faced by three of the paper's co-authors: the Canadian
labor market outlook for Canadian-trained PhD graduates. Before we share
our results, we provide a brief overview of the history of sociology in
Canada, which serves to situate our findings.
A REVIEW OF THE RISE AND DECLINE OF CANADIAN SOCIOLOGY
There have been several attempts to record the history, and
diagnose the shortcomings of Canadian sociology (Brym 2003; Cormier
2004; Hiller 1979; Johnston 2005; McLaughlin 2006). What is interesting
to us is the almost uniform belief that Canadian sociology is
irreversibly in decline and has been so since the late 1970s, a theme
that pervades the discussions on this topic over the past 40 years (with
Johnston 2005 as an exception). While our purpose is not to support or
refute these assertions, we only wish to add substance to some of the
claims that have been made on the subject, particularly in regard to the
hiring of PhDs (1) who are trained in Canadian sociology departments. As
a result, we come to a slightly different conclusion than many of our
more esteemed peers; we think that although there may be some truth to
some of the accusations, but overall the evidence suggests that
Canadian-trained PhDs do find academic work in Canada. Contrary to
popular belief, Canadian universities are, for the most part, hiring
trained-in-Canada PhDs for tenure-track positions more frequently than
those trained outside of Canada, but there are some notable exceptions.
There has been a healthy debate, particularly in our competitor
journal, The Canadian Journal of Sociology, regarding the history, rise,
and decline of the sociological enterprise in Canada. The reasons for
this decline are varied: we are too focused on the "elephant next
door" (the United States) and too insecure as Canadians (the mouse)
to fully develop our own "brand" of Canadian sociology (Brym
2003; Cormier 2004). Others claim that the professors we are hiring are
not "Canadian enough" (Brym and Saint-Pierre 1997; McLaughlin
2005) or the effect of the Canadianization movement (Cormier 2004;
Hiller 1979) has led us to hire perceivably inferior Canadian candidates
over other more qualified non-Canadian sociologists. A more pervasive an
argument is that the large and more academically "important"
sociology departments evade the "hire Canadians first" rule by
making job descriptions so specific, few Canadians are eligible to
apply, meaning the more "prestigious" institutions can make an
easier case for hiring foreign-trained non-Canadians for professorships
in Canadian universities (McLaughlin 2005). While these arguments are
attractive, we argue that they may not apply to most sociology
departments today (albeit with some exceptions).
It was interesting to review the historical literature on the
development and maturation of sociology in Canada. We learned several
issues associated to the development of sociology in Canada. First, the
"hire Canadians first policy" in all universities across all
institutions was largely made possible by the lobbying efforts of the
Canadian Sociological and Anthropological Association (CSAA) in the late
1970s (Hiller 1979). Second, the CSAA did not exist as its own entity
until 1965, existing as a subgroup of the Canadian Political Studies
Association until that time. Third, the University of Toronto sociology
department was censured between 1975 and 1977 because 75 percent of the
professors were non-Canadians and Simon Fraser's Department of
Politics, Sociology, and Anthropology was censured and boycotted for a
period of 17 years (Cormier 2004) but for different reasons.
Furthermore, many, if not most, of the Porter Prize winning books are
not among the most cited books in Canadian sociology. As a result, there
is no connection between winning "the" most coveted prize and
intellectual influence of the work of other Canadian sociologists (Nock
(2) 2001). Last, Canadian-produced Francophone sociology enjoys a much
stronger position internationally because it has evolved into quite a
distinct world (Nock 2001:471) compared to Anglophone sociology in
Canada. Brym (2003) argues that "due to differences in language and
intellectual tradition, the attractions of American sociology hardly
threaten Quebecois sociologists" and that "these protective
barriers are largely absent in the Anglo-Canadian case" (p. 411).
In short, Francophone sociologists are largely insulated from American
and British influences according to this argument (Brym and Saint-Pierre
1997).
We would like to note that this is a great simplification of
Francophone sociology given the excellent research work that has been
produced in that province. Most importantly, we learned that when
researching the development of sociology within Canada the fear of
American domination of our discipline looms large. It is interesting to
note the parallels exist between the fear of American influence in our
discipline with the fear of American commercialization and foreign
ownership of our economy. It is hardly surprising that the enterprise of
sociology cannot be divorced from the influences outside of academe.
The "Devaluation" of a Canadian PhD? Hardly
The primary author was a panelist at the 2012 CSA general meetings
in Kitchener-Waterloo where a question from the audience identified the
supposed "preference" among some sociology departments in
Canada for foreign-trained, particularly American-trained sociologists.
It is an argument that is similar to those made by McLaughlin (2005) and
others. (3) At the CSA conference, all panel members agreed that hiring
non-Canadians was not a widespread practice and in fact, the hiring of
non-Canadians may contravene Canadian labor laws. Under Canadian
employment legislation, universities, because they are publicly funded
institutions, must hire all qualified Canadians prior to considering
non-Canadians. The point the audience members made, however, was that
Canadian students would be better pursuing their graduate work outside
of Canada if they ever hoped to be considered for employment at a
Canadian university. This boisterous discussion caused an extended email
discussion among the panel members and resulted in an article in
University Affairs (Siebarth 2012) claiming that the panelists had it
all wrong, there is a preference among universities to hire PhDs trained
outside of Canada. What we realized was that the panelists had likely
misinterpreted the audience's question. They were not asking about
non-Canadian hires in sociology departments. Rather, they were concerned
that Canadians who were being trained outside of Canada were more
advantaged in the hiring process than their peers who were trained in
Canada.
Worth noting is what the "hire Canadians first"
legislation really means. There was a major change to this law in 2002.
Prior to 2002, non-Canadians could not be considered as shortlist
candidates during the first posting of an academic job vacancy. Because
universities are publicly funded institutions with more than 1,000
employees, jobs must be advertised and a shortlist of Canadian (4)
candidates must be identified. In the first round of interviews, only
Canadian or permanent residents of Canada could be considered for the
shortlist. If the shortlist did not produce a hirable Canadian
candidate, then the committee could interview foreign applicants in
round two. If the shortlist produced a qualified Canadian candidate,
then the position must be awarded to that candidate. This legislation
was amended in 2002. Now hiring committees can consider foreign
academics in round one, but the shortlist must contain at least one
qualified Canadian. If, after the interviews are conducted, the Canadian
is deemed to be qualified, then the job must be given to that candidate.
If the Canadian candidate is not considered "qualified," then
the job may be given to a foreign candidate. These new rules mean that
foreign candidates have a better chance of being selected for the
position under post-2002 rules because they do not have to wait until
the second round of interviews to be considered for the position. Much
of the decision about what constitutes a "qualified" candidate
revolves around the wording of the job posting. Human resource
departments increasingly rely on the job ad to make the determination of
whether or not the candidate is "qualified." If the foreign
candidate is selected, job search committees are asked to justify the
selection of the non-Canadian candidate by completing a form. The form
must state why the Canadian(s) on the shortlist were not qualified and
why the selected foreign candidate has the qualifications necessary to
fulfill the job requirements. Anecdotal evidence, from speaking with
numerous colleagues across Canada on this matter, reveals that some
departments may be posting very constrained, finite job postings that
would disqualify most Canadian applicants. This may not be a very wise
strategy as the pool of qualified candidates applying for a position may
be limited. Unfortunately, we were unable to verify this practice.
Results from our own investigation reveal that the evidence for the
preference for internationally-trained preference is tenuous, at best,
for most Canadian sociology departments. This phenomenon, however, has
been documented in other disciplines. In a much quoted article, Groarke
and Fenske (2009) report that 70 percent of faculty members in
philosophy departments had earned their degrees outside of Canada.
Gingras' (2010) data partially substantiates this argument and
indicates that in the social sciences, only 55 percent of professors
employed in 2005 hold PhDs obtained from Canadian universities, a figure
that is nearly the same as at the height of the Canadianization movement
in the 1980s. His data did not extract the sociology departments from
the other social sciences--so we are left to guess at the rate of
Canadian-trained versus internationally-trained professors in Canada.
A recent Statistics Canada (Desjardins 2012) survey of 2005
graduates of PhD programs in Ontario, however, reveals interesting
results that help contextualize the "crisis" in the
Canadianization movement in the academe. Although limited to a single
province (and sociologists are combined with psychology graduates),
nearly two-thirds of all Ontario graduates of PhD programs in these
fields were working at educational institutions (though they do not
differentiate tenure-track from sessional appointments) in Canada while
nearly 50 percent of those educated elsewhere in Canada were working in
this industry (Desjardins 2012). In short, most PhD graduates find
work--most in Canada and a majority within the education sector. When
faced with these mixed results we then asked ourselves, were we wrong in
the assumption that students trained in Canadian universities were more
likely than those trained elsewhere to gain employment in Canadian
universities?
A series of very provocative and interesting articles was published
in the Canadian Journal of Sociology between 2002 and 2006. The most
compelling garnering significant attention is by Neil McLaughlin (2005).
Using data collected from select universities in 1997, he demonstrates
that 11 percent of faculty members hired by Canadian universities were
MA- and PhD-trained in Great Britain with 35 percent trained in the
United States. His findings echo those of Curtis, Connor, and Harp
(1970; cf., Hiller 1979) who report that among professors holding PhDs
at the time, 72 percent were trained in the United States. The reasons
behind this tendency are very clear. Until the 1970s, sociology
departments had little choice but to hire non-Canadian-trained
sociologists due to the lack of PhD programs in Canada, which was
combined with a significant growth in university enrollments throughout
the 1960s and 1970s, which increased the need for Canadian institutions
to hire internationally-trained PhDs in almost all disciplines,
particularly sociology. Hiller (1979) reports that university
enrollments in Canada between 1961 and 1965 jumped by 81 percent. To
keep up with demand, sociology departments needed to hire
foreign-trained sociologists in large numbers. Only 19 PhDs in sociology
were awarded in Canada in the 1960s, so a large number of
foreign-trained professors were hired to teach the arrivals of the baby
boomer cohort.
While it was necessary to hire foreign-trained professors to deal
with the increased number of students in Canadian universities in the
1960s and 1970s, this led to the Canadianization movement in many
institutions, with sociology being arguably the discipline examining
this issue with the greatest passion of all academic disciplines
(Cormier 2002; Hiller 1979). It was this Canadianization movement that
has partially fuelled the hype and mythology surrounding the belief that
foreign-trained sociologists still dominate academics in Canadian
universities. It is this debate into which we now enter.
McLaughlin's (2005) well-argued and much discussed paper in the
Canadian Journal of Sociology describes a crisis in Canadian sociology
where the top six departments in the country continue to maintain a
tradition of hiring non-Canadian-trained sociologists for academic
positions. In his paper, McLaughlin (2006) finds a large number of the
sociologists in these six departments (Alberta, McGill, McMaster,
University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, and Western
University (5)) are trained outside of the country.
We do not dispute this evidence. He is correct. Most PhDs in these
departments were obtained elsewhere. What we wondered about was whether
or not these observations could be replicated in other departments.
METHODOLOGY
We expand McLaughlin's (2005) small-scale study by examining
more departments and to classify professors by rank and where they
obtained their doctoral degree. We knew we had to control for the date
of hire as this would largely eliminate the "influence" of the
foreign-trained academics who were hired of necessity (those trained in
the 1960s, 1970s), as their presence in the departments currently may
skew the hiring data today. A good, albeit still inaccurate way to
measure current hiring trends would be to limit our analysis to those
who are recently hired as assistant professors, a group who would have
been hired in the previous one to seven years. While it is possible that
some tenured professors never advance beyond the rank of assistant,
these are relatively few in number. We wished to have a more thorough
measure of place of training by including those within the ranks of
associate and full professor, but this information is incredibly
difficult, if not impossible to locate. Many departments do not list the
place of highest degree and almost none provide information on the date
of hire. Since the number of assistant professors who have not been
promoted to associate is small, however, we feel that we have a
reasonably good measure of the state of hiring in Canadian universities
right now. By focusing on assistant professors, we can say with greater
certainty whether or not hiring practices among Canadian sociology
maintains a preference for foreign-trained professors over
Canadian-trained ones. Readers should note, however, that this
investigation should be considered a preliminary analysis only. It was
incredibly difficult to obtain accurate information about the place of
origin for assistant professors. We relied on department Web sites and
found that there were several that did not provide this information, nor
were we able to verify the place of origin for PhD-trained academics
using other means such as online searches of their CVs and other sources
of information.
We also broaden the scope of our analysis beyond McLaughlin's
six "big" departments. We widen our survey to include
undergraduate and graduate degree programs. (6) There are, however,
additional challenges with our task. We recognize sociology is an
interdisciplinary discipline and graduates teach in many departments
outside of those identified as sociology. It was not possible for us to
consider professors who are working as tenure-track professors outside
of these departments. For instance, there are sociologists working in
business schools--there is no easy way to identify and verify them. As
such, they were excluded from our analysis.
Once we determined the number of sociology departments, the team
visited their Web sites. Departmental Web sites are used in this study
to view the faculty profile pages. The data supplied on profile pages
varied. We define a complete faculty profile page as stating the faculty
members' position (assistant professor) and where they earned their
PhDs (university name). Those profiles that state their faculty position
but not where their credentials are earned are categorized as missing
data unless we could verify the information using another source (such
as online search for CVs and/or personal knowledge of the individual).
Additionally, faculty members who are cross-listed with other
departments or were sociologists but not employed by a sociology
department were excluded because we would be unable to accurately
identify the sociologists among these groups. Furthermore, we recognize
the fluctuating nature of this type of data since faculty hiring,
promotions, and departures are independent individualistic occurrences
as are updating of faculty profiles. Therefore, it should be noted that
this data is a snapshot of data collected between October 2012 and
December 2012 and that this information is constantly changing. This
type of database is the first of its kind as there are no unified
records of the number of assistant professors who earned their
credentials in Canada who are working in Canadian institutions or
institutions outside of Canada.
RESULTS
Our findings are revealing. One hundred and thirty-five Web sites
were examined. Of those, 56 departments had a complete list of the
professors and from where their degrees were obtained. Regrettably, some
departments had to be omitted because faculty member information
regarding rank was not available. The major institutions among the
omitted were Queen's University, Dalhousie University, Mt. Allison
University, Lakehead University, Moncton University, University of
Lethbridge, and Universite du Quebec a Montrel. Of the 56 institutions
remaining, 189 assistant professors could be identified by rank. Of
these, 13 had incomplete information about from where their professors
obtained their highest degree, accounting for 23 percent of our data. In
these cases, faculty member profiles were incomplete (e.g., did not
state from where degree was obtained). Of these 13 institutions, 38
percent are medical/large universities (n = 5) and primarily
undergraduate/small universities (n = 5), 15 percent are
comprehensive/mid-sized universities (n = 2), and 8 percent are colleges
(n = 1). We calculated an adjusted tally of assistant professors, which
removed those with partial or missing data for each institution.
Two-thirds (67 percent) of assistant professors currently employed
at Canadian institutions received their PhD training in Canada (see
Table 1). A closer examination reveals, however, that there are
interesting patterns in hiring between the medical/large,
comprehensive/mid-sized, and primarily undergraduate/small institutions.
We use the Maclean's magazine operationalization of medical/large,
comprehensive/mid-sized, and primarily undergraduate/small institutions
(7) to determine the categorization of the department and institution.
As the size of the academic institution decreases, the number of
Canadian-trained assistant professors increases. The medical/larger
institutions have the lowest rate of Canadian-trained assistant
professors at 44 percent, whereas the comprehensive/mid-sized (72
percent), the primarily undergraduate/small (83 percent), and colleges
(91 percent) report higher rates of Canadian-trained assistant
professors.
Some of Neil McLaughlin's (2005) findings can also be
substantiated with the results of our work. His work shows there are
some departments where the number of assistant professors trained
overseas greatly outnumbers those trained in Canada. These patterns are
seen in the bigger medical universities as our results reveal in Table
2. We must be cautious, however, as we are dealing with small numbers.
We organized the location of PhD training for assistant professors by
region: Canada, United States (U.S.), and Europe (E.U.). (8)
Universities with the highest percentage of U.S.-trained PhDs who are
assistant professors are McGill (100 percent), and Western University
(100 percent; see Table 2). Universities with the highest percentage of
assistant professors with degrees from European institutions are
University of New Brunswick (100 percent), Grenfell College (100
percent), Universite de Montrel (50 percent), University of Ontario of
Technology (33 percent), and Memorial University (17 percent). Clearly,
there is a pattern where the number of institutions having a
"preference" for European-trained scholars is smaller than the
"preference" for American-trained scholars. Other institutions
have few Canadian-trained PhDs. The University of British Columbia, with
six assistant professors (according to their Web site), claims only 20
percent (n = 1) obtained a PhD from a Canadian institution. At the
University of Toronto, of the 10 assistant professors listed on their
Web site, only 13 percent (n = 1) have obtained PhDs from a Canadian
institution. Simon Fraser University, University of Calgary, and
University of Ontario of Technology also have fewer than 50 percent of
assistant professors trained in Canada.
If we examine all of the universities (n = 56), the trend is
different. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent, n = 35) have more
Canadian-trained assistant professors than those trained elsewhere. Of
these 35 departments, 29 have exclusively Canadian-trained assistant
professors. In short, when the numbers are examined in aggregate, most
departments have a preference for hiring Canadian-trained assistant
professors. This does not mean that some departments are free from an
anti-Canadian bias, but the number of institutions where this is a
problem is smaller than we are led to believe.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
Despite the limited available data, this paper identifies important
information regarding the issue of Canadian-training of our professors.
The mythology around the preference for foreign-trained PhDs is largely
unfounded, except among some of the medical/large universities. Most
sociology departments in Canada hire assistant professors with PhDs
obtained in Canada. There are notable exceptions, but for the most part,
the Canadianization movement has largely succeeded in promoting the
hiring of Canadian-trained candidates first, at least in our discipline.
It is, however, important to recognize that it is healthy and desirable
to have professors with training from a wide range of countries within
departments. Students need to be exposed to different ways of thinking
and conceptualizing within the discipline, so limiting or preferring
Canadian-hires is not always a good practice. Furthermore, departments
that continue to hire only their own graduates (and there are a few)
also may find themselves becoming stagnant and less relevant in the near
future. This does not mean that departments should not hire their own
graduates, as this is a signal to other students that the quality of
graduates from that department is worthy of hiring. However, departments
that depend too much on their own graduates may not be giving their
students the diversity in study that is so highly valued in our
globalized world. We Canadians have much to learn from the world and to
shut out those trained elsewhere to uphold a policy that is preferential
to Canadians is also doing our students a disservice.
Where do we go from here? First, we think the debate about the
quality and health of Canadian sociology needs to continue. A discipline
that does not critically examine itself will soon become dated and
irrelevant. Second, a more thorough investigation of where sociologists
are trained should be undertaken and would be welcomed. This information
is regularly published in university calendars. Since most calendars are
being digitized, the Web presence of this information should not be
troublesome but may be difficult to separate the assistant from
associate and full professor ranks. Third, and this question is more
difficult, it would be nice to have some record of the number of
Canadian-trained sociologists and Canadian citizen sociologists working
abroad and those working in nonsociology departments. This would give
the CSA and Canadian sociology an idea of the impact of our training
worldwide. This data, however, will be even more difficult to track as
there is currently no mechanism to register this information.
Alternatively, a survey might be a useful way to glean this information,
though we realize that response rates for surveys have been dropping
dramatically. If there were an easier way to clearly identify
sociologists who are practicing in nonsociology departments, we would
have an even better picture.
Finally, our reading of the discussions on this topic reveals what
we feel is a quintessential Canadian characteristic. We continue to be
too worried about the influence of outsiders on the health of our
discipline and neglect to do enough critical reflection on the quality
and contributions that Canadian sociologists make to international
sociology and to the societies we live in. As the papers in this special
issue of the CRS show, the contributions made by Canadian sociologists
span many subdisciplines and have made an impact on sociological theory,
methodology, and practice worldwide. We need to be less humble about our
contributions and be less concerned about the "creep" of other
disciplines and ideologies internationally. Part of this inner
reflection means that we must maintain the periodic and lively debates
on the well-being of our discipline.
References
Brym, R. 2003. "Note on the Discipline: The Decline of
Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association." Canadian Journal
of Sociology 28(3):411-16.
Brym, R. and C. Saint-Pierre. 1997. "Sociology around the
World (Part 2): Canadian Sociology." Contemporary Sociology
26(5):543-46.
Cormier, J.J. 2002. "Nationalism, Activism, and the Canadian
Sociology and Anthropology Community." The American Sociologist
33(1):12-26.
Cormier, J.J. 2004. "The Impact of Movements: Bureaucratic
Insurgency, Canadianization and the CSAA." Canadian Review of
Sociology 41(2):195-215.
Curtis, J.E., D. Connor and J. Harp. 1970. "An Emergent
Professional Community: French and English Sociologists and
Anthropologists in Canada." Social Science Information 9:113-36.
Desjardins, L. 2012. Profile and Labour Market Outcomes of PhD
Graduates in Ontario. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
Gingras, Y. 2010. "The End of the Canadianization Movement: A
Globalization By-Product?" University Affairs, November 8.
Retrieved September 2, 2012
(http://www.universityaffairs.ca/end-of-the-canadianization-movement.aspx).
Groarke, L. and W. Fenske. 2009. "PhD to What End?"
University Affairs. Retrieved September 2, 2012
(http://www.universityaffairs.ca/phd-to-what-end.aspx).
Hiller, H. 1979. "The Canadian Sociology Movement: Analysis
and Assessment." Canadian Journal of Sociology 4(2):125-50.
Jarvey, P., A. Usher and L. McElroy. 2012. Making Research Count:
Analyzing Canadian Academic Publishing Cultures. Toronto: Higher
Education Strategy Associates.
Johnston, J. 2005. "Second Shift of Canadian Sociology:
Setting Sociological Standards in a Global Era." Canadian Journal
of Sociology 30(4):513-27.
McLaughlin, N. 2005. "Canada's Impossible Science:
Historical and Institutional Origins of the Coming Crisis in
Anglo-Canadian Sociology." Canadian Journal of Sociology
30(1):1-40.
McLaughlin, N. 2006. "Either the Future of Canadian Sociology?
Thoughts on Moving Forward." Canadian Journal of Sociology
31(1):107-30.
Nock, D.A. 2001. "Careers in Print: Canadian Sociological
Books and Their Wider Impact, 1975-1992." Canadian Journal of
Sociology 26(3):469-85.
Siebarth, T. 2012. "Hiring in Sociology: Canadian Trained
Academics Preferred." University Affairs. Retrieved September 2,
2012 (http://www.universityaffairs.ca/ hiring-in-sociology.aspx).
LORI WILKINSON, JANINE BRAMADAT, RACHEL DOLYNCHUK, AND ZOE T. ST.
AUBIN
University of Manitoba
Lori Wilkinson, Department of Sociology, University of Manitoba,
183 Dafoe Road, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2. E-mail:
[email protected]
(1) Our gratitude also extends to Sherry Fox, Administrator for the
Canadian Sociological Association (CSA), and John Goyder, past CSA
President, who assisted in locating archival information needed to
complete this paper. Finally, we are thankful for the detailed comments
and suggestions made by the authors of the other articles in this
special issue of the CRS. We define "Canadian-trained" as
earning a PhD from a Canadian university.
(2) We are still waiting for Nock or someone else to take up the
promise to examine the impact of Canadian sociological books from 1992
onward. We think this would be an excellent way to investigate the
international and national influences on Canadian sociology today.
(3) For the record, we think this is a valid argument. What we
question is the inordinate attention paid to this matter despite the
lack of empirical evidence to support or refute this belief.
(4)"Canadian" means born in Canada, a naturalized
citizen, or a person holding a valid permanent residency.
(5) We will let readers decide whether or not these departments
could be considered the "top" sociology departments in Canada.
We find it interesting that Queen's University whose sociologists
top the H-Index in terms of output and influence on research were
completely absent from this list (Jarvey, Usher, and McElroy 2012).
(6) It is important to note that a number of departments we
examined did not provide this information for their professors. There
are also a number of small institutions that either do not have
PhD-trained professors or are small and have no assistant professors at
this time. We tried to verify this data using the Guide to Sociology
Departments published by the American Sociological Association, but when
we cross-referenced their data, it too was inaccurate, particularly for
information regarding newly hired assistant professors.
(7) We understand that the methodology of Maclean's magazine
in their annual university rankings issue is fraught with problems.
However, their categorization of universities based on size and
availability of academic programs is relatively straightforward and
provides the reader with relatively useful comparative information.
(8) We could not locate any assistant professor who was not trained
in Canada, the United States, or in Europe.
Table 1
Canadian-Trained Assistant Professors by Size,
October-December, 2012
Assistant Studied in Studied
Institution Size Professors Canada Abroad
Medical/large 59 23 29
universities
66 Comprehensive/ 41 16
mid-sized
Primarily under- 49 30 6
graduate/small
Colleges 15 10 1
Total 189 104 52
Missing Adjusted Canadian
Institution Size Data Total Trained %
Medical/large 7 52 44%
universities
66 Comprehensive/ 9 57 72%
mid-sized
Primarily under- 13 36 83%
graduate/small
Colleges 4 11 91%
Total 33 156 67%
Table 2
Origin of Training of Assistant Professors by
Institution and Size, October-December, 2012
Canadian U.S. E.U.
Trained Trained Trained
Medical/large universities
Laval Universite 100% 0% 0%
McGill University 0 100% 0%
McMaster University 50% 50% 0%
Universite de Montreal 50% 0% 50%
University of Alberta 67% 33% 0%
University of British Columbia 20% 80% 0%
University of Calgary 33% 67% 0%
University of Manitoba 71% 14% 14%
University of Ottawa 100% 0% 0%
University of Saskatchewan 100% 0% 0%
University of Toronto 13% 88% 0%
Western University 0% 100% 0%
Comprehensive/mid-sized
universities
Athabasca University 100% 0% 0%
Brock University 100% 0% 0%
Canadian University College 0% 0% 0%
Carleton University 60% 40% 0%
Concordia University 50% 50% 0%
Memorial University 67% 17% 17%
Ryerson University 86% 0% 14%
Simon Fraser University 33% 67% 0%
St. Thomas University 50% 50% 0%
Trinity Western University 100% 0% 0%
Universite Saint-Paul 100% 0% 0%
University of Guelph 0% 0% 0%
University of New Brunswick 0% 0% 100%
University of Regina 100% 0% 0%
University of Victoria 50% 50% 0%
University of Waterloo 100% 0% 0%
University of Windsor 0% 0% 0%
Wilfrid Laurier University 100% 0% 0%
York University 80% 10% 10%
Primarily undergraduate/small
universities
Acadia University 100% 0% 0%
Algoma University 100% 0% 0%
Augustana University College 100% 0% 0%
Bishops' Universtiy 100% 0% 0%
Brandon University 100% 0% 0%
Cape Breton University 50% 50% 0%
Crandall University 100% 0% 0%
Laurentian University 100% 0% 0%
Mount St. Vincent University 50% 50% 0%
Nipissing University 100% 0% 0%
Saint Mary's University 0% 0% 0%
St. Francis Xavier 100% 0% 0%
Thompson River University 100% 0% 0%
Trent University 0% 0% 0%
University of Ontario of 33% 33% 33%
Technology
University of Prince Edward 100% 0% 0%
Island
University of St. Jerome's 100% 0% 0%
College
University of Winnipeg 100% 0% 0%
Colleges
Canadian Nazarene College 100% 0% 0%
Boothe University College 100% 0% 0%
Glendon College 100% 0% 0%
Grenfell College 0% 0% 100%
King's University College 100% 0% 0%
Providence College and 100% 0% 0%
Theological Seminary
St. Thomas Moore 100% 0% 0%
Adjusted
Total Total
Assistant Missing Assistant
Professors Data Professors
Medical/large universities
Laval Universite i 0 1
McGill University 4 0 4
McMaster University 6 0 6
Universite de Montreal 2 0 2
University of Alberta 10 1 9
University of British Columbia 6 1 5
University of Calgary 3 0 3
University of Manitoba 7 0 7
University of Ottawa 4 1 3
University of Saskatchewan 3 2 1
University of Toronto 10 2 8
Western University 3 0 3
Comprehensive/mid-sized
universities
Athabasca University 3 0 3
Brock University 4 0 4
Canadian University College 4 4 0
Carleton University 5 0 5
Concordia University 2 0 2
Memorial University 6 0 6
Ryerson University 7 0 7
Simon Fraser University 3 0 3
St. Thomas University 4 0 4
Trinity Western University 1 0 1
Universite Saint-Paul 1 0 1
University of Guelph 1 1 0
University of New Brunswick 2 0 2
University of Regina 1 0 1
University of Victoria 4 0 4
University of Waterloo 2 0 2
University of Windsor 4 4 0
Wilfrid Laurier University 2 0 2
York University 10 0 10
Primarily undergraduate/small
universities
Acadia University i 0 1
Algoma University 3 0 3
Augustana University College 1 0 1
Bishops' Universtiy 1 0 1
Brandon University 3 0 3
Cape Breton University 3 1 2
Crandall University 1 0 1
Laurentian University 2 1 1
Mount St. Vincent University 2 0 2
Nipissing University 4 0 4
Saint Mary's University 3 3 0
St. Francis Xavier 5 0 5
Thompson River University 2 0 2
Trent University 3 3 0
University of Ontario of 6 0 6
Technology
University of Prince Edward 1 0 1
Island
University of St. Jerome's 1 0 1
College
University of Winnipeg 7 5 2
Colleges
Canadian Nazarene College 2 0 2
Boothe University College 1 0 1
Glendon College 1 0 1
Grenfell College 1 0 1
King's University College 6 4 2
Providence College and 1 0 1
Theological Seminary
St. Thomas Moore 3 0 3