OCUFA Today and Tomorrow

• On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. The impact of the pandemic had lasting effects on society and the university sector, upending teaching methods and challenging faculty and students’ physical and mental health.

   

• Unprecedented upheaval

  In response to the pandemic, the Ontario government declared a state of emergency. In the universities, there was a sudden shift to emergency remote teaching and learning. By September 2020, 68% of universities were delivering courses primarily online. OCUFA advocated for proper health and safety protocols for campus activities and supported member organizations as they navigated an unfamiliar working landscape.

   

  Ongoing financial constraints and performance-based strictures continued to create lasting challenges. By 2022, provincial funding made up just 24% of university revenues. From 2018 to 2022, university operating revenues from the provincial government and domestic student fees declined by about $3,200 (in 2020 dollars) per full-time student. Per-student funding levels in Ontario were the lowest in Canada. This chronic underfunding left significant revenue gaps in university coffers. 

  

  OCUFA leadership and provincial leaders at the Enough Is Enough Solidarity Action, May 3, 2023, Toronto.

• In response, universities looked for ways to increase funding and cut costs. One key cost-cutting measure was the increased use of contract faculty across the sector, a trend that began in the 2010s and accelerated in the 2020s. By 2020, 58% of faculty positions were contract, teaching-only, non-tenured, and mostly part-time, with few job protections or benefits. 

   

  A key revenue-generating measure for universities was to dramatically increase international-student tuition fees, which were uncapped and unregulated. By 2022, almost 19% of full-time students were international students; their tuition fees, at about $40,000 a year (in 2020 dollars) paid 48% of all fees collected by universities. 

   

  Many universities strained under the weight of the funding crisis, and one broke: in February 2021, Laurentian University declared insolvency, the first public university in Canada to do so.

  

  OCUFA leadership, staff, and members of the Finance Working Group at the Day of Action in support of striking CUPE education workers, November 2022, Queen’s Park.

• OCUFA doubles down

  OCUFA responded to these crises through a renewed focus on enhancing support for faculty, including contract faculty; expanding its outreach to the public; and engaging with its allies and with government. 

   

  The Laurentian insolvency was a key focus for the organization. With its allies, including the Laurentian University Faculty Association, OCUFA launched a campaign to amend the federal Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to exclude publicly funded educational institutions. In 2024, it succeeded in securing the passage of federal legislation to do exactly that.

   

  The issue of eroding collegial governance, a shared governance model in which university boards and senates work together to ensure the health and success of the institution, also came into focus. Among other initiatives, in 2022, OCUFA’s University Governance Committee published a resource, Strategies for Enhancing Collegial Governance and Effectiveness in Governance Spaces, to help member associations protect and enhance collegial governance at their institutions. 

   

  As well, years of work on the issue of adequate pensions—including holding workshops on the issue; releasing research reports; and creating a jointly sponsored framework for the sector, in concert with the Council of Ontario Universities, the creation of which involved extensive liaising with government, unions, faculty associations, and other stakeholders—finally came to fruition in 2021. The University Pension Plan is now the official pension plan provider for almost 40,000 working and retired university faculty and staff in four Ontario universities and 12 sector organizations.

   

  By 2024, OCUFA’s broader political advocacy strategy became more focused on educating the public about the issues facing public universities and working with all levels of government to ensure strong support for public postsecondary education in Ontario. OCUFA’s campaigns, conferences, training programs, and communications emphasize this public value, and reach beyond the academy. 

   

  

  OCUFA Executive and Board of Directors sign a group pledge to demonstrate their commitment to maintain pressure on the federal government to reform the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, February 25, 2023, The Westin Harbour Castle, Toronto.

• There used to be a deeper engagement with faculty on academic issues, even when they had financial considerations. So most of us used to spend time at committees on academic budget and planning. And for the most part, those have withered away.

  OCUFA President, 2021-2023

  Sue Wurtele

• Broad-based underfunding is preventing the Ontario university network from being the powerhouse it once was. There’s less support, there’s less full-time folk, there’s the rise in contract faculty folk. And there’s the downloading of administrative work and a power grab, which has reduced the benefits of and ability for actual collegial governance.

  Member-at-large, OCUFA Board of Directors, 2021-2023
  

  Kimberly Ellis-Hale

• I think the role of OCUFA is to listen to our member organizations, to challenge each other, as faculty members, and to bring in our own experts that we are so fortunate to have because they are part of our member organizations. And we always talk to anybody and everybody, even if we disagree. And I think we’ll continue to do that.

  OCUFA Executive Director

  Jenny Ahn

• The Laurentian process clearly showed the effects of a lack of interest by the government in higher education. They really had no interest in what would happen to Laurentian. And it took a huge, concerted effort by OCUFA and others to try to salvage something out of the wreckage.

  OCUFA President, 2013-2015

  Kate Lawson

• I think the role of OCUFA is to continue to increase public awareness about the role of public universities in terms of a more just society, in terms of even addressing climate change, and that it takes a diversity of disciplines to do that.

  OCUFA Director of Collective Bargaining Services
  

  Kimiko Inouye

• Our role is to support our member associations, to be as strong as possible, to ensure that they have what resources we can make available and are feasible, in terms of supporting them in things like collegial governance, in terms of university finances, in terms of support for collective bargaining, and more.

  OCUFA President, 2023-2025

  Nigmendra Narain

• So much energy in the last five years has gone into mobilizing membership and working on public opinion and public education in order to move government rather than more directly in the halls of Queen’s Park. So that’s just been a kind of Herculean task. But people really rose to that challenge.

  OCUFA President, 2017-2019

  Gyllian Phillips