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Spousal Hiring at York University

York has a spousal hiring program under Article 12.31 of the YUFA Collective Agreement as follows:

“Where a candidate who self-identifies as one or more of the four Affirmative Action categories has been recommended for a probationary or tenured/continuing appointment and the candidate has a spouse or partner who may be qualified for a full-time faculty or professional librarian appointment, a hiring unit in the appropriate academic area may recommend the spouse or partner for a contractually-limited appointment for a term of up to five (5) years without advertising subject to the following conditions:

(a) the Vice-President Academic and Provost has authorized a position for the purpose of this clause;

(b) an application file, consisting of the spouse or partner’s current CV and additional materials attesting to the spouse or partner’s academic strengths as may be provided by the spouse or partner proactively and/or in response to a request by the hiring unit, is provided to the hiring unit for consideration by the collegial body responsible for considering appointment applications according to the hiring unit’s collegial appointment procedures;

(c) the recommendation of the spouse or partner for a contractually limited appointment is endorsed by the collegial body in the hiring unit responsible for endorsing/approving the hiring unit’s appointment requests as part of the cyclical appointment request exercise.

(d) such contractually limited appointments are non-renewable.

(e) there can be up to one (1) per year and no more than five (5) at any one time.

In its consideration of the spouse or partner, the hiring unit may additionally interview the spouse or partner or invite other activities on campus consistent with its established collegial appointment procedures.”

Alternatively, spouses of appointed faculty may want to consider other avenues to academic employment. All positions for full-time faculty and librarian appointments - both tenure-stream and limited-term appointments - are conducted through an open search and selection process. The search process is conducted by the academic department (or Division or Area in the case of Faculties that do not have departments). All positions are posted on the University's academic job posting web site (www.yorku.ca/acadjobs) and must be advertised in the CAUT Bulletin and University Affairs. In addition, most positions are advertised in journals and/or publications specific to the discipline, and are posted on relevant web sites.

York also has a significant number of contract faculty (sometimes referred to as part-time faculty) hired each year to teach particular courses. Contract faculty are unionized and represented by CUPE 3903. All jobs for contract faculty must be posted, and the posting and selection process is governed by the CUPE 3903 collective agreement. For information on job postings for part-time teaching positions, please visit http://www.yorku.ca/cupejobs/.

The University of Toronto and Ryerson University are also in the Toronto GTA. Each maintains an on-line web site that lists available positions (University of TorontoRyerson University). The University of Guelph and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology are within an hour-and-a-half drive from York; McMaster University, University of Western Ontario, University of Waterloo, Wilfred Laurier University, Trent University, and Brock University are within two hours drive. Further afield, Queen's University and Nipissing University are a three hour drive from York. Also, as Toronto is the provincial capital, there is a sizable civil service and opportunities for people with advanced degrees. The government of Ontario maintains a job site (www.gojobs.gov.on.ca). Toronto also has a sizable number of federal civil servants, and is a major financial, medical, corporate, legal, and service industry centre, with myriad opportunities for people with advanced degrees.

York’s Immigration and Relocation Officer provides assistance to prospective and newly appointed faculty in relocating to York, including spousal/partner job search assistance. Information about this office can be found at http://relocation.info.yorku.ca.

Finally, for those who might be interested in jobs in the University's non-academic sector, there is a web site listing available secretarial positions, openings for administrative assistants, and other managerial positions. This can be found at webapps.yorku.ca/nonacademicpostings.