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Final report of Changing Workplaces Review released

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On Tuesday, May 23, the Ontario Government released the final report of the Changing Workplaces Review. The review was initiated in 2015 to consider the province’s existing employment and labour law and how it might be improved to address the growth of precarious work and create better conditions for workers. The rise of precarious work has been of particular concern to OCUFA because it is estimated that the number of contract faculty in Ontario has doubled over the past 15 years.

As part of the consultation process, OCUFA submitted five recommendations that would improve working conditions for faculty and academic librarians and strengthen the rights of workers to collectively organize and form a union:

  • All workers, including part-time and contract workers, should receive equal pay for work of equal value and equal access to benefits.
  • The use of discontinuous contracts should be eliminated.
  • Employers should be required to provide employees with at least two weeks’ notice of work.
  • The Ontario Labour Relations Board should be empowered to consolidate bargaining units.
  • The Labour Relations Act should be updated to ensure workers can organize collectively to improve their conditions of work and join a union, including a return to automatic card-based certification, a requirement that employees punitively disciplined during organizing drives be reinstated, and making first contract arbitration more accessible.

The final report considers most of OCUFA’s recommendations and specifically highlights how engaged Ontario’s faculty have been in the process with “almost every Faculty Association in the province” making a submission. Unfortunately, although the report recognizes the urgent need for changes to Ontario’s employment and labour law, in many cases it recommends further study instead of action.

On the issue of equal pay for work of equal value, the report agrees that no employee should be paid a rate lower than a comparable full-time employee of the same employer. However, it recommends exemptions for workplaces where compensation is based on “objective differences” in work, which is concerning because it may be used to justify the exclusion of contract faculty.

On equal access to benefits, the use of discontinuous contracts, and the requirement for advanced notice of work, the report recognizes the need for reform, but only recommends further study.

OCUFA is pleased to see the report recommend empowering the Ontario Labour Relations Board to consolidate bargaining units. However, it does not suggest any requirement for union or bargaining unit consent and rejects suggestions that mergers only occur between bargaining units in the same union.

It is encouraging that the report repeatedly confirms the rights of workers to collectively organize and join a union. Unfortunately, it does not recommend a return to automatic card-based certification and instead provides a list of recommendations to counter employer interference in secret ballot votes.

While not referring to the reinstatement of employees participating in organizing drives specifically, the report recommends prioritizing investigations of punitive termination. Finally, the report recommends improving access to first contract arbitration.

As a whole, the final report of the Changing Workplaces Review leaves the concerns of Ontario’s precariously employed contract faculty largely unaddressed. While disappointing, the government has yet to announce the changes it intends to implement. Using the report as a foundation, OCUFA will continue advocating for changes to improve working conditions for faculty and academic librarians across Ontario.

Ontario’s employment and labour laws are outdated and this is an important opportunity to ensure new legislation improves on the recommendations in the report to reflect the priorities of Ontario workers and supports good jobs. OCUFA will continue working with other labour unions and community members as part of the Ontario Federation of Labour’s “Make it Fair” campaign and the Fight for $15 & Fairness to strengthen the rights of workers.

The OFL and Fight for $15 & Fairness are encouraging people to call, email, or meet with their MPP to urge them to support decent work. They have provided a list of MPPs and their contact information here.

The government is expected to formally respond to the final report of the Changing Workplaces Review shortly and announce the changes they intend to pursue. Once the details of that announcement have been made public, OCUFA will provide a more detailed analysis of the report and how it is informing the government’s policy agenda.

OCUFA holds final Board of Directors meeting of 2016-17 academic year

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On Saturday, May 13, OCUFA held its final Board of Directors meeting for the 2016-17 academic year. The day was an opportunity to discuss recent developments in higher education and review the organization’s current priorities: university funding, contract faculty and faculty complement, university governance, and faculty pensions. During a special lunchtime reception, board members celebrated the winners of the OCUFA Service Award and Henry Mandelbaum Graduate Fellowships.

Contract faculty and faculty complement

The Contract Faculty and Faculty Complement Committee have been hard at work this spring to keep fairness for contract faculty on the agenda. On March 3, OCUFA hosted a social media day of action to highlight the issues facing contract faculty and put pressure on university presidents and boards of governors to make changes. Supporters from faculty associations, OPSEU, and CUPE all took part.

Later in March, special events were held on two campuses to build solidarity between contract and tenure-stream faculty. These events featured comedy, music, and opportunities for faculty to get to know each other. For more information on these events, click here and here.

OCUFA continues to support the Fight for $15 and Fairness campaign. OCUFA representatives attended a provincial strategy session this spring and co-chaired a caucus of faculty, students, and staff that are involved in the campaign across the province. As part of this initiative, a panel featuring York University Faculty Association President Richard Wellen, Contract Faculty and Faculty Complement Committee Chair Fran Cachon, and OCUFA Vice-President Gyllie Phillips discussed the important role faculty can play in the Fight for $15 and Fairness. To learn more about what you can do, click here.

University funding

The 2017 Ontario Budget was tabled on April 27 and, unfortunately, failed to make much-needed investments in the province’s universities. The budget includes no new university operating funding for the next three years. Adjusted for inflation, this will amount to a six per cent funding decline in real terms and means that the major investments made through the government’s 2006 Reaching Higher framework will have been effectively reversed by 2019. This represents a troubling erosion of public financial support for Ontario’s universities which threatens the quality of education and will cause Ontario to fall even further behind other provinces in public per-student funding. Read OCUFA’s complete post-budget analysis here.

As the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development moves ahead with the implementation of a new funding model for Ontario universities, questions remain unanswered about exactly how some of that funding will be distributed. OCUFA continues to caution against the use of punitive performance based funding and will advocate against the use of metrics that harm faculty, students, and institutions.

In addition, faculty have been quite concerned with the lack of consultation during the second round of SMA negotiations (SMA2), which are currently underway. Government has not required institutions to consult with their campus communities and so, in many cases, these agreements are being negotiated without input from faculty, students, or other members of the university community. OCUFA is supporting associations that want to engage in the SMA negotiation process through the sharing of information about developments on different campuses and by drawing attention to the inadequacy of the consultation process.

University Governance

University governance continues to be a concern for members. To help develop strategies for supporting collegial governance, OCUFA has been hosting a series of conference calls where participants can share developments on their campuses.

In March, OCUFA co-sponsored a conference on governance hosted by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations–British Columbia in Vancouver. The conference focused on the role of faculty associations as unions and collective bargaining. To read more about the conference, click here.

Many of these issues were on the agenda at OCUFA’s Advocacy Day on March 1. University faculty from across Ontario gathered in Toronto to participate in a day of advocacy at the Ontario Legislature. Twenty-three faculty ambassadors spent the day meeting with over 35 Members of Provincial Parliament and discussing the four priorities detailed in OCUFA’s 2017 pre-budget submission. To read more about OCUFA’s 2017 Advocacy day, click here.

Pensions

OCUFA continues to support faculty association pension needs, including working with sector partners to build a voluntary jointly-sponsored pension plan (JSPP) for university faculty. The development of the JSPP continues to progress, with representatives from the University of Guelph, Queen’s University, and University of Toronto meeting on a regular basis.

OCUFA’s Collective Bargaining Committee has been hosting special meetings with chief negotiators focused on building capacity and knowledge about pension issues and possible changes to solvency rules that may be introduced by the provincial government later this year.

OCUFA executive elections

During the meeting, the OCUFA Board of Directors elected the organization’s executive for the 2017-18 academic year.

As of July 1, the new executive will be comprised of:

President:
Gyllian Phillips (Nipissing University Faculty Association)

Vice-President:
Rahul Sapra (Ryerson Faculty Association)

Treasurer:
Glen Copplestone (King’s University College Faculty Association)

Members-at-large:
Michael Attridge (St. Michael’s College Faculty Association)
Diane Beauchemin (Queen’s University Faculty Association)
Sue Wurtele (Trent University Faculty Association)

Chair of the Board:
Kate Lawson (Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo)

As President Judy Bates and Chairperson Brian Brown are finishing their terms of office, a special reception was held the night before the board meeting where they were thanked for their years of dedication, leadership, and hard work.

Awards celebration

Finally, a special awards luncheon provided an opportunity to celebrate four individuals whose contributions have enriched Ontario’s universities and their communities.

York University professor Craig Heron and Lakehead University professor Glenna Knutson were honoured with OCUFA Service Awards for the work they have done to strengthen OCUFA and advance the interests of professors and academic librarians across the province.

University of Guelph PhD student Laura Jane Weber and Laurentian University Masters’ student Beaudin Bennett were then honoured with Henry Mandelbaum Fellowships for their excellence in scholarship and community engagement.

The luncheon wrapped up with a special presentation from 2016 Mandelbaum Fellowship winner Karen Marie Olsen Lawford who shared her work on the gap in maternal health care for First Nations women who live in northern communities.

The next OCUFA Board of Directors meeting will be held in October

OCUFA analysis of the 2017 Ontario Budget

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The 2017 Ontario Budget failed to make much-needed investments in the province’s universities. This continued underfunding threatens the quality of education and will cause Ontario to fall even further behind other provinces in public per-student funding.

The budget includes no new university operating funding for the next three years. Adjusted for inflation, this will amount to a six per cent funding decline in real terms and means that the major investments made through the government’s 2006 Reaching Higher framework will have been effectively reversed by 2019. This represents a troubling erosion of public financial support for Ontario’s universities.

There were no major new announcements about postsecondary education or the Changing Workplaces Review, however, some modest commitments were made to expand workplace learning opportunities for students and improve the recently overhauled student assistance program. These commitments reflect the government’s stated approach to transforming the postsecondary education system by focusing on preparing students for a changing economy and increasing access.

Read OCUFA’s complete post-budget analysis here.

Graduate students from Guelph and Laurentian win 2017 Mandelbaum Fellowships

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TORONTO – The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is pleased to announce this year’s recipients of the Henry Mandelbaum Fellowship: Laura Jane Weber from the University of Guelph, and Beaudin Bennett from Laurentian University.

“The Mandelbaum Fellowship recognizes graduate students who combine exceptional scholarship with deep engagement in their communities,” said Gyllie Phillips, Vice-President of OCUFA. “Despite receiving many excellent applications, the committee was unanimous in selecting Laura Jane and Beaudin as the recipients of the 2017 Fellowship.”

At the Doctoral level, Laura Jane Webber was recognized for her research into the practice of flying pregnant women from their communities in Nunavut to give birth in southern hospitals. Weber, a student in Guelph’s Population Medicine and International Development Studies program, is committed to community engagement and has an impressive record of research and volunteer work.

At the Master’s level, Beaudin Bennett was recognized for his exploration of intimate partner violence in First Nations communities on Manitoulin Island and the perspectives of Indigenous women impacted by this violence about the acute injuries, chronic anxiety, and depression they suffer. A student in Laurentian’s Indigenous Relations program, Beaudin’s leadership and volunteer work show a strong commitment to social justice.

The Mandelbaum Fellowship was established to honor Henry Mandelbaum, Executive Director of OCUFA from 1996-2011. The Fellowship is awarded to a graduate student who has demonstrated academic excellence, shows exceptional academic promise, and has provided significant community service in his or her university career.

“Henry was passionate about social justice, and improving the lives of those who faced formidable social and economic barriers,” said Phillips. “Sadly, Henry passed away in 2012, but we are honoured to continue his work through the Mandelbaum Fellowship.”

Laura Jane Weber and Beaudin Bennett will receive their awards at a ceremony hosted by OCUFA in Toronto on May 13, 2017.

Founded in 1964, OCUFA represents 17,000 faculty and academic librarians in 28 faculty associations across Ontario. For more information, please visit the OCUFA website at www.ocufa.on.ca.

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For more information, contact:

 Ben Lewis, Communications Lead at 416-979-2117 x232 or communications@ocufa.on.ca
OR
Mark Rosenfeld, Executive Director at 416-979-2117 x229 or mrosenfeld@ocufa.on.ca

Professors from York and Lakehead honoured with OCUFA Service Awards

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TORONTO – The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is pleased to announce this year’s recipients of the OCUFA Service Award: Craig Heron from the York University Faculty Association (YUFA), and Glenna Knutson from the Lakehead University Faculty Association (LUFA).

“The OCUFA Service Award was established to honour individuals who have done, or continue to do, exceptional work on behalf of OCUFA and its member faculty associations,” said Judy Bates, President of OCUFA. “We are thrilled to bestow this award on two such deserving individuals.”

Craig Heron, a professor at York University, served as a member of OCUFA’s Board from 2012 to 2016. For decades, he has been a leading advocate for faculty rights, collegial governance, academic freedom, and union activism in Ontario. He has been a prominent figure in the campaigns against the corporatization of the university and program prioritization and strives to ensure the faculty around him recognize the larger political importance of their work.

Glenna Knutson, a professor at Lakehead University, served as Chair, Treasurer, and Member-at-Large of the OCUFA Board and Executive where she showed a remarkable dedication to diversity, fairness, and justice. In addition, she has been an active member of OCUFA’s Online Education Committee and represented LUFA on OCUFA’s Collective Bargaining Committee. Glenna has been a uniting force, bringing her colleagues together to build a stronger voice for Ontario’s faculty.

“The recipients of this award have shown remarkable dedication to OCUFA and provided tireless service to their colleagues on their campuses and across Ontario,” said Bates. “Without their work, OCUFA simply could not achieve its goals of protecting the rights and interests of faculty while promoting a high-quality, accessible public university system.”

Professors Heron and Knutson will receive their awards at a ceremony hosted by OCUFA in Toronto on May 13, 2017.

Founded in 1964, OCUFA represents 17,000 faculty and academic librarians in 28 faculty associations across Ontario. For more information, please visit the OCUFA website at www.ocufa.on.ca.

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For more information, contact:

Ben Lewis, Communications Lead at 416-979-2117 x232 or communications@ocufa.on.ca
OR
Mark Rosenfeld, Executive Director at 416-979-2117 x229 or mrosenfeld@ocufa.on.ca

Ontario professors concerned about the erosion of university funding

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TORONTO – Ontario’s faculty and academic librarians are troubled the government has not made much-needed investments in the province’s universities. This budget threatens the quality of education and will cause Ontario to fall even further behind other provinces in per-student funding.

“As professors, we are committed to providing our students with a vibrant and enriching education,” said Judy Bates, President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA). “The government’s continued underfunding of our universities will stretch existing resources even thinner, compromising the integrity of learning environments and our ability to prepare students for success upon graduation.”

For seven consecutive years, Ontario has ranked last among all provinces in per-student funding, and this budget will see the province fall even further behind. Faculty and students already feel the pressure of underfunding. Ontario has the highest student-faculty ratios in Canada and the number of precariously employed contract faculty has doubled in the last fifteen years.

The government continues to follow through on its plan to increase access to postsecondary education for students from low-income families and OCUFA supports these measures. However, the lack of investment in universities undermines this progress by short-changing the high-quality learning experience students and parents expect. The budget includes no new public operating funding for universities. This represents a troubling erosion of public financial support for Ontario’s universities.

“Additional public investment in our universities could transform them,” said Bates. “It would support hiring more full-time faculty and smaller classes that offer innovative and fulfilling learning experiences for our students.”

Ontario’s universities are vital institutions that inspire and expand student minds, and support scholars who develop research that fuels social and economic progress. Robust public funding is the foundation upon which the province’s universities thrive for the benefit of all Ontarians.

Founded in 1964, OCUFA represents 17,000 faculty and academic librarians in 28 faculty associations across Ontario. For more information, please visit the OCUFA website at www.ocufa.on.ca.

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For more information, contact:
Ben Lewis, Communications Lead at 647-894-8938, communications@ocufa.on.ca or
Mark Rosenfeld, Executive Director, 416 306 6030 x229, mrosenfeld@ocufa.on.ca.

Enrolment still increasing, despite projected decline

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With Budget 2017 arriving imminently, it is useful to revisit the provincial government forecasts for one of the principal variables in provincial funding for universities – the number of students. In the 2010 provincial budget, the Ontario government optimistically promised to add 40,000 new places for full-time university students by 2015. Because of a demographic dip in the cohort of 18-24 year-olds (already anticipated in 2010), that actual number was never met.

In the 2015 budget, the government changed its tune and predicted that enrolment would flatten and actually decline. However, that assumption should also be taken with a grain of salt. While it may be too early to tell if the number of university applicants for 2017 is an outlier, the proportion of 17 year-old applying to universities has been increasing. Among both undergraduate and graduate students, fall enrolment in 2016 increased by 2 per cent province-wide. With the exception of 2014, the trends suggest enrolment will continue to grow.

Regional demographic changes do mean that some institutions are seeing a decline in enrolment, while others continue to experience increases. This is why a nuanced approach to funding is important, with attention not just to the methods for allocating funding, but the total amount as well.

At this point, OCUFA forecasts that the gap in university funding between Ontario and the average for the rest of Canada will widen to 37 per cent for the current budget year. We do not yet know how much bigger the gap might become this year, but we do know that lowballing the enrolment forecast will certainly compound the effect of declining enrolments where they do occur.

With enrolment increasing, it is vital that the government increase public funding for Ontario’s universities so that they remain capable of providing a high quality postsecondary education.

Worldviews Lecture tackles populist challenge for universities

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Worldviews Lecture tackles populist challenge for universities

On April 5, Professor Sir Peter Scott, a Professor of Higher Education Studies at the UCL Institute of Education, delivered the third annual Worldviews Lecture on Media and Education with a focus on the populist challenge for universities.

In a live video broadcast to an audience in the library of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), Scott described how right-wing populism has driven a series of events over the past two years, including the election of Donald Trump and the vote of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. Then he addressed the challenge universities face coming to terms with this rising tide of anti-elitism.

Scott illustrates how populism has been driven by the failures of free-market neoliberalism and the growing gulf between haves and have-nots. While universities are considered elite institutions, home to many of the world’s experts, populism represents a general distrust of government organizations. Scott sees danger in this reality, but he argues populism’s strength should not be exaggerated and those in the academy should not be spooked. Instead, he believes that goal should be to continue expanding access to higher education as a key component of citizenship in democratic societies.

Scott concluded by presenting a four-point plan to counter the populist narrative:

  1. Shift away from the obsession with creating ‘world-class’ universities and focus on widening participation so that no group feels marginalized or left out.
  2. The commodification and commercialization of learning must be resisted.
  3. More democratically formed research communities need to be developed, in which producers, users, and beneficiaries have more equal voices.
  4. The community engagement mandate of universities needs to be reinforced as part of the effort to restore the ‘public’ university.

Following Dr. Scott’s virtual lecture, a panel of local academics continued the discussion of the populist challenge from a variety of perspectives.

Idil Atak, Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology at Ryerson university, discussed the malicious myths that stigmatize immigrants and are one driver of populism, especially during election periods. She detailed how enthusiastically these stories are picked up by the media, and how the academy has a role to play in conducting the evidence-based research that dispels these myths.

Greg Lyle, President of Innovative Research Group Inc., agreed with Professor Scott that populism is not winning. He highlighted poll results showing that the Canadian public values postsecondary education, and that two-thirds of Canadians believe that experts should be trusted. He argued that as economic gaps widen, individuals feel that the elite, including politicians, have lost touch with their constituents. He concluded by advocating that universities engage more with their students as individuals and people.

Emma Sabzalieva, a Doctoral researcher in the Centre for the Study of Canadian and International Higher Education at OISE, talked about students from a global perspective. She highlighted that approximately five million students travel internationally for their education, and a third of them travel to the US and UK – the countries most visibly afflicted by populism. While there might be short-term ripples, she does not believe international students will stay away from these countries over the long term.

Steven Tufts, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at York University, stated that while it may be making headlines now, populism isn’t new. He discussed the ‘common sense revolution’ of the Mike Harris era in Ontario, a populist platform that targeted postsecondary education among other social programs. He further argued that populism is not a right-wing issue, that it can also be driven with a progressive agenda. He concluded by encouraging professors to engage with their communities and join the fight to extend fair wages and fair working conditions to all workers.

To watch a video of the entire event, click here:
http://worldviewsconference.com/worldviews-2017/

 

This article originally appeared in OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week, please subscribe.

University of Windsor faculty gather for night of music and solidarity

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On Thursday, March 16, members of the Windsor University Faculty Association (WUFA) gathered at Windsor’s historic Walkerville Brewery to enjoy a night of great music, refreshing drinks, and engaging conversation.

The evening brought together tenured and contract faculty from across the university. It provided an opportunity for faculty to get to know each other, develop new relationships, and strengthen existing ones. The nine-person R&B band Soul Delegation set the tone for the night with a lively set that kept the crowd’s toes tapping as faculty enjoyed the tasty food and drinks.

Welcoming attendees, WUFA President Jeff Noonan called for solidarity in a time when external pressures threaten to set back progress on university campuses across Ontario. Citing the responsibility faculty have to support and fight for each other, he called on members to stand together for the long-term good of the university. The evening also provided a chance to thank Kathryn Lafreniere for her term as Chair of WUFA’s contract faculty committee, which is currently preparing for bargaining.

WUFA Sessional Director Fran Cachon echoed Noonan’s remarks, reiterating how important it is for faculty to build stronger relationships with each other. As Chair of OCUFA’s Contract Faculty and Faculty Complement Committee, Fran highlighted the inspiration she has drawn from working with students, faculty, workers and community members across the province to raise awareness about the need for fairness for contract faculty and good jobs on university campuses. She recognized the hard work of WUFA’s members and thanked them for their support.

Similar to the event at Western University the previous week, the evening social was co-organized by WUFA and OCUFA with the goal of bringing together tenured and contract faculty to build solidarity in advance of bargaining.


This article originally appeared in OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week, please subscribe.

Briefing note: Student questionnaires on courses and teaching

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Download a pdf of this document.

It is a common practice at universities to have students complete end-of-term questionnaires about their courses and instructors. Sometimes called student evaluations of teaching (SETs) or student questionnaires on courses and teaching (SQCTs), these are often used to make decisions about faculty tenure and promotion without an appreciation of their limitations. These questionnaires could be good for capturing the student experience, but responses are inherently influenced by factors outside of the professor’s control, including the subject being taught, class size, and the professor’s gender, race, or accent. Further, the comment sections in these anonymous questionnaires can and have been vehicles of harassment.

Ontario’s faculty understand the value of student feedback, but the manner in which this feedback is sought, and the ends to which it is used are problematic. The goal of student questionnaires should be to inform the understanding of the teaching and learning experience, not to punish faculty for their class size, instructional innovations, gender, or skin colour.

To consider these issues, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) has set up a working group with experts in methodology, research ethics, and human rights. The group has been tasked with developing a deeper understanding of how student questionnaires are currently being used at Ontario’s universities, defining the limitations of these questionnaires, and developing proposals for ensuring that these questionnaires are used appropriately. The working group is expected to release its report and recommendations later this year. What follows is a summary of the group’s findings so far.

Student questionnaire results are skewed by factors outside of faculty control

When completing a questionnaire, students are influenced not just by their impression of their professor’s instruction, but by their more general experiences in the class, program, and institution. So many factors influence the classroom experience that it is very difficult to determine whether ratings are the result of faculty performance or other contributing factors. For instance, students in larger classes, lectures early in the morning, or more difficult upper year courses are more likely to give low ratings than those in smaller classes, mid-day lectures, or easier first-year courses. In fact, in multiple large studies it has been shown that instructors who help students achieve higher outcomes in future learning receive relatively poor ratings compared with instructors of the same course whose students later attained lower academic outcomes.

Student questionnaire results are skewed by systemic discrimination and bias

Systemic discrimination based on gender, skin colour, and accent is a very real issue on Ontario’s campuses, and one of the places it manifests itself is in student questionnaire results. Research conducted in several countries over the past two decades has shown that women, people of colour, and those with accents receive lower evaluation ratings than their white male peers – regardless of ability. This discrimination and bias even plays out on the basis of course content, with classes about gender and racial issues more likely to receive lower ratings.

Student questionnaires facilitate anonymous harassment

Course evaluation questionnaires are composed of mostly multiple-choice questions. As such, they provide a very limited type of feedback. Accordingly, many such questionnaires include room for comments, allowing students to address topics not captured in the multiple-choice section. Unfortunately, as these questionnaires are anonymous, the comment section has become a means by which many faculty are being subjected to racial and sexual harassment. In the absence of effective precautions, moving the questionnaires online only facilitates this kind of threatening behaviour.

Student questionnaire results can compromise educational quality

Student questionnaires can provide important feedback about the student experience in a course, but not necessarily about a faculty member’s teaching performance. Determining whether a professor is conducting class according to student expectations is not the same as assessing how well students are learning in that class nor whether effective instructional methods have been used. Innovation in the classroom often results in lower SQCT scores even when it improves learning outcomes. If the employment status of faculty is tied to the results of these questionnaires, professors are incentivized to gain favour with their students and make course work less rigorous. That compromises the integrity of courses. Contract faculty are especially vulnerable in this scenario, as many have to reapply for their jobs each term, and the results of these questionnaires could be used to determine whether they are hired again.

Student questionnaire results should not be used to determine university funding levels

With the Ontario government’s intention to expand the portion of provincial funding based on performance indicators in later rounds of Strategic Mandate Agreements (SMA), it is important to be clear that student questionnaire ratings have no more place in allocating funding than they do in setting tuition fees, as proposed in the UK. The aggregation of ratings would compound the effect of biases and would not provide reliable indicators of program quality or respect qualitative differences between programs or institutions. It would ultimately penalize universities for achieving faculty diversity, instructional innovation, and true challenge and long-term learning for students.

Conclusion

Student feedback is important, but the purpose of student questionnaires on courses and teaching should be to help faculty develop their teaching, not to undermine their standing as employees, subject them to harassment, or punish them for factors outside of their control.

CUFA BC Conference on University Governance

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On March 3 and 4, OCUFA co-sponsored and attended a national conference on university governance hosted by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia (CUFA BC). The event, “University Governance in the 21st Century: Meeting the Challenges of Openness, Accountability, and Democracy,” sparked important exchanges between faculty, staff, and university administrators about policy challenges and best practices for supporting collegial governance.

The role of faculty and faculty associations in realizing good university governance was a central theme. Since faculty knowledge of governance processes cannot be assumed, several speakers motivated for more education to support effective engagement. Discussions about leveraging university governance processes to close the gender gap, address sexual violence, and indigenize the academy also raised the important challenge of recognizing and valuing the disproportionate amount of work taken on by women and indigenous faculty members in efforts to achieve these goals.

Animated discussions about the role collective bargaining plays in supporting collegial governance recognized the potential to strengthen and clarify good governance practices in collective agreement language. Although a few participants voiced the possible limitations of an adversarial process for promoting collegiality, the keynote speaker, University of British Columbia President Santa Ono, struck a chord when he stated that faculty associations are a key partner in shared governance, both as unions and because they can articulate the broader interests of faculty across the institution.

One underlying issue identified is the shrinking complement of full-time faculty who struggle to find the time to take on the service work involved in good governance. In addition, the contract faculty full-time faculty are being replaced with are often not represented on governing bodies or compensated for the service work they do take on.

Throughout the conference, participants expressed concern about the increasing secrecy and corporate approaches utilized by Boards of Governors. This was accompanied by discussions about the narrowing role of Senates at many institutions and strategies for reviving them to ensure they are respected and effective academic decision-making bodies.

Several speakers reviewed the legislative and legal backdrop for collegial governance, leaving the audience with some helpful takeaways. These include that Boards of Governors’ fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of the university should not be used to silence board members. In fact, it was suggested that there exists a positive duty of care and loyalty to speak out if a board’s agenda is getting off track.

CUFA BC is planning to develop a publication based on the conference presentations. For the full agenda, list of speakers, and copies of select presentations visit the conference website.

Faculty solidarity lunch at Western University sets stage for 2018 bargaining

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On Friday, March 10, more than 100 faculty members at Western University came together for a solidarity lunch hosted by the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association’s contract faculty committee. Supported by OCUFA, the lunch was a unique and creative event that provided an opportunity to build solidarity leading up to bargaining in 2018.

At the event, University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (UWOFA) President Ann Bigelow highlighted the misplaced priorities of the Western administration. She asked why their incredibly wealthy employer puts money before people and why the university, which claims to provide the best student experience, puts more effort into evaluating research than supporting teaching.

Bigelow, UWOFA’s first president who is a contract faculty member, pointed out that it takes a minimum of 14 years for a professor in a full-time contract position to earn the right to beg for a limited term appointment – an appointment with no end date. “There so many people like me who have been here a very long time and have demonstrated a commitment to the university,” said Bigelow, “Why won’t the university return that commitment? It’s just not right.”

In acknowledging the challenges ahead, OCUFA President Judy Bates referenced OCUFA’s Countdown to Strong program for faculty associations in bargaining, stating that, “if you organize early, if you are committed to face to face communications and if you come together in collective action, you can overcome these obstacles.”

After a few short speeches, attendees settled in for a delicious lunch and made new friends, as a featured comedian took to the stage. The performance sparked lots of laughter, and brought cheer to those in the room.

The faculty solidarity built at this event will be important in the coming year, and there is a hope that future work will build on the success of this event.


This article originally appeared in OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week, please subscribe.

Are books ready for the dustbin of history?

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Are books a condition of our labour? Do we need libraries with stacks and physical collections? Recent discussions within libraries across the country have highlighted faculty anxiety and displeasure with the fate of university libraries, as cuts are made to purchasing and operating budgets, collections culled, and the very nature of acquisitions transformed by changes in the methods of conducting and disseminating our research. Are libraries not an intrinsic part of our working conditions? How can we teach a student about the history of slavery, for example, if they do not have access to a wide range of interpretive sources that reflect changes in the writing of history over time? How can we encourage students to seek out many different kinds of evidence and to ask new and innovative questions, if libraries do not offer a variety of materials from a variety of different time periods? How can we encourage students to be venturesome and curious if they can no longer browse shelves? Those of us at smaller institutions long ago gave up the idea of having a ‘research’ library, but we do need very basic book collections, as well as collections of government documents and other sources that have not been digitized and, in fact, may never be. Without these, our teaching will be impoverished and our students’ learning will too.

Faculty are genuinely concerned with finding the best balance of resources for our libraries, but some feel consultation has been rather meager. On the one hand, the availability of material online and digitally has brought an array of new resources for teaching and research to our faculty and students; this has enriched our teaching, expanding the materials we can work with and opening up new doors of teaching possibility. However, faculty in the Humanities and Social Sciences are also facing severe cuts to book budgets, despite the fact that monographs remain a key form of the dissemination of our research. Not all books are available as e-books and students use e-books differently than hard copies – endnotes are obscured, browsing is discouraged. Moreover, existing hard copies of books may remain available only as hard copy for a long time.

All these issues have been highlighted recently at Trent University, where renovations to the library are not only necessitating a shut-down and relocation of the library for a year (May 2017 to May 2018), but a plan to cull the print collection by 50%. 250,000 items will be discarded. The figure is rather staggering. Figuring out how to do this, how to make selections, has been a difficult conversation, with some faculty believing that the university is moving too quickly and should explore storage or other solutions rather than de-accessioning books bought with taxpayer and donor money. While the Trent library is being made into what some tout as a “library of the future,” existing collections will find their way to abandoned retail outlets for storage for one year. Archives and rare books will be moved to former Shoppers Drug Mart store downtown and the circulating collections will go to a former Giant Tiger store, with requests for off campus holding.

The controversy over the sad fate of books made its way into the local newspaper. Seven million dollars in federal funds were secured (for an estimated 14 million dollar or more project) to renovate the library, to fix long-standing maintenance issues and create new spaces for “innovation.” On two floors, there will be study and meeting spaces dedicated to specific areas that the university wishes to highlight, such as entrepreneurship, ageing, and Indigenous studies. These will be designated the Bata Research and Innovation Cluster.

When concerns were expressed about the loss of books, Trent President Leo Groake was quoted in the local Peterborough Examiner as saying libraries cannot just be “museums for old paper” (PE, Oct 12, 2016). He pointed out that paper books are being replaced with digital ones (some truth to that) and that “Students these days – they’re in the digital age.” Some were not amused by the glib dismissiveness of the book as a key part of university learning. After some concerns were expressed, the president was given a column in the paper to qualify his remarks and do some damage control. “I do not believe that books are out of date. At the same time, I do think that libraries are changing; that this will reduce the room for books; and that it is a change for the better.” The move to digital books, he argued, was opening up space “for meeting others, and for interacting, intersecting, researching and collecting and analyzing data.” (PE, Oct 28, 2016) However, his statement belies a critical point: it is not only books that have been digitized that will be discarded in this process. Instead, it will include works no longer considered “relevant” at this particular point in time.

Faculty remain concerned. Discarding 50% of a library’s physical collection will have an impact on faculty, students, and members of the broader community. Moreover, materials considered irrelevant today may be useful tomorrow, and innovative ideas may be sparked by a book that has not been examined in twenty years. The idea that only dinosaur faculty want books while modern ones are into digital resources creates an unnecessary dichotomy and, furthermore, obscures the fact that materials subjectively deemed “un-useful” are in jeopardy. The letter below was sent to the president to try and persuade the administration that better solutions might still be found. Must the reconceptualization of libraries entail significant losses to physical collections? What possibilities and opportunities are lost if we do not preserve the library’s physical collections? For many of us, the consequences of not preserving, enhancing, and maintaining both digital and physical collections are deeply troubling.

Post contributed by Janet Miron and Joan Sangster, faculty members at Trent University.

The following letter was sent to the President concerning the library:

Dear President Groake,

I respectfully send you this letter, which is supported and endorsed by the Department of Anthropology, the Executive Committee of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies, and the School for the Study of Canada. We would like to express our concern for the physical collection of Bata Library and the university’s plan to discard a sizable portion of it.

For years, many of us have struggled to accept declining library budgets for the purchasing of books. To meet our research and teaching needs, we have had to weigh carefully which books to request for purchasing. We have done our best to cope with this challenge and to try to mitigate the effects as much as possible; we have accepted this situation with the belief that some sacrifice was necessary for the university’s fiscal health. Nevertheless, this has been a demoralizing experience for many of us, one that has taken a toll on our research and our teaching.

However, we now are not only facing the prospect of not replenishing and building our collection, but the substantial reduction of what many of us feel is an already meagre and inadequate collection. A whopping 50% of the library’s physical collection, an estimated 250,000 sources, slated for removal. We feel the library’s collection, built with tax-payers’ dollars and private contributions, is a fundamental part of the university’s well-being. If discarded, this crucial part of our library and our university could never be restored again. If the materials are replaceable, the cost would be in the millions of dollars. In light of the increasing recognition of Trent as a research and teaching institution of higher learning, why would we discard a part of our library that is important to many of us, one that directly contributes to our ability to achieve those very things we are so proud of?

At this moment, faculty have been “invited to provide feedback” on the deselection of the library’s physical collection, to identify materials that we need for our research and teaching. How can some of us reasonably do this? In five years, two years, even one year, the books and printed documents we need will change, possibly very dramatically. How will this affect our research? How will our students write research papers, which often require them to employ books or printed materials that have not been digitized? It is not simply recently published monographs and digitized sources that many of us need. We need older materials from decades ago, books that help us to understand how thinking, approaches, and foci have shifted and, thus, offer crucial direction to and foundations for our own research and teaching. Many of us want our students to know how scholars have written about topics in the past and how scholarship has changed. Doing so opens up thinking about where we need to go next and what new questions need to be considered. How can students do this with only a small selection of books in the library? How can we evaluate printed sources for their “value” today and predict what will be important to future generations of researchers and students? Books and other printed materials have both intrinsic and extrinsic value, and we feel strongly that it is in the university’s best interest to preserve the library’s collection, this body of knowledge, and to protect future endeavours and insight. Discarding half of our physical collection will undermine the research and teaching possibilities for many.

A library is a repository that offers manifold possibilities for researchers and students, but it should not be assumed that a repository is a stagnant, stale, or un-dynamic place that simply holds materials and gathers dust. Rather, it is that very repository that allows many of us as academics and students to ask new questions, to find relevance in a government report, collection of poems, monograph, or other source that has not been used for twenty years, to see things in a different light, to contextualize our research questions and findings, and to be creative and curious about the world around us. A Canadian geology book from 1920 may seem “un-useful” today, but tomorrow’s researcher may find it relevant for its list of Anishinaabemowin place names. For many of us in the humanities or social sciences, we need books and other printed materials, and we need to preserve them. Libraries and their physical collections form a vital part of our research methods.

Not only are many of us dependent on physical materials, but we also need the stacks of a library. Serendipity is one of the most exciting, rewarding, and fruitful possibilities offered by a library, the ability to browse the shelves and be distracted by a book that simply catches one’s eye. This part of research fosters inquisitiveness, reflection, curiosity, and open-mindedness. Retrieving a library book often entails much more than finding one specific book; it entails the discovery of other sources on nearby shelves that offer critical context, insight, or perspective, a process that cannot be replicated by on-line searches or is greatly limited when confined to only digitized materials. Many of us cannot solely rely on the digital world. For research and pedagogical reasons, we depend on a library, a library that is filled with books and not simply chairs and tables in a wired environment. It is very easy to find the latter if one so wishes in an urban setting. For many of us, we cannot do our research, teach, and develop ideas without a library and its physical collection. We do not have other university libraries to turn to in the Peterborough region, a dependency on inter-library loans is problematic, and digital resources, while important, are limited in many fields of research.

We urge you to reconsider the decision to discard half of our library collection and to find a solution that does not entail such loss. For many of us, our library’s physical resources are foundational to our work.

Sincerely,  Janet Miron, Department of History

Letter Endorsed by:
The Department of Anthropology
The Executive Committee of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies
The School for the Study of Canada

Increasing solidarity among university workers

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The opportunity for improvements to labour law presented by the provincial government’s ongoing Changing Workplaces Review is bringing university workers together. Faculty are advocating for equal pay and access to benefits for contract workers, food service workers are fighting for a $15 minimum wage, and custodial staff want an end to the contracting out and contract flipping that erodes their working conditions.

On February 14, Valentine’s Day, university workers joined with students on more than ten university campuses to spread love and advocate for change. Under the banner of the Fight for $15 & Fairness, university workers and students are united in calling on the government to deliver positive changes as soon as possible. Thousands of signatures of support have now been gathered on Ontario campuses.

This was one area of focus at CUPE Ontario’s university workers conference, which took place from February 23 to 26. OCUFA attended the event as part of ongoing efforts to foster solidarity between different groups of workers on campus. Many shared and important issues were addressed, including pensions, underfunding, fair wages, and the worrying growth in part-time, contract and casual positions.

Faculty hold annual advocacy day at Ontario Legislature

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On Wednesday, March 1, university faculty from across Ontario gathered in Toronto to participate in a day of advocacy at the Ontario Legislature. Twenty-three faculty ambassadors spent the day meeting with over 35 Members of Provincial Parliament who have universities in their region. These included the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development Deb Matthews, Progressive Conservative Advanced Education Critic Lorne Coe, and New Democratic Party Advanced Education Critic Peggy Sattler.

In their meetings, faculty focused on four priorities they want the government to take action on, including:

  • investing in faculty renewal to replace retiring professors and keep pace with student enrolment;
  • improving working conditions for contract academics through recommendations made to the Changing Workplaces Review;
  • creating a new, independent agency to collect and disseminate data about the province’s postsecondary education system; and
  • addressing the declining state of governance transparency and accountability at Ontario’s universities.

After a long day of engaging meetings, faculty, MPPs, and their staff gathered at a special reception to continue their conversations. The reception showcased large posters detailing the research of several professors who were on-hand to discuss their work’s importance for furthering knowledge and innovation in Ontario.

Many faculty were also active on social media, reporting back on their MPP meetings and the issues discussed. For a twitter review of the day’s meetings, click here.