Posts from January 2015

On Friday, January 30, 2015, OCUFA President Kate Lawson presented OCUFA’s 2015 Pre-Budget Brief to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs (SCFEA). The Brief, entitled Strong Universities for a Strong Ontario argues for renewed investment in higher education and increased faculty hiring. Every year, SCFEA conducts hearings in the run-up to the provincial budget. The committee then makes recommendations […]

Below is a message from Scott Prudham, President of UTFA, regarding a support request for faculty at the University of St. Michael’s College, who are currently in bargaining and facing a legal strike/lockout date on Feb. 6th. Dear colleagues, UTFA is negotiating a second contract for faculty and librarians employed by the University of Saint […]

The Ontario Ministry of Labour has issued a “no-board” notice for negotiations between the University of St. Michael’s College (USMC) and the University of Toronto Faculty Association. The no-board from the province means that if there is no agreement on a new collective agreement between the parties, a legal lockout or strike affecting faculty and […]

On January 20, 2015, the Ministry of Finance released draft pensions regulations governing the conversion of existing single employer pension plans (SEPPs) into Jointly Sponsored Pension Plans (JSPP).  This release is important, as the regulations will have implications for OCUFA’s work on pension solutions in the university sector. OCUFA and the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) are currently engaged […]

Premier Kathleen Wynne stopped at the University of Waterloo on Tuesday, January 13 as part of her nine-day tour of Ontario universities. In addition to fielding questions at a student town-hall and sitting for an interview with the UW student newspaper, Wynne also made time to have a private meeting with four representatives of Waterloo’s […]

Registration is now open for the first annual Worldviews Lecture on Media and Higher Education. The lecture, a spinoff of the popular Worldviews conference, will feature Simon Marginson, Professor of International Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. Prof. Marginson will deliver a lecture titled, “Universities, the plutocracy and the 99%: Is high participation in higher education […]

Professors and academic librarians and archivists at Western University met with Premier Kathleen Wynne on Monday evening, part of the Premier’s tour of Ontario campuses. Faculty leaders welcomed the meeting as an important opportunity to discuss issues facing those who teach and conduct research within the province’s universities. “We had an in-depth discussion about the […]

LONDON – Professors and academic librarians and archivists at Western University met with Premier Kathleen Wynne on Monday evening, part of the Premier’s tour of Ontario campuses. Faculty leaders welcomed the meeting as an important opportunity to discuss issues facing those who teach and conduct research within the province’s universities. “We had an in-depth discussion […]

The Wilfrid Laurier Faculty Association (WLUFA) has taken its fight against program prioritization public in the Waterloo Record. A January 2, 2015 article outlines growing faculty resistance to the Laurier admin’s prioritization process, called the “Internal Program and Resource Management” process, or IPRM. The majority of faculty councils have voted against the IPRM report, which calls for cuts or […]