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OCUFA announces 2016 “Confronting precarious academic work” conference

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The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Association (OCUFA) is pleased to announce that registration is now open for our 2016 conference, “Confronting precarious academic work.”

The growing number of university faculty hired on a contract basis – and the insecure working conditions they face – has far reaching implications for everyone who works and learns in our universities.  With an estimated one-third of faculty now employed on a precarious basis, what does the future hold for academic employment?  Can the trend toward precarious academic work be reversed, and if so, how?  What can be learned from the experience of those currently confronting the realities of precarious work in Canada and other countries?  How can we re-imagine a better and more secure future for all faculty?

“Confronting precarious academic work” will seek to address these questions and more.

Join us for two days of insightful presentations and engaging discussion with speakers and participants from universities, research institutes, unions, and government in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Like previous OCUFA conferences, a diversity of views will be sought in each of the keynote and panel sessions.

The conference will take place February 11-12, 2016 at the Intercontinental Toronto Yorkville Hotel in Toronto.

The fee for those registering on or before November 30, 2015 is $350.00, which includes continental breakfasts, lunch, refreshments, an evening reception, and all materials. The regular registration fee after November 30, 2015 is $400.00; and $375.00 for OCUFA members.  The contract faculty and student rate is $150.00. For more information, and to register, please click here.

The Intercontinental Toronto York Hotel also has a special conference hotel rate of $229.00 per night.  Bookings must be made before January 8, 2016.

Data check: Ontario is behind on operating funding, research support

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OCUFA is busy planning a University Finance Workshop, to be held on November 13th in Toronto. The inaugural issue of the new Report on Ontario University Finances is set to be released later this month. With these events in mind, Data Check is taking a brief look at university revenues this week. Next week’s issue will turn to university expenses to provide some comparative context for a key theme of the finance workshop – Financial Facts About Faculty.

By now it is well known that, on a per student basis, provincial operating funding for universities in Ontario is well below the average in the rest of Canada. Increased funding a decade ago helped close the gap slightly for a couple of years, but it has been widening again. The Ontario government’s operating funding for 2013-14 was 35 per cent lower than the average across the rest of Canada. Preliminary estimates for 2014-15 indicate the difference will worsen to 37 per cent.

Some of the difference is made up by provincial government policy on tuition. It is a measure of how much the burden for direct financing for universities has shifted to students that tuition fees – even taking into account money paid out in scholarships and bursaries – are now such a large proportion of university budgets that adding them into the financial picture reduces the total funding gap with other provinces from 37 per cent to seven per cent.

Only Québec ranks lower when it comes to total university revenue, including public funding and net fees. Still, the province of Québec is much more generous in funding research. Other measures illustrate this point as well, but on a per student basis the Québec government provides almost double the support for research than Ontario. Compared to the rest of Canada (including Québec), the five-year average level of Ontario support for research is 42 per cent behind the national average.

Data Check last week served as a reminder that operating funds support both the research and teaching missions of universities. Operating funds are also not the sole source of support for universities’ teaching and service missions. The lines between teaching, research, and service activities are fuzzy, and practically speaking the boundaries between the activities supported through operating, research, and trust funds are not so neat as financial reporting conventions might suggest. General operating funds may be used in flexible ways. But it is important to recognize that student support can also be drawn from research and trust funds, and faculty paid from those funds also teach and perform service.

The relative share of combined provincial operating/research/trust funding designated as general operating fund varies from province to province. In 2013-14, the proportion of combined funding from provincial governments designated as operating revenue ranged from 76 per cent to 97 per cent. We will return to this point when we turn to university expenses and the financial facts about faculty in a comparative context.

Faculty association members interested in attending the University Finance Workshop should contact their faculty association about to register for the workshop and introductory webinar.

Sources:
Canadian Association of University Business Officers, Financial Information of Universities and Colleges
Statistics Canada, Postsecondary Student Information System (updated to 2013 using data from: Association of Atlantic Universities; Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada; British Columbia Higher Education Accountability Dataset; Bureau de coopération interuniversitaire, Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities)

Government of Ontario announces “eCampus Ontario”

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On October 8, 2015, the Government of Ontario announced the launch of eCampus Ontario. This is an initiative of the Ontario Online Learning Consortium (OOLC), a web portal where students can find online courses offered by colleges and universities across the province. The OOLC is funded by the government and jointly administered by the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) and Colleges Ontario (CO). OCUFA remains deeply concerned that both the OOLC and eCampus Ontario are proceeding with no official input from faculty representatives.

The Government of Ontario has committed to providing $72 million in funding to the OOLC. In addition to eCampus Ontario and other supports functions, this money is also going to support OOLC’s administrative structure, which includes two executive directors.

OCUFA has lobbied both the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities and the COU to include adequate faculty representation on the Board of Directors of OOLC. We are asking for a non-voting, ex officio member on the Board, to allow for more effective and meaningful exchange of information and perspectives. The OOLC has rejected these calls, opting for a structure dominated by administrators. Since faculty are the ones who ultimately design and deliver quality online courses, this position is both unjustified and untenable. Student groups in Ontario have also indicated their support for faculty representation the OOLC Board. Without real faculty representation, the ultimate success of the OOLC and eCampus Ontario is questionable.

OCUFA will continue to work with the Government of Ontario to ensure that the OOLC – and all efforts to expand online learning in the province – benefits from appropriate faculty representation.

At Nipissing, talks break down after conciliation

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After two days of conciliation, the Nipissing University Faculty Association (NUFA) regrets that talks have broken down. “We are very disappointed in the Employer’s lack of vision for the future of the university. Our faculty would rather be in the classroom teaching than walking a picket line,” says NUFA President Susan Srigley.

However, NUFA decided there was no option at this point other than to submit a request for a “No Board” report to the Ministry of Labour. The Association will be in a legal strike position seventeen days after the Ministry issues the report.

The current negotiations with the full-time faculty bargaining unit (FASBU), which represents the 173 full-time faculty Members, began in March of this year and after five months have failed to make significant progress on major issues.

“We are passionate about our University and we are committed to protecting and improving the quality of education that our students receive,” says Srigley. “We remain hopeful that a deal can be reached before our strike deadline”.

Data Check: Faculty salaries and university operating funds are for teaching and research

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New data shows that the decline in business and government support cannot be offset by R&D spending in the higher education sector – and the way Canada counts R&D activity in universities tells us a lot about the activities public funding is intended to support.

While trends in expenditures on research and development (R&D) by business and the federal government have been bleak, there has always been some hope the national R&D enterprise would continue to be buoyed by R&D in the higher education sector (otherwise known as Higher Education Research and Development, or HERD). Unfortunately, as the latest data from Statistics Canada show, even revisions to the estimate of HERD are not enough to compensate for the decline of Federal and business funding.

Increases in higher education spending on R&D will not be enough to offset declining business spending on in 2015. Even with a negative inflation rate, the real growth in total R&D spending will be 0.4 per cent lower than in 2014. * As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the “intensity” of national spending will decline by 1.6 per cent. From 2012, the first year in which the new method of estimation for HERD is applied, the intensity of national spending will decline by 11 per cent.

It is impossible to know how much worse the picture would look if we were to take the most recent high point in 2007 as our starting point, and if real-time adjustments to the method of estimating HERD were in place. But it is a useful reminder that the manner in which university research and faculty salaries are supported in Canada is different from other countries, and commentaries purporting to conduct comparative analyses have to take those factors into account in order to be valid.

HERD estimates in Canada include a coefficient for faculty salaries paid out of university operating funds, based on the estimated proportion of time in their academic work spent on research. In other words, operating funding is not simply for teaching but for scholarly and creative activity, too. Some faculty members are paid out of research or trust funds, or a combination of those and operating funds. The proportion varies even within Canada, but the largest proportion of full-time faculty is paid from operating funding. In other words, they are paid year-round salaries to support the full spectrum of academic activities from teaching to research to service, and the data are reported that way.

* The average forecast rate of the Bank of Canada and Canadian financial institutions is for a decline of 0.3 per cent in the GDP implicit price index in 2015; average real GDP growth is projected to be 1.2 per cent.

Sources: Statistics Canada, Spending on research and development in the higher education sector, 2013/2014; Spending on research and development, 2015 (intentions); Research and development in the higher education sector, 2014/2015; Table 380-0064 Gross domestic product, expenditure-based, quarterly; Table 380-0066 Price indexes, gross domestic product, quarterly.

Bargaining wire: Nipissing, Western in conciliation; Toronto in mediation

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Now that the academic year has begun in earnest, bargaining is again heating up on Ontario campuses. Faculty associations at Nipissing and Western, have conciliation dates scheduled in October, while Toronto was in mediation this past weekend. Several associations are heading to the table this month to begin their negotiations.

Nipissing has two conciliation dates scheduled – October 7th (today) and October 8th. The Nipissing University Faculty Association (NUFA) has also released the latest edition of its Bargaining Bulletin. While NUFA remains committed to negotiating a fair deal at the table, the Bulletin provides important information of strike preparedness, should job action become necessary. As NUFA points out:

“A strike is, of course, a last resort tactic, but we can’t wait until the last minute to make preparations in the event that negotiations lead us down that road. We have to be ready to stand with courage and conviction to achieve our goal – a just settlement that addresses our key goals of Fair Pay and a Fair Say.”

Librarians and archivists represented by he University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (UWOFA) will be in conciliation on October 27th and 30th with Greg Long. Negotiations continue at both Nipissing and Western; conciliation is simply the next step in the collective bargaining process, whereby a third party can help the two sides reach agreement.

The University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) had two days of mediation with mediator William Kaplan on October 3rd and 4th. UTFA also held a town hall to discuss plans to convert some university pension plans in Ontario to a multi-employer jointly sponsored pension plan (JSPP). One of these initiatives is the OCUFA –led project to explore the feasibility of a JSPP. UTFA’s JSPP resources page links to many of OCUFA’s pension resources.

Elsewhere in the province, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Faculty Association (UOITFA) has its first meeting with the employer on October 7th. The Osgoode Hall Faculty Association has already had two meetings with their employer, on September 25th and September 30th.

OCUFA announces winners of the 2014-2015 Teaching and Academic Librarianship Awards

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The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is pleased to announce the winners of its prestigious Teaching and Academic Librarianship Awards. Since 1973, these awards have recognized the exceptional contributions made by professors and librarians to the quality of higher education in Ontario.

“Professors and academic librarians are at the heart of our universities. They prepare students for the challenges of tomorrow, while discovering the ideas and knowledge that enrich all of our lives,” said OCUFA President Judy Bates. “OCUFA is honoured to recognize the dedication, skill, and passion of this year’s distinguished winners.”

The 2014-2015 Teaching Award recipients are:

  • Greg Evans, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Toronto
  • Vincent Hui, Department of Architectural Science, Ryerson University
  • Pippa Lock, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University
  • Timothy S. O’Connell, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, Brock University
  • Trent Tucker, College of Business and Economics, University of Guelph

The 2014-15 recipient of the Academic Librarianship Award is Dr. Harriet Sonne de Torrens, from the University of Toronto Mississauga.

The 42nd annual awards ceremony will take place at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto on October 24, 2015.

Ontario faculty make key recommendations on Ontario’s university funding formula

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Ontario’s professors and academic librarians are calling for a funding formula that builds on existing strengths, complemented by a new higher education data system for the province. The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is also cautioning against adopting a performance funding regime that punishes students and makes continuous educational improvement impossible.

The recommendations are part of OCUFA’s official response to the Government of Ontario’s review of the province’s university funding formula, officially submitted to the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) on September 1, 2015. Today, OCUFA is pleased to make these ideas public.

“The funding formula is foundational to the relationship between our universities and the Government of Ontario,” said Judy Bates, President of OCUFA. “It is therefore essential that it continue to support high quality higher education in the province by facilitating secure and adequate public investment in our institutions.”

OCUFA’s submission makes three key recommendations:

  1. The funding formula should continue to be responsive to the number of students in the system and the learning choices made by those students.
  2. Performance funding – where students are punished if their universities fail to meet largely arbitrary targets – is not the right choice for Ontario. There is no evidence that performance funding regimes do anything to improve student outcomes. They do, however, undermine the stability of university funding while making continuous and collaborative improvement impossible. When funding for a university is cut by government – for any reason – it is always the students who suffer. Measurement is useful in building accountability; punishment is counterproductive.
  3. Ontario needs a new higher education data system to promote accountability and collaboration in our universities. This new system would make more and better data available for students, faculty, policymakers, and members of the public. It would also create a stakeholder-led process for continuously evaluating Ontario’s higher education data needs, and refining the types of data collected to meet these dynamic requirements.

Unfortunately, the level of public investment in higher education was explicitly excluded from the mandate of the funding formula review. Ontario currently provides the lowest level of per-student universities funding of any province in Canada. This underfunding has a variety of negative effects. Class sizes get larger as universities cannot hire the professors they need to keep up with enrolment. Labs and classrooms fall into disrepair. Tuition fees go up. This year, for the first time since the public university system was created, tuition fees paid by students has surpassed public funding as the primary source of university revenue.

“Forward-looking public investment is the only way to ensure high quality and affordable universities in Ontario,” said Bates. “You can have the best funding formula in the world, but if the actual amount of funding is inadequate, then the quality of education will still suffer.”

The full OCUFA submission is available here. You can also read more about the University Funding Formula Review.

OCUFA submits recommendations to address precarious work, bring fairness to universities

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The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) has made a written submission to the provincial government’s Changing Workplaces Review. It calls for government leadership to address the rise of precarious work at Ontario’s universities. OCUFA estimates that the number of contract faculty has nearly doubled since 2000.

“Faculty see how this shift toward insecure, low-paid jobs is leaving some academic workers with an unfair burden, and impacting the quality of research and student learning on our campuses,” said OCUFA President Judy Bates. “We understand the urgency and timeliness of this review and that’s why we have been participating in the consultations all summer.”

As more and more faculty are working on a limited-term contract or per-course basis, new priorities and needs have arisen. Contract faculty are seeking more fairness in terms of equal treatment, job security and stability, and reasonable scheduling. These new challenges have also brought into focus the need for updated rules that allow unions to evolve with their workplaces, and that support workers in joining a union and working together to improve their conditions

OCUFA’s recommendations include updating employment standards to ensure that part-time and contract workers receive equal pay for work of equal value and equal access to benefits. The submission also counsels that employment under a number of multiple fixed-term contracts be considered continuous, and that employers be required to provide fair scheduling. OCUFA argues that the labour relations board should be empowered to change the scope of existing bargaining units, while labour law should be modernized to provide card-based union certification, reinstatement of employees during organizing drives, and better access to first contract arbitration.

At a time when many people are facing an erosion of their working conditions, better employment and labour law will lift the floor for all workers and support collective bargaining. “If these changes are made, the benefits will be felt widely – not only by faculty, students and workers at Ontario’s universities, but also in our local economies and communities,” said Bates.

You can read the full submission on OCUFA’s website. The submission complements thirteen presentations made by faculty at public consultations across the province in the last several months.

Two new reports highlight Ontario’s rising tuition fees

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Last week, Statistics Canada released its yearly report on university tuition fees in Canada. Yet again, Ontario has the highest tuition fees in the country. But the true scale of Ontario’s tuition fee increase over the past two decades was highlighted by a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Since 1993-94, tuition has more than tripled, rising 248 per cent.

According to Statistics Canada, average undergraduate tuition fees in Ontario are now $7,868, the highest in Canada. The Canadian average without Ontario is $5,178. In addition, fees in Ontario went up 4.0 per cent between 2014-15 and 2015-16, compared to a 3.2 per cent increase nationally.

The CCPA study correctly identifies the culprit for rising fees as the continuing withdrawal of public funding from Canada’s – and in particular, Ontario’s – university sector. As per-student funding has fallen, universities have turned to tuition fees to make up the difference. As OCUFA reported this past February, tuition fees surpassed public funding as a source of university revenue in Ontario for the first time this year. Fees now account for almost 51 per cent of university operating budgets, and this number is set to rise. This calls into question how public our public universities actually are.

OCUFA has long argued the need for greater public investment in Ontario’s universities. With each new grim tuition report that hits the headlines, this need only becomes more urgent.

UBC Board chair steps aside amidst ongoing controversy

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On Tuesday, August 25, 2015, Chair of the UBC Board of Governors voluntarily “stepped aside” while the university investigated claims that he had violated the academic freedom of a professor. It is alleged that Montalbano intimidated Prof. Jennifer Berdahl in a phone call, after Berdahl made critical comments about the sudden resignation of UBC President Arvind Gupta. As well as being the Chair of the Board of Governors, Montalbano also funded the position that Berdahl currently occupies.

Both the UBC Faculty Association and the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) had called for Montalbano to step aside. The Board of Governors have appointed Lynn Smith, former UBC Law School dean and a former BC Superior Court Justice, to conduct a “fact-finding” mission about the allegations. According to her terms of reference, Smith cannot recommend any actions or remedies based on her findings.

The Globe and Mail has published an in-depth account of the events leading up to Arvind Gupta’s resignation.  While the exact reasons for Gupta’s departure are protected by non-disclosure agreements, the Globe article does a good job exploring several potential causes, including conflicts with the Board and privileging the perspectives of faculty over those of senior administrators.

Nipissing files for conciliation, Huron agreement details

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The Nipissing University Faculty Association (NUFA) has filed for conciliation, as the association and the employer “are still miles apart on the issue of a financial settlement.” Faculty at Nipissing are among the lowest paid in Ontario, and are seeking a fair and reasonable wage agreement.

The employer has argued that there is a financial crisis at Nipissing. NUFA requested access to financial information necessary to evaluate the employer’s claims. The administration refused. NUFA was forced to go to the Ontario Labour Relations Board to compel the release of the data. Analysis of the financial information revealed little evidence of the structural deficit claimed by the employer. More information on NUFA’s bargaining can be found on the association’s website.

Details of the Huron University College Faculty Association’s new agreement are now available online. The new three-year deal was ratified by the association’s members on April 28th and by Huron’s Board of Governors on April 30th.  The new deal includes 2.25 per cent increases to the full-time salary scale in each year of the agreement, plus significant increases for program sessional appointments (three-year contracts) and per-course appointments. The Huron deal also includes enhancements to the pregnancy, parental, and adoption supplemental benefit plan, and new job security protections for contract faculty.

UBC Faculty Association, CAUT calls for resignation of UBC Chair

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The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the UBC faculty association are calling for Chair of Board of Governors of the University British Columbia John Montalbano to step down over accusations that he interfered with the academic freedom of a faculty member. Montalbano is alleged to have criticized Jennifer Berdahl, Professor of Leadership Studies in Gender and Diversity at the Sauder School of Business, over a blog post she wrote on the sudden resignation of UBC President Arvind Gupta.

Berdahl suggested that Gupta had “lost the masculinity contest among the leadership at UBC, as most women and minorities do at institutions dominated by white men.” In an email to Berdahl, Montalbano said that the post had “harmed the reputation of the Board, raised questions about her academic credibility, and jeopardized her funding from the Royal Bank of Canada.” Montalbano is vice-chairman of RBC Wealth Management, and he funded the professorship now held by Berdahl.

“In contacting Professor Berdahl to discuss her posting, Mr. Montalbano certainly displayed poor judgement, but he may have also crossed the line on academic freedom,” said Daniel Robinson, Executive Director of CAUT. “If the allegations against him are true, they raise serious questions about his suitability to continue as Board Chair of a university.”

The UBC Faculty Association also sent a letter to UBC’s Acting President, Angela Redish, calling for Montalbano’s immediate resignation. The UBCFA has been a leading voice seeking an explanation for Gupta’s departure.

UBC has initiated an investigation of the Montalbano allegations. CAUT has said that Montalbano should step aside while the investigation is underway.

Queen’s ratifies new collective agreement

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On August 21, 2015, the Queen’s University Faculty Association (QUFA) announced that it had ratified its new collective agreement. As the Queen’s Board of Governors had already ratified the new agreement on August 18, 2015, the four-year deal is now in effect.

The agreement contains yearly salary increases of 1%, 1.25%, 1.5%, and 1.75%. A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that establishes a process for considering and recommending a preferred pension option to QUFA members also forms part of the new agreement. If a merger with a jointly sponsored pension plan (JSPP) is the preferred option, the MOA specifies that entry into the JSPP will accomplished through collective bargaining.

The QUFA agreement also contains new protections for adjunct faculty, and establishes terms and conditions under which the university may contract with QUFA members to develop and revise online courses.

Complete details of the deal will be available on the QUFA website

UBC president resignation raises questions about administration salaries

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News broke last week that UBC President Arvind Gupta was resigning just one year into his contract. It was further revealed that Gupta would receive another full year of his presidential pay – almost $500,000. This is the latest incident around senior administrative salaries that suggests poor transparency and oversight of salary decisions at the highest level.

UBC faculty are working to get an explanation from the UBC Board of Governor’s for Gupta’s sudden departure. A resignation so soon in a presidential term will create significant uncertainty for the institution, and faculty are rightfully concerned with the process by which this occurred.

Gupta’s resignation follows such high profile presidential scandals as Western University President Amit Chakma’s double salary payout, in which he stood to receive almost $1 million dollars. Huge overpayments and sudden resignations hint at a larger problem in Canada’s universities: poor transparency that allow Board of Governors to negotiate with Presidents with no oversight from the campus community.
In a Globe and Mail article, OCUFA President Judy Bates said:

“We are concerned about the size of the [presidential] salaries and how they are negotiated. What we see is a series of incidents where presidents have been receiving additional payments as stipends, or payments out of certain clauses of their contract.”

OCUFA will be working with its member associations to develop strategies to improve campus oversight of senior administration salaries, with the goal of increasing transparency and improving university governance across the province.