All Posts Tagged With: "Academic Freedom"
Côte d’Ivoire shuts down its universities
Closed for renovations or revenge?
Photo by Sunset Parkerpix on Flickr
Côte d’Ivoire, a West African nation, has had its two universities shut down by President Alassane Ouattara until at least September 2012, provoking condemnation by human rights organizations frustrated that students will lose even more time.
Côte d’Ivoire has experienced increased instability in recent years following a civil war from 2002 to 2004 and a 2010 election when former President Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down after losing the vote. He was ousted with the aid of French and United Nations troops earlier this year and is now facing justice in the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The fighting caused many lost semesters at the country’s two universities.
Now, Ouattara’s government will close both the Cocody and Abobo-Adjamé universities again, ostensibly to renovate the buildings and reorganize the higher education system to meet international standards. But some Ivorians believe the closure is punishment for students and professors who supported Gbagbo. You can read more at University World News.
Lessons from Lukács
How the traditional university is under attack from all sides
Professor Alone. Photo by Shaylor on Flickr
The epic battle waged between Gábor Lukács and the University of Manitoba, which ended last week, has shone an unflattering light onto the state of academic integrity at our universities.
Listening to most recent observers, one would think that our universities need to be completely “reinvented” because professors spend too much time either not teaching at all or at least not teaching practical job skills.
But the Lukács case shows what’s really wrong.
As universities become increasingly defined by their administrations—as opposed to their faculty—the traditional values of higher education come under assault from all sides: from management, from the public, and even from the associations that represent professors themselves.
Lukács and University of Manitoba reach deal
Prof. tried to fight award of PhD to student who failed exams
The University of Manitoba says that the ongoing fight with Professor Gabor Lukács has been settled. Although specifics will remain confidential, Lukács will no longer work for the University.
The statement reads, in part: “The University has rescinded all disciplinary actions against Professor Lukács (including reprimand, suspension and denial of increment). All outstanding legal proceedings between the parties are terminated. The parties have also agreed that it is to their mutual benefit to end the employment relationship.”
Lukács was a math professor at U of M. He sued the university because his Dean gave a student who had failed exams a degree, citing the student’s “extreme exam anxiety,” which was considered a disability. A Winnipeg court found that Lukács did not have standing to challenge the Dean.
On Campus blogger Todd Pettigrew said the decision threatens academic integrity in Canada.
Lukács was suspended in Oct. 2010 for allegedly breaching the privacy of the student in question. At the time, university president David Barnard accused him of “having engaged in a pattern of behaviour with regard to [the] student which the university considers to be harassment.”
A lesson for presidents on academic freedom
AUCC’s new statement needs some editing: Pettigrew
The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has released its new statement on academic freedom. I welcome any clear, unambiguous statement saying that limitations to scholarly freedom, by anyone, are intolerable. It’s too bad that’s not what we got.
Although the AUCC proudly notes that the statement was unanimously accepted by university presidents, it must be noted that the views and interests of professors and presidents don’t always align. At many universities (though by no means all), the senior administration is viewed by the professoriate, not as the leader in academic progress, but as the occasional enemy of it.
While there is plenty to like in the AUCC’s statement, its framers have missed an opportunity by introducing numerous qualifications, and language that vaguely—and thus ominously—implies that the freedom of faculty can be subordinated to the will of the administration. Chief among these worrying qualifications are the repeated references to things like institutional “integrity,” “autonomy,” and “mission.” Given that university “missions” are usually dictated by senior administration, these qualifications imply that administrators are happy to give their professors all the freedom that they are comfortable giving them—and no more. That’s not really academic freedom at all.
Now, since it’s that time of year when essays are flooding in, let’s think of this statement as a first draft. In my never-ceasing desire to help universities be better, I’ve provided a copy of the AUCC statement, with edits that I believe could turn this C paper into an A.
Continue reading A lesson for presidents on academic freedom
Bush won’t speak at Toronto university
Did petition by former students cause cancellation?
Photo courtesy of Beverly & Pack on Flickr
The decision was made the same day that alumni launched an anti-Bush website and petition and two days after an employee allegedly quit over the event.
The petition’s website indicates that some former donors to the evangelical Christian school don’t want Bush on campus. There is also a slough of anti-Bush articles posted to the site.
Bush had been booked to speak on Sept. 20 at an invitation-only breakfast for about 150 people. It was sponsored by Prem Watsa, the wealthy chief executive of Fairfax Financial Holdings.
Tyndale has not said who cancelled or why. They wrote on Wednesday on their website that, “unfortunately, due to scheduling change, the breakfast on September 20th 2011 has been cancelled.” Spokesperson Lina van der Wel told the Toronto Star that breakfast will not be rescheduled.
Tyndale University College & Seminary is a degree-granting institution in Toronto’s north-end.
Protecting free speech for teachers in a social media world
Florida teacher should keep his job: Pettigrew
Photo courtesy of Spencer E Holtaway on Flickr
Florida teacher Jerry Buell has been suspended from teaching after posting controversial comments on his Facebook page. The American history teacher was angered by a TV news report on the legalization of gay marriage in New York, according to Fox News. ”I almost threw up,” he wrote in a post. “If they want to call it a union, go ahead. But don’t insult a man and woman’s marriage by throwing it in the same cesspool of whatever. God will not be mocked. When did this sin become acceptable?”
School district officials say that Buell has crossed a line, that teachers are bound by special codes of ethics, and that a Facebook page is a public forum.
Nonsense. Readers of this space will know that I am an outspoken advocate for the rights of gays and lesbians. (This post, for example.) And I hasten to point out that Buell’s statements are, in my judgement, stupid and mean-spirited. But he has the right to make them.
A Facebook page is a personal expression of one’s own particular tastes and attitudes. Indeed, it is hard to think of any mode of communication more centered on an individual. Buell was describing his revulsion toward love unlike his own; he did not claim to be speaking for the Lake County School District, or for Mount Dora High School or for anyone else.
I have sympathy with those who believe a gay student may now be uncomfortable in this guy’s class.
But if the standard is whether someone could potentially be uncomfortable, that’s casting much too wide a net. If that standard holds, it could be used to restrict the expression of almost any comment on any controversial issue. Suppose, for instance, Buell had said the reverse. Suppose he had celebrated the gay marriage legislation in New York. Would some devout Christians feel uncomfortable in his class?
Probably. The question must not be what a student heard about what a teacher said on the internet. The test must be: how does that teacher comport himself in class? If he’s worth his salary, he should take special care to make sure that when controversial issues come up, he presents all sides fairly. I myself am a committed atheist, but when religious questions come up — as they often do in literary studies — I try to ensure that the discussion is appropriately balanced.
In cases like Jerry Buell’s, people are quick to point out that there are limits to free speech; of course there are. But in a free society those limits have to be clearly defined and enforced only when absolutely necessary. If being wrong on Facebook is a crime, who among us is safe?
As long as he’s keeping his opinion to himself in class, Jerry Buell should keep his job.
Confucius Institutes break human rights rules
Profs working in Canada “must have no record of Falun Gong”
Photo courtesy of IvanWalsh.com on Flickr
A rule imposed by Confucius Institutes — an educational arm of the Chinese government that operates on at least eight Canadian campuses — breaks “all human rights codes in Canada,” human rights lawyer Clive Ansley told The Epoch Times.
The main CI website says that overseas volunteer Chinese teachers must have “no record of participation in Falun Gong,” a spiritual practice with roots in Buddhism and Taoism. China’s government vehemently opposes the practice and has arrested and killed many adherents, according to Amnesty International.
Barb Pollock, vice president of external relations at the University of Regina, told The Epoch Times that she did not know about the rule, but promised that her school’s agreements with China “have everything to do with academic freedom.” She also said that although teachers are selected by their Chinese partner, Hunan University, “what they teach [here] is our business.”
In June, the University of Manitoba rejected the idea of a Confucius Institute on campus. The University of British Columbia has also declined. But more than 320 exist worldwide, where they offer credit and non-credit courses in language and history.
China says that the funding of CIs—$150,000 initially and up to $200,000 per year after that— is meant to promote cultural understanding. But along with the money, schools have signed constitutions that say that “institute activities must … respect cultural customs, and shall not contravene concerning laws and regulations in Canada and China.”
Terry Russell, an Asian Studies professor at Manitoba, says that such rules compromise academic freedom, because academics are dissuaded from discussing Taiwan, Tibet, Falun Gong, or the Tiananmen Square massacre. That could result in an unrealistically positive view of China among the students who pass through the credit courses they offer in Canada, he says.
Carleton asks judge to throw out discrimination case
Students wanted to show graphic images in high-traffic area
Carleton University has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit by two members of an anti-abortion group who claim they were discriminated against by the administration, reports the Ottawa Citizen.
The school wouldn’t allow Ruth Lobo and John McLeod of Carleton Lifeline to put up a display that included graphic images of genocide and fetuses in a high-traffic square on campus known as the Tory Quad. The university offered them a more secluded space to make their presentation. The students argue that was discriminatory because animal-rights activists and Holocaust awareness groups are permitted to use graphic images in Tory Quad.
Lawyers for the university told the judge the claim is “scandalous, frivolous, vexatious or otherwise an abuse of the process of the court.” They argued that the university’s Human Rights Policy and the policy on Student Rights and Responsibilities are “internal administrative directives and procedures,” and that they do not form a contract between administrators and students.
Lobo and McLeod’s lawyer argued that Carleton University may have been acting as an agent of government and would therefore be subject to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including provisions on freedom of expression.
Censorship in Regina?
Prof’s lecture on “The Case for Boycotts…” cancelled
By Cigdem Iltan
The University of Regina was buzzing this month with talk of academic muzzling off-campus. Emily Eaton, an assistant professor of geography, was a week away from presenting “Solidarity with Palestine: The Case for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel,” the second of 12 lunchtime talks scheduled over the summer in Regina’s Victoria Park, when she says the coordinator of the series told her the topic was under scrutiny and asked to know more about it. The lecture series, titled “Profs in the Park,” was to be produced in partnership with the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District (RDBID). The next day, she says, the university told her the RDBID had cancelled her event. “This is a clear case of a city-level administration stepping in and saying what its citizens should and shouldn’t be able to hear, and therefore defining the terrain of public debate,” says Eaton. All the professors scheduled to present—on everything from “Gardening with Native Plants” to “Current Trends in Policing”—withdrew from the series. “The profs and the dean collectively decided we’d rather pull all the presentations than be subject to censorship,” says Eaton. (The lecture series has since taken on a new name, “Profs in the City,” and has been relocated to a private space: Neutral Ground Contemporary Art Forum. Eaton presented her lecture to a packed house on June 14.)
Judith Veresuk, executive director of the RDBID, says her organization isn’t to blame for pulling the plug on the original series. She claims that RDBID contacted the university to clarify the content of the talk after the city and her organization received complaints about its subject matter. And instead of providing more info, says Veresuk, the university pulled the lecture. “The next thing I know,” she says, “the university is crying censorship and cancelled the series.”
Talks end between Confucius Institutes and U Manitoba
Academics debate whether to accept Chinese cash
Photo courtesy of IvanWalsh.com on Flickr
When he first heard from a university administrator about a new Confucius Institute (CI) proposed at the University of Manitoba, Asian Studies professor Terry Russell asked for a meeting with the dean in charge. At that meeting, he asked her to carefully consider who was offering to pay for it. The money would come from the Hanban, an arm of the Chinese government that’s chaired by the minister of education. That’s the same government, as Russell put it, that jailed Nobel-prize winner Liu Xiaobo for 11 years, the same government who took the University of Calgary to task after it gave the Dalai Lama an honourary degree, and the same government that employs 50,000 citizens to scour the Internet in search of dissent. Russell says that Canadian universities shouldn’t take money from an education ministry that does such things.
Less than six months later, the university has announced that it will join a short-but-growing list of institutions that have decided against taking Chinese government money to set up CIs on campus. The university’s spokesman, John Danakas, says that “overtures were made” by Confucius Institutes earlier this year, but that “conversations have ended… for logistical reasons.” Pennsylvania State University, the University of British Columbia and the Republic of India, have also decided against CIs on campus.
But in the same month that Manitoba declined funding from China, the University of Regina and Brock University both inaugurated their new Confucius Institutes, bringing the total number at Canadian post-secondary schools to eight. More than 320 exist worldwide. China says that the funding of CIs—$150,000 initially and up to $200,000 per year after that— is meant to promote cultural understanding. But along with the money, schools, including Brock, have signed constitutions that says that “institute activities must … respect cultural customs, and shall not contravene concerning laws and regulations in Canada and China.”
Quite what that means is open to interpretation.
Russell says that means employees will feel dissuaded from mentioning Taiwan, Tibet independence, Falun Gong, or the Tiananmen Square massacre. If that’s true, the result could be an unrealistically positive view of China among the students who pass through the free language and history courses that they offer on Canadian campuses. He goes even further than that. “They’re nothing more than a propaganda and public relations exercise within the legitimizing framework of a university,” he says.
Sheila Young, Director of Brock International, takes the opposite view of their new CI. There isn’t any propaganda, she argues, but instead a fantastic opportunity for academic exchange with the world’s next superpower. “We’re in complete control of the curriculum and always have been, always will be,” says Young. The Chinese government offered to provide textbooks to them during at the Confucius Institutes Conference that she and other administrators attended in Beijing in December, but Brock has not decided which materials it will use. “Nothing has been shipped to us, where they said, ‘here these are prescribed texts,’” says Young.
Young stresses that the CI will allow them to offer many more Mandarin courses than they would be able to otherwise, plus teacher-training certification and possibly Chinese history and political science courses in the future. “There are a lot of cutbacks in the economy we’re in now,” says Young. “So the idea of getting some funding to teach in an area that hasn’t been taught [in] before is appealing.”
Billy Ayers prevented from entering Canada
University association says academic freedom was violated
Student never complained about alleged harassment
Prof. was suspended after questioning failing student’s PhD
The University of Manitoba didn’t issue Gabor Lukacs a cease and desist order, it’s president, David Barnard, didn’t warn him about his impending suspension and the student who Barnard accused Lukacs of harassing never even filed a complaint against him. That’s what a Manitoba labour tribunal heard from Lukac’s lawyer yesterday, reports the Winnipeg Free Press. Luckac’s is the 28-year-old math professor who was suspended for three-months without pay last year — on the president’s recommendation — after he lobbied against a dean’s decision to award a PhD to a student who had twice failed the exams required to graduate. The dean had accepted that the student could not pass the exams because of his disability — “extreme exam anxiety” — which Lukacs believed was an abuse of the rules. Barnard argued that a 2009 reprimand from the dean to stop talking about the student’s alleged medical condition should have been enough warning to Lukacs that he might be suspended. He also said that the university would not have suspended Lukacs had the professor not named the student and his medical condition in a lawsuit he filed to try and get the PhD overturned.
Read more Maclean’s On Campus news and commentary about the Gabor Lukacs case here.
College under fire for taking cash from groups linked to jihad
Groups linked to Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas to establish Chair in Islamic Studies
An Ontario college is being asked to turn down a $2-million donation that will fund a new Chair in Islamic Studies. Those opposed say that the groups donating the cash have obvious links to jihad and terrorism. But the principal of Huron College at the University of Western Ontario, who took the money, says she’s satisfied that the groups aren’t violent and that they won’t have any influence on courses or hiring.
The opponents, headed by London resident Rory Leishman, outlined their worries in a letter this week. They noted that the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), which donated some of the money, supports Hassan Al-Banna’s vision of Islam. Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, an Arab political group that has acted violently against those who don’t follow Islam and which has called for the “obliteration” of Israel. Wael Haddara, president of the MAC, told The Toronto Sun that his group is not violent, even though they “firmly believe that there is a tremendous amount of good in the writings, works and life of Al-Banna and the traditions of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
But it’s not just influence from the MAC that opponents are worried about. Half of the donation will come from the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), whose past leaders were supporters of the terrorist group Hamas, according to a U.S. Customs report. Temple University University in Philadelphia rejected a $1.5 million gift from the group in 2008 over concerns about its links to terrorism.
Trish Fulton, Acting Principal of Huron College, said that she is satisfied that there are no links to terrorism. “We have a due diligence process that — it includes a site visit, a review of tax returns and any other information available on the organization — and we follow that before we entertain any gift of a certain size or gift from individuals or organizations,” she told The Sun.
“Islamic studies is a legitimate subject for academic inquiry and we are very proud that this is the first chair of Islamic studies in a family of theology in Canada,” added Fulton. The petitioners say they aren’t arguing about the establishment of a chair, but who the school should taking money from.
Let Bill Ayers in this time
Former radical militant denied entry to Canada in 2009, scheduled to return in June
In about a month and a half’s time, former education professor and intellectual theorist Bill Ayers will try to enter Canada to speak at a higher-ed conference being held in Toronto in June. However, the last time he tried to do that, he didn’t quite make it to the podium. Back in 2009, Ayers was stopped by Canada Border Services Agency in a detention he called “arbitrary.” “The border agent said I had a conviction for a felony from 1969,” he remarked at the time. “I have several arrests for misdemeanours, but not for felonies.”
Ayers has a less-than-stellar resume from a border agent’s perspective–there’s no doubt about that. In 1969, he co-founded a group called the Weather Underground that was vehemently opposed to the Vietnam War and expressed its disapproval through coordinated bombings of public buildings. The Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, and New York City police headquarters were all targeted by the Weather Underground. When that shtick got old, he eventually moved on to work in education reform, becoming a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, but didn’t really become a household name until 2008 when he was connected to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.
It was then that Ayers’ past started garnering widespread attention. Public appearances and speaking engagements featuring Ayers were cancelled, and of course, it wasn’t long after that Ayers found himself being denied entry to Canada, despite having visited more than a dozen times.
Now, the organizers of the Worldviews Conference on Media scheduled this June are looking to the Government of Canada to ensure Ayers makes it in this time. They issued a press release last week in which Prof. Mark Langer, President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) said, “This is an issue of academic freedom, not one of a potential ‘threat’ to Canadian security. In the interests of open debate and the democratic exchange of ideas, Prof. Ayers must be allowed to speak.”
What is a university?
The answer may enrage you.
Having posted over a hundred entries to this blog on university affairs, I may seem foolish asking a question like “what is a university?” Shouldn’t I know? Isn’t it obvious? Does it really matter?
As some philosopher said regarding time, I know what a university is — so long as nobody asks me, so I was curious as to what my own definition would look like if I tried to spell it out. The answer is not obvious, though, because a university has not always meant the same thing over the centuries, and it does not necessarily mean the same thing to everyone now. And it matters because very often the arguments we have about universities turn on our assumptions about what universities are and what they ought to be. Recent debates over certain religious universities in Canada, provide one obvious example. What follows then is my initial, and admittedly provisional attempt to define what we ought to consider a university in this country. I hope it provides readers with some food for thought and some opportunity for debate.
1. A university has two principal functions: providing instruction on matters of intellectual importance and conducting research on those same matters.
2. These two functions, to the extent reasonably possible, should support one another. University teaching, therefore, is distinguished from other modes of education not only by seeking the highest levels of sophistication, but also by deriving its vitality from the atmosphere of on-going discovery fostered at the institution. For this reason, most, if not all courses at a university should be taught by faculty who are active researchers in the disciplines in which they teach. Conversely, research ought not to be done in isolation from teaching. Researchers should be open to allowing issues that arise in teaching to suggest new research questions and, where feasible, students, both undergraduate and graduate, should be given opportunities to participate in research.
3. Because strong intellectual work can only be done in an atmosphere where scholars feel free to take risks, challenge conventions, and change their minds, universities must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom. Except in cases of illegal conduct, violence, or flagrant abuse of the trust placed in faculty members, universities should never seek to sway, silence, intimidate, threaten, or otherwise influence faculty members to take, renounce, or be silent on any particular position, nor to control or monitor controversial actions. Indeed, universities should take all legal action necessary to defend the academic integrity and freedom of the scholars associated with it. Academic freedom is a right of individual scholars, not of universities themselves or their administrations. Therefore, no university should seek to impinge on the academic freedom of a scholar by claiming it has an institutional freedom to do so.
4. Though university education should provide the kind of intellectual enrichment that would serve any graduate well in the working world, university education should never be construed solely or even primarily as a path to employment. Even in disciplines with obvious professional connections such as education or law, the university should first aim to teach the history, theoretical underpinnings, crucial knowledge, and critical skills necessary to build a profound understanding of the discipline. A university law program, for example, should aim primarily to produce graduates with a profound understanding of law, rather than lawyers, per se.
5. A university has one additional secondary function: to serve as a cultural touchstone in its community to encourage all members of the public to participate in the life of the mind. Universities should, within reasonable limits and without needlessly detracting from its primary missions, sponsor and host artistic performances and displays, public talks, open debates, and other events that excite interest in intellectual pursuits, broadly construed.
This to me seems like a good starting point for a real, meaningful debate on what a university should be. Some readers might object and say that I have simply described Canadian universities as they are. To the extent that that is true, we should consider ourselves lucky, and seek to conserve and develop what we already have. But as the case of Trinity Western and Redeemer have demonstrated, not all institutions that consider themselves universities would sign on to all five of my criteria — particularly the part about academic freedom. Quest University, the new private institution in BC, would certainly not qualify because it does not expect its profs to be researchers, for example. And it’s not just those universities: I think you would be hard-pressed to find many university administrators or any politicians who would endorse number 4.
In any case, what we mean by the term “university” is a debate that we have to continue to have in this country. Have at it.
Faith tests don’t belong anywhere
Christian universities need to rethink their hiring practices
The debate surrounding academic freedom at Christian universities has heated up once again with the placement of Canadian Mennonite University on the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ (CAUT) list of schools who use faith tests as part of their employment conditions.
While I don’t doubt that these universities are academic institutions of quality, imposing a faith test on faculty members is an extreme measure in the name of preserving a university’s religious mandate, one that warrants the criticism it has received.
The circumstances at CMU are bit more complex than those at Trinity Western or Crandall. CMU also has to take the faculty members at its Menno Simons College, which is a part of CMU but based out of the University of Winnipeg, into account when deciding on its policies and procedures. The CAUT report explained that many faculty members at MSC feel that they are equally a part of the U of W and CMU, and that they should have the same academic rights as faculty at the U of W.
It’s also important to note that while CMU’s mandate is to provide a religious university education based in the Anabaptist religion, MSC’s focus is to teach programs surrounding conflict resolution and international development, and was not founded as a theological institution. It is understandable, then, why any strict faith-based hiring and employment policies at CMU that apply to MSC faculty members as well would be concerning to those instructing at MSC.
The report explains that some of the MSC professors CAUT spoke with said that while they were comfortable supporting a mandate to be committed to peace, justice, and non-violence, “they were very uncomfortable with a more specific and demanding commitment to a Christian, let alone to an Anabaptist or Mennonite interpretation of the mission.”
Even though the hiring policy adopted at CMU in 2007 did give special concessions to faculty members at MSC, some professors felt that these concessions still did not protect their academic freedom. The special policies applied to Menno Simons did not completely omit the possibility of using a faith test in the hiring processes at MSC, and policies governing continued employment at MSC were still very similar to those of CMU, meaning that a faith test could still apply to employees as a condition of employment.
It hasn’t been explicitly stated by the CAUT whether or not they chose to launch their investigation into CMU because of the concerns that arose from instructors at the MSC. However, it’s troubling that faculty members at MSC could still be subject to faith based requirements as a condition of employment, despite their objections to what they felt was a demand to be more committed to CMU’s Christian mission. It’s also concerning that CMU’s definition of institutional academic freedom, which is “shaped by its identity as an institution rooted in Anabaptist-Mennonite beliefs,” doesn’t give much support to those who may diverge from that mission.
Some have argued that the CAUT’s investigations into the employment conditions of these Christian universities have violated their right to run themselves in a way that is in keeping with their religious values.
“CAUT’s campaign impugns the legal rights of faith-based institutions to require employees to conduct themselves in ways consistent with their affiliation to the organization’s religious mission,” wrote Peter Stockland, director of Cardus Centre for Cultural Renewal, in the Vancouver Sun. “Settled human rights law and religious freedom rulings from the Supreme Court of Canada entitle such organizations — non-academic and academic alike — to do just that.”
In an interview with Macleans, Trinity Western president Jonathan Raymond also argued that all universities have to make judgments when hiring personnel surrounding whether or not hiring them will be in keeping with the mission of their institution.
Given that the CAUT’s policy defines academic freedom as “the right, without restriction by prescribed doctrine, to freedom of teaching and discussion” and “freedom in carrying out research,” Raymond also said he felt that the CAUT’s definition of academic freedom, “ignores the idea of autonomy.”
Yet the purpose of giving universities autonomy is to allow them to freely pursue their education and research priorities, not to allow them to do whatever they wish in terms of hiring and employment practices. Further, judging how a potential employee measures up to faith-based requirements is vastly different from the judgments most universities have to make when hiring faculty members. A person’s commitment to their faith is much harder to quantify than someone’s education or level of experience in a particular field.
While these institutions may argue that these faith tests ensure that their staff have their school’s religious mandate in mind, I would speculate that the explicit Christian mission of CMU and of other religious universities would already attract staff with the same priorities. Faith tests are only a measure to ensure that the ideologies of their staff are homogenous. This is not only unfair to their faculty members, but to their students as well. A good university education should be filled with lively discussion, and the realization that not everyone agrees with you. I find it hard to believe that students can experience that aspect of university in a setting where their professors are essentially required to hold the same beliefs as their school and each other.
Should universities police grades?
Compromising a professor’s freedom to assign marks should not be taken lightly.
This past week, a professor contacted us here at OnCampus, indicating that he was being treated unfairly by his administration which had forced him to lower grades in his courses, claiming (wrongly, he said) that the grades were inflated. Others with more journalistic chops than me are looking into the specifics of his case, but the message raised an issue that is too often ignored in our discussions of Canadian higher education.
When, if ever, should a university interfere with a professor’s grades?
Someone more high-minded and idealistic than me (if that’s possible), might argue the answer to that question should be never. A professor has the right to academic freedom, and that freedom extends to teaching, and teaching includes grading. If the professor is a qualified expert in his field, we should leave him to his judgements. It’s not for an administrator to come along after the fact and second-guess whether the grades are fair or not. Nor should that administrator pre-second-guess by insisting that the professor’s grades fall within a certain arbitrary range.
Academic freedom is an important principle — maybe the most important in the university — but it is not the only principle, and policing grades (like policing people) often means balancing one important principle against another. For instance, surely we can agree on the principle that students should be treated fairly, right? But what if students in Professor Curmudgeon’s Intro to Psych class are getting mostly Cs and Ds while students of similar ability and motivation are getting As and Bs over in Professor Candycorn’s section? In other words, if two students are doing work of about the same quality, shouldn’t they be getting about the same grade?
Of course they should, but everyone who has taught at a real university knows that this is not the case. An essay that would earn you an A in Dr Paddington’s class may only tip the scales as a B in Dr Saltmarsh’s section. I once had a colleague who gave a paper a grade in the 40s and when the student complained, gave the paper to two other colleagues in the same department to see what they would have given. One said the original grade was too generous and that something in the 30s was deserved; the other said the original evaluation had been much too harsh and the paper was worth a 70. In my department, the average grades between one section of Intro to Lit and another often vary by 15 points or more.
With all this in mind, wouldn’t it make sense for the university to issue guidelines (especially for multiple sections of the same course) that say the average final grades ought to be within x and y?
Sure, but like student assignments or political revolutions, the basic idea is great, but the execution is troubling.
For one thing, how does one agree on the correct range for the grades? If Professor Gatekeeper has a class average in the 50s, and Professor Flowers has a class average in the 70s, the former will likely think that the latter is too lenient and should be brought to heel, while the latter probably thinks the former is an old sourpuss and should be made to lighten up. Gatekeeper thinks his grades are low because he has courageously high standards, while Flowers thinks her students do better because she is such a good teacher. Even averaging everyone’s grades to get a fair range might not help because Gatekeeper thinks all his colleagues have gone soft, while Flowers thinks that she’s the only one who gets it. And what about the fact that some courses are harder than others? Do we need to have one range for Geology and another for Organic Chemistry? One for Intro to Cinema and another for Shakespeare? And how do we decide those ranges?
And even if we could agree on a range, another problem crops up. What if you genuinely have an unusually good class? In large intro courses with many sections, this becomes statistically less likely, though, even then, there might be factors that lead some sections to have better students than others (maybe the students in one particularly demanding program can only take the course in one particular time slot, so that slot gets a lot of top students). I once had an upper-year drama course where the average was nearly 80 and though I feared I was losing my edge, I was pretty sure then and am absolutely sure now that that was just an unusually smart and motivated group of students.
All that said, there must surely be cases where administrators must step in. I recall a case where an instructor routinely gave virtually all the students in all his courses 90 or higher. Needless to say, students flocked to his classes, and needless to say, not all of them were earning those A+ grades. Some of them probably didn’t even deserve credit in the courses, and some of them might have been given an unfair advantage when competing for scholarships and prizes. Others might have used the easy 90 to raise their overall average and thus be eligible to graduate when they otherwise would not have been. At a certain point, doling out top marks indiscriminately is not exercising one’s academic freedom; it is shirking one’s academic responsibilities.
One way to improve things would be to include rankings on students’ transcripts in addition to the grade. That is, your transcript could say that you got an 80 in Professor Middleton’s class, and also indicate that that was, say, the fifth highest grade out of thirty students. Including such information is frowned upon by registrars in Canada and is rarely done, but the obvious benefit is that it would instantly provide a clearer picture of what the grade really means. For instance, let’s say Lindsay and Megan both get 85 in different sections Intro to Poli Sci. But look closer and you see that Lindsay was ranked first in her class of thirty, while Megan was ranked tenth in her class of the same size. In all likelihood, Lindsay did much better because her professor was a tougher grader than Megan’s. Lindsay’s 85 is worth more than Megan’s in the same way that one country’s dollar might be worth more than another’s.
Rankings wouldn’t solve all the problems – the top ten students, for example, in one class might all be very close in terms of their grades, making the tenth place student look worse than she deserves — but the rankings would help. Bragging rights would go to those who did the best in their classes, not who earned an arbitrary number or letter. I doubt it will catch on, though. When I proposed adding rankings to transcripts at my university, the proposal was shot down, partly on the grounds that knowing where they were ranked might hurt students’ feelings.
Universities have an obligation to police grades when the grading is so out of kilter that it threatens the integrity of the school’s offerings. In general, administrators should be more concerned with grades that are too high than grades that are too low because numerous pressures conspire to inflate grades, and low grades can always be appealed. Still, any system to regulate grades must be done with enough flexibility to allow for special cases in particular and academic freedom in general. After all, I can’t ask a journalist to look into every case, now can I?
Prof suspended for using rape metaphor
Lecture on Machiavelli leads to accusations of rape advocacy
A United States Naval War College professor was placed on paid leave after he used a rape metaphor in a lecture given in May. A portion of the talk was posted on You Tube, under the heading, “US Naval War College Professor Advocates Rape.” The 3:40 min clip shows Karl Walling, at one point, adopting Machiavelli’s voice to describe how the 16th Century philosopher argued that political leaders with courage and cunning, or virtu (personified as male) should force the unpredictability of life, or Fortuna (personified as female) to their will.
Here’s the part that likely led to Walling’s suspension:
“What does a leader do when the b**** won’t put out? I do not mean to be vulgar, but rather to get to the heart of the matter from Machiavelli. If Fortuna will not cooperate, then make her do so. Real men, real leaders do not take no for an answer. Fortuna, said Machiavelli, is a woman, and when it is necessary if one wants to hold her down, to beat her down, moreover, she will like it.”
Walling, who was forced to apologize for the comments that form part of a 17 page essay says that the clip was taken out of context. For instance, towards the end of the paper, Walling criticizes colleagues who have been seduced by Machiavelli’s realpolitik approach to government: “Blinded by the Jedi master’s insights into the necessities of power, far too many members of my own union have failed to see the obvious: Machiavelli’s political logic was the logic of gangsters, the logic of Don Corleone.”
In a statement released to Inside Higher Ed, on online magazine, the College defended the suspension:
“The president of the college determined that portions of the lecture, which included degrading language about women, were inappropriate and entirely unacceptable . . . The college has policies in place prohibiting the use of inappropriate language, viewed this as a serious matter and took appropriate corrective action. The professor apologized to the college community, was placed on administrative leave, and removed from the lecture schedule for the remainder of the academic year. He also received a letter of caution, which he has publicly made known. College leadership met with students and faculty to reiterate that the language was inappropriate. The Naval War College, like the Navy, values the contributions of its diverse community and expects all members of our organization to adhere to the highest standards of professionalism.”
However, as Inside Higher Ed helpfully points out, even the more controversial comments in the essay, the ones posted on You Tube, represent a pretty standard interpretation of The Prince. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
“Machiavelli reinforces the association of Fortuna with the blind strength of nature by explaining that political success depends upon appreciation of the operational principles of Fortuna. His own experience has taught him that ‘it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortuna is a woman and it is necessary, in order to keep her under, to beat and maul her.’ In other words, Fortuna demands a violent response of those who would control her. ‘She more often lets herself be overcome by men using such methods than by those who proceed coldly,’ Machiavelli continues, ‘therefore always, like a woman, she is the friend of young men, because they are less cautious, more spirited, and with more boldness master her.’ The wanton behavior of Fortuna demands an aggressive, even violent response, lest she take advantage of those men who are too retiring or ‘effeminate’ to dominate her.”
Walling did not fabricate the rape metaphor. Machiavelli did. Still, Walling’s use of the B-word, at least from the College’s perspective, might have been pushing it.
CAUT investigates Balsillie School
Violations of academic freedom alleged in dismissal of school’s director
While his Research In Motion business partner is enjoying the glow of Stephen Hawking’s presence at the Perimeter Institute, Jim Balsillie’s own foray into high-level academic research has been steeped in alleged violations of academic freedom. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) announced last week that it will be investigating the removal of Ramesh Thakur as director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs. The school is affiliated with the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University.
In a letter addressed to the presidents of both institutions, CAUT director James Turk alleged that Thakur was fired “without any stated cause, without any fair procedure and in violation of his contract.” Thakur’s tenure as director of the Balsillie School was to last until 2013. He will retain his faculty position at the University of Waterloo. The national professors union has appointed Len Findlay, a University of Saskatchewan English professor, to investigate the case and file a report by Sept 1.
Attracting the attention of the CAUT follows a report in the Globe and Mail about Thakur’s dismissal that raised questions about the relationship between the Balsillie School and the Blackberry entrepreneur’s private think tank, the Centre for Innovation in Global Governance (CIGI). A donation of $33 million to help create the school was funneled through CIGI, and faculty appointed to the Balsillie School are simultaneously appointed as CIGI chairs. Summarizing the donor agreement and emails obtained by the Globe, the newspaper reported that there was an “expectation that CIGI will be consulted on strategy and staffing at the new school.”
The CAUT suspects that Thakur’s firing was motivated by his “opposition to giving CIGI a larger role in the governance of the Balsillie School.” It is a claim that appears to be supported by Thakur himself, who told the Globe, via email, that “Academic freedom is the bedrock of the university, and autonomy from outside interests (however well-meaning) is important in protecting that academic freedom.”
No one from the University of Waterloo or Wilfrid Laurier agreed to be interviewed by Maclean’s. However, both institutions released brief statements through their communications offices. “The departure of Dr. Ramesh Thakur as director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs is a personnel matter and therefore subject to confidentiality requirements,” read the Wilfrid Laurier statement.
A statement from the University of Waterloo similarly cited confidentiality issues, but also defended the institution’s commitment to academic freedom. “The university considers academic integrity and freedom as the most fundamental element of our foundation and existence,” the statement read.
Prior to coming to Waterloo, Thakur was Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Funding religious education from the public purse
Is CAUT’s crusade against religious universities really about its opposition to private universities?
As the Canadian Association of University Teacher (CAUT) casts its web wider in its investigation of hiring practices at religious universities, new issues are being raised about the role of these types of institutions in Canada’s post-secondary community. According to Nick Martin, education reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press, the question now is: “Should a university that restricts the hiring of faculty according to religious beliefs be receiving the same level of scarce public operating money as public colleges and universities?”
Martin’s article published late last week discusses CAUT’s latest probe into hiring practices, which puts the focus on Canadian Mennonite University (CMU). In October 2009, CAUT released the results of its first investigation that looked at whether Trinity Western University (TWU) was acting appropriately by requiring its professors to sign a “statement of faith.” CAUT—a union of sorts, representing faculty associations across the county, that has fought sometimes controversial fights over academic freedom since 1951—placed TWU on its blacklist of universities that violate academic freedom, effectively calling into question the school’s dedication to the very heart of what it is to be a university.
While no evidence has yet been published suggesting that CMU has a similar “faith test,” CMU president Gerald Gerbrandt told the Free Press that the province of Manitoba gave the school a mandate “to be more restrictive” by only hiring “people who are clearly Christian, that is clearly the expectation,” he said.
This practice will surely attract the disapproval of CAUT, which considers universities to have violated academic freedom if they “seek to ensure an ideologically or religiously homogeneous academic staff,” which TWU and CMU are clearly doing. CAUT is currently investigating CMU.
This is where CAUT’s argument takes a confusing turn. Martin reports that CAUT is demanding that governments only fund public institutions. At the conclusion of its TWU investigation, CAUT censured the university by placing it on its blacklist of institutions that violate academic freedom—which amounts to a virtual slap on the hand, if you will—and said no further action was planned. So by calling into question whether these schools should be funded with public dollars, CAUT is upping the stakes in its battle against religious schools.
CMU enjoys existing in a gray area by claiming to be part private part public. Interestingly, when CMU became a member of the Association of University and Colleges of Canada—which acts as an unofficial accreditation body in Canada—it claimed to be both private (it is a federation of three private colleges) and public in that it sees itself “as serving the province of Manitoba.”
CAUT executive director James Turk told the Free Press that funding for private universities is funding denied to public schools. “Canada really has no need for private institutions. They should not be receiving public money,” Turk said.
What is confusing about Turk’s comments is that there is no logical connection between being a private institution and hiring professors according to their beliefs. By going after private religious universities (most of which are non-profit, by the way) in this way, CAUT appears to be waging a broader war against these schools specifically, rather than being solely concerned about the issue of how faculty hiring affects academic freedom.
Back in January when Maclean’s published an article about TWU, the university’s president Jonathan Raymond questioned why CAUT seemed to be specifically targeting Christian universities when there have been no specific complaints from from faculty of academic freedom violations. Raymond’s question implies what Turk’s above comments seem to confirm: that CAUT’s campaign against hiring practices at religious universities is secondary to the association’s opposition to this type of institution, that its “faith test” investigations are only one part of a broader battle. Whether CAUT’s battle is against the ideology of religious universities or against private universities remains to be seen.
