All Posts Tagged With: "Canadian Association of University Teachers"

Instructor had briefly discussed art project with student

The Alberta College of Art and Design has reinstated an instructor fired after one of his students beheaded a chicken.

The college said Wednesday in a statement that it has learned lessons from the incident and hopes to develop clear policies around academic responsibility and artistic freedom.

“While the College’s decision to terminate Mr. Ferguson was never intended to be about academic or artistic freedom, the College acknowledges the perception this action may have created,” it said.

“All parties acknowledge that this incident has raised important issues about the relationship between a teacher and student, and a student’s work.”

The student killed the chicken with a knife, then plucked it and cleaned it in the school’s cafeteria last month as part of a performance art project. Some students were so shocked they called police but no criminal charges were laid.

The teacher in charge of the class, Gord Ferguson, was fired last week. The Canadian Association of University Teachers quickly took up his fight and filed a grievance with the college.

He had been with the school for 32 years.

Ferguson said Wednesday he’s relieved to have his job back. He found it unfair the college punished him for something a student did, adding students should be allowed to be creative at an art school.

“We never tell them what they can’t do or what they can do,” he said. “Any subject is available to be debated and discussed and investigated and you have to feel free and supported to be able to do that.”

He said the student’s chicken project was about commercial food production. He wanted to remind people that meat doesn’t come wrapped in plastic from a grocery store — it has to be killed first.

Ferguson briefly discussed the project with the student beforehand but, in hindsight, wishes they would have spent more time talking about how best to carry it out.

Ferguson said he has been overwhelmed with supportive letters and messages from students, past students, professors and strangers from across the country.

About 1,400 students also signed an online petition supporting Ferguson. Others flocked to Facebook, planning to protest his firing later this week during the school’s graduation art show.

Ferguson said he and the school have agreed to host a symposium when classes resume in September “to air some of these issues arising from this event.”

“I think that the goal here is to not come up with a set of restrictions where people may not do this and not do that, but rather inform people that they are free to explore any topic that they want to explore — but maybe with a bit of framework.”

Before judging, please consider what professors actually do

University of Guelph students (Andrew Tolson)

A lot is being written about universities these days and much of it paints a rather troubling picture. Some of the more popular arguments were put forward by Margaret Wente—who seems to write the same column about post-secondary education every few months—this weekend: the system is in crisis, it doesn’t sufficiently prepare students for the job market, the quality of teaching has continuously declined, and overpaid, lazy professors are sitting in their ivory towers denying that anything is wrong.

Universities are facing real and significant challenges, and I agree that anyone who thinks the only problem is underfunding is deluding themselves (that said, let’s not dismiss funding as an issue: across Canada, government funding as a proportion of university revenues has gone from 80.9 per cent in 1989 to 58.3 per cent in 2009. In Ontario, it is down 49.5 per cent! This trend poses myriad issues, including shifting the funding burden to students and creating incentives for universities to boost funding by adding more students.)

Continue reading Wente’s university prescription is misguided

Canadian Association of University Teachers isn’t happy

Changes to “clarify” a controversial, $15-million donor agreement at Carleton University are more cosmetic than substantive and miss the main point — protecting academic independence, the Canadian Association of University Teachers said Wednesday.

Carleton’s administration released a newly rewritten agreement with wealthy Calgary businessman Clay Riddell this week to clear up what it called confusion about the steering committee for the fledgling graduate program in political management.

“A revised clause of the agreement clarifies the role as that of strategic adviser,” university president Roseann O’Reilly Runte said Tuesday.

But the academic freedom and tenure committee of CAUT, the national university teachers’ association, spent more than an hour poring over the single-page clause and said the problematic deal “in some ways has been made worse.”

Continue reading New Carleton U donor deal gets thumbs down

In my opinion, they’re paid well enough already.

Photo by ggbaker on Panoramio

More than 1,000 students at Brandon University have signed a petition asking for their tuition money back because of a faculty strike that caused classes to be cancelled since Oct. 12.

But the Brandon University Student’s Union (BUSU), which has collected the signatures, doesn’t blame the professors—who are striking for the second time in three years—for their three weeks of missed classes. BUSU supports the picketing profs. They agree they’re underpaid.

But are Brandon’s professors really underpaid? More importantly—are professors underpaid in general? It’s a question students and taxpayers should ask—they’re the ones who pay the bills.

Continue reading How much should professors make?

CAUT says director dismissed over objections to private involvement in academic matters

Academic freedom was violated when Ramesh Thakur was dismissed from his post as director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs, according to a report compiled by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). The Balsillie School is jointly managed by the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University.

According to the report, Thakur, whose contract was to extend to 2013, was dismissed in the spring alledgedly because he objected to interference in academic decisions from Blackberry Entrepreneur Jim Balsillie’s private think tank, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

“Dr. Thakur was unfairly treated . . .  [and] had every right to expect support from the Presidents of UW and WLU . . . when he sounded the alarm on CIGI’s proposals,” the report, written by University of Saskatchewan English professor Len Findlay, concluded. “Insofar as his academic freedom depended on the protections of institutional autonomy, it became increasingly vulnerable to threats from the outside and complicity on the inside.”

The report further called Thakur’s dismissal “a serious lapse of judgement and loss of commitment to institutional autonomy, academic integrity, due process, and natural justice.”

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.

CIGI maintains that Balsillie had no role in Thakur’s dismissal.

A statement released on behalf of CIGI, UWaterloo and WLU dismissed the findings of the report. “The [Balsillie School of International Affairs] partners unanimously and strenuously disagree with the CAUT report’s findings and interpretation of the events. The report is based on a flawed and incomplete interpretation of the circumstances and rationale for the decision,” the statement read. “Donor influence was absolutely not an issue in the departure of the former director.”

In an interview with the Globe and Mail Thakur, who is a former Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, said he felt vindicated by the CAUT report. “Had it been clear to me that the school was a wholly owned subsidiary of CIGI, I would never have taken the job,” he said.

Governor General David Johnston was president of the University of Waterloo at the time of the incident.

Photo: Research In Motion CEO and Blackberry entrepreneur Jim Balsillie, Canadian Press

New Banting Fellowships are elitist, says CAUT

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has come out against new federally funded post-doctoral fellowships, arguing they are elitist. The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships, formally announced earlier this month, will see the government invest $45 million over five years to award 70 fellowships a year, at $70,000 a year for two years.

Because the program will only benefit a  fraction of Canada’s roughly 6,000 postdocs, the CAUT says the government has “misplaced priorities.” James Turk, CAUT’s executive director says the program will have a negligible impact on research output. “This program is another step toward the creation of a small elite tier of scholars in Canada , rather than a step toward increasing the capacity for research excellence of all our postdocs.”

The Banting Fellowships are, according to a government release, intended “to attract and retain in Canada the best researchers in the world.”

The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) hailed the program when it was first announced, pointing out that the Banting Fellowships will complement other research programs such as the Vanier Scholarships and the Canadian Excellence Research Chairs. “Canada’s not just doing one thing. This is the latest in a series of sustained and complementary programs to attract more creative and innovative people,” said AUCC president Paul Davidson,

The CAUT believes the money would have been better spent on funding “a 4 to 4.5% wage increase for all postdocs in Canada.” According to a survey by the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars, the average postdoc earns a salary of between $35, 000 and $40,000 a year.

Updated: secular definition of academic freedom should not rule in Canada

Under attack for allegedly violating academic freedom, Christian universities in Canada are fighting back in a decidedly academic way. They are planning to hold a conference. Last week, delegates from faith-based schools across the country were in Toronto for the annual meeting of Christian Higher Education Canada (CHEC), an advocacy group.

At the top of the agenda was the ongoing investigation being conducted by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) into whether Christian institutions respect accepted rules of academic freedom.

For background click here.

The national professors union has already completed a report on Trinity Western University that concluded that due to the existence of a Statement of Faith affirming Christian beliefs, that all professors must sign, the school places “unwarranted and unacceptable constraints on academic freedom.” Canadian Mennonite University and Crandall University have also been visited by CAUT investigators.

Faced with the possibility of further rebukes against Christian schools, CHEC’s board of directors has decided to invite other groups from the post-secondary sector to participate in a “national conference to dialogue on the meaning of ‘university’ and ‘academic freedom.’” However, planning for the conference is still in the preliminary stages, and a date and venue have yet to be set. CAUT told Maclean’s it is reserving comment until a formal request to participate in the conference is made. (Update: CAUT executive director James Turk told Inside Higher Education that they would probably accept an invitation to participate in the conference.)

Al Hiebert, CHEC’s executive director, said the dispute stems from two competing definitions of academic freedom. On one side is CAUT’s position that Hiebert said represents an “unqualified academic freedom” for “every individual professor at a university.” On the other side is a view that holds institutional autonomy from outside influence above faculty independence. The latter definition is clearly favoured by faith based universities.

For example, Trinity’s statement on academic freedom protects scholarly inquiry only when it stems  “from a stated perspective, i.e., within parameters consistent with the confessional basis of the constituency to which the University is responsible.”

While CAUT argues such qualifications do “not ensure genuine academic freedom,” Hiebert said respecting an institution’s autonomy to develop its own approach to scholarship, including the right to limit inquiry on faith-based grounds, is consistent with the idea of a university. “Our posture is that this CAUT position does not rule in Canada [and] should not be allowed to rule in Canada,” he said. Despite CHEC’s apparent hostility towards a principle that privileges faculty autonomy, Hiebert said he hopes that the conference can help foster “mutual understanding.”

“If some consensus position were drafted, that would be wonderful,” he said.

CAUT alleges medicine prof fired without ‘just cause’

The University of Manitoba faces an academic boycott after the Canadian Association of University Teachers threatened to censure the school over allegations former family medicine professor, Larry Reynolds, was dismissed “without just cause or due process.” The decision to pursue censure of the U of M came from delegates to the national council who, coincidently, lifted censure against another institution, Firsts Nations University, on Friday.

If a formal censure is imposed, academics would be encouraged to decline academic positions and from participating in conferences and other academic events.

The decision, which also includes a threat of censure against the Winnipeg Health Regional Authority, was made after an ad-hoc committee of inquiry filed its report on the case. The CAUT is giving the U of M until November to reinstate Reynolds. “Our objective is to ensure that Dr. Reynolds is treated appropriately and in our view that means being restored to the position he held before these inappropriate actions were taken — that of a tenured, geographically full time, full professor of medicine,” executive director James Turk said in a release.

Reynolds, who previously taught at the University of Western Ontario, was recruited by the U of M to head the department of family medicine in 2001. His five year term was not renewed, and in 2008 he was dismissed from the department altogether.

According to the CAUT report  Reynolds “was dismissed from the University of Manitoba’s Department of Family Medicine without formal notice and with no hearing regarding dismissal for cause, contrary to his contract and the policies of the University of Manitoba.”

U of M director of public affairs John Danakas told the Winnipeg Free Press that the university will not comment on specific personnel issues. “The university is prepared to stand behind its position. The university does not believe the story, as related by CAUT, represents a fair and accurate account of the situation,” He said, adding, “[b]ias was present from the beginning of the CAUT investigation.”

The last time CAUT formally censured a major research institution was 31 years ago, against Memorial University.

Can we agree that it should be a university for the public?

The recent debates over Trinity Western University and Canadian Mennonite University have taken an interesting turn. To wit, CAUT is now asking whether religious universities should receive public funding.

The answer that has been showing up frequently on this site is, in essence, Why not? If Christians are part of the Canadian public, why shouldn’t Christian institutions get a share of public money?

One response is to say that public money should be spent on the public good. Many people are smokers, but that doesn’t justify spending government money to support smoking — just the reverse, in fact. Of course, this argument implies, and relies upon, the notion that promoting religion is not in the public good, which seems obvious to me, but not to many others.  And since I am unlikely to de-convert anyone here, let me suggest another argument.

Publicly funded institutions should be for the use of  the public. Effectively, Christian universities are not. While, technically, non-Christians may be able to enroll in them, there is no doubt that their missions are to promote a Christian view of the world and to give, as the CMU Statement of Faith has it, “full allegiance to Christ” so they are not meant for the general public in any meaningful way. And even if we concede that non-Christian students can enroll in places like CMU –  where they are required to take “Introduction to Christianity” in their first year — non-Christian faculty are not . TWU requires faculty to sign their statement of faith and CMU officials publicly acknowledge that faculty are expected to be “clearly Christian.”

Simply because different groups have different priorities does not mean that the public in general should fund those priorities. Christians don’t need their own fire departments or police forces. They don’t need their own hospitals or roads. Or, if they do, they should pay for them themselves. Now, one might argue that schools are different, that the nature of education is such that a religious education requires its own institutions with different practices and standards. Maybe so, but that requirement is a private requirement, which makes such a school, effectively, a private school. And private schools — whether called that or not — should not be financed by the public.

Now before everyone gets all upset, and starts calling me names, let me be clear. I am not saying individual religious people are necessarily bad people, or good people, or any particular kind of people. I’m talking about the big picture, here. Moreover, I am not denying that institutions such as CMU have a right to exist. I only insist that as effectively private institutions they should not have a claim to public money.

School reappoints unpopular business dean, CAUT calls it a “dark day”

McMaster University has renewed the term of their Dean of Business Paul Bates despite an overwhelming rejection of his leadership by faculty.

During the re-appointment process, members of the business faculty voted overwhelmingly against renewing Bates for a second term. Reliable sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the university only discussed the matter in closed session meetings, tell me 36 faculty members voted against reappointing the Dean with only six voting in favour.

In a letter published in the local newspaper, the executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, James Turk, called the decision by the university a “dark day for the university.”

Turk states that Bates should be resigning due to the lack of confidence that his faculty has in his ability to lead them. He calls the decision to ignore faculty opinion a “troubling message to faculty at McMaster and to the broader university world — the views of the McMaster faculty are not relevant in deciding whom the board appoints to senior administrative positions”