Over 12,000 faculty at all 24 public colleges across the province represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) are currently bargaining for a better plan for Ontario colleges, including fairness for contract faculty, collegial governance, and academic freedom. OCUFA President Gyllian Phillips sent this letter of support to RM Kennedy, Chair of Ontario College […]
Members of the Laurentian University Faculty Association (LUFA) in Sudbury have been working hard to negotiate a fair collective agreement with the university administration. Despite several days in mediation, the parties are approaching an impasse and a strike may be imminent. LUFA is asking the administration to come to the table and agree to a […]
The Government of Ontario recently announced that in the coming months it will put forward legislation to create a new French-language university, by and for Francophones. The announcement follows the August 28, 2017 release of the French-Language University Planning Board’s report on the feasibility of establishing a new French-language university in Central-Southwestern Ontario. Struck last fall and chaired by Dr. Dyane Adam, a former official languages […]
In May, OCUFA brought together representatives of its membership to identify the policy issues affecting Ontario’s universities that they view as most critical, and to draft recommendations for addressing them. The final report summarizing these consultations is now available online. OCUFA regularly conducts research, produces papers and briefs, and hosts conversations on targeted policy issues affecting higher education in Ontario. However, the 2017 Policy Exchange […]
Wilfrid Laurier’s full-time faculty and professional librarians have reached a collective agreement with the University that will help protect faculty complement, improve contract faculty representation in governance, and lead to competitive salary increases. The collective agreement ratified by the Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association (WLUFA) will create a new committee tasked with examining the possibility […]
This past spring, Ontario’s colleges proposed changes to their executive compensation packages that could have seen the already high salaries of their presidents increase by an average of 32 per cent (in many cases a raise of over $100,000). The changes were announced in response to the provincial government’s new Executive Compensation Framework , a regulation aimed at […]
In May, faculty members from across Ontario gathered at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse in Toronto over two days to lay the groundwork for OCUFA’s policy positions and advocacy efforts in the lead-up to the 2018 Ontario provincial election. The OCUFA Policy Exchange was an interactive conference during which participants identified the most important policy issues and priorities for […]
The Ontario Government has been working with the province’s universities to develop Strategic Mandate Agreements (SMAs) that identify each institution’s strengths and set out how the government can work to best support the strategic priorities of each institution and the system as a whole. However, the process by which these agreements have been developed has […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
On February 11 and 12, 2017, OCUFA held its second Board meeting of the 2016-17 academic year. The weekend provided an opportunity to discuss recent developments in higher education and review the organization’s current priorities: faculty pensions, contract faculty and faculty complement, university funding, and university governance. And, at a special reception, the Lorimer Award […]
Background Since 2012, following amendments to the Broader Public Sector Accountability Act, compensation for executives at broader public sector institutions have been “frozen”. In September 2016, the new Executive Compensation Framework Regulation came into effect, lifting the freeze. The Framework allows broader public sector institutions to increase compensation for executives, but puts in place requirements […]
Faculty at Nipissing University welcomed the release of a report on improving collegial governance at their institution on November 3. The report was prepared by a Special Governance Commission that was established as part of the deal that ended the Nipissing University Faculty Association (NUFA) strike a year ago in November 2015. The erosion of […]
