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

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”

A controversial scheme that’s more common than universities admit

At first glance, Denis Rancourt is a self-proclaimed anarchist with a history of causing trouble. Over the past five years, the University of Ottawa professor has unsuccessfully sued his employer for millions of dollars over a cancelled course, claimed that the school’s president is part of a continental Zionist conspiracy, taught a controversial activism course, and denied the existence of climate change. But that’s not why the university says it’s firing him.

In a move that’s becoming increasingly popular in post-secondary education, Rancourt decided last year not to grade his students—something that has fuelled a wide-ranging debate not only about his methods but also over academic freedom. And the outcome of his dismissal, which is pending, could change the balance of power between professors and university administrations across the country.

A native of North Bay, Ont., Rancourt has taught at the University of Ottawa for more than 20 years. Colleagues consider him a highly regarded physicist; Rancourt has published more than 100 scientific journal articles. But like a growing number of Canadian university professors, he also believes students learn better when they’re not being graded. In 2008, he was denied permission to make his two fourth-year physics classes “pass-fail,” in which students either get through or they don’t. So he announced that everyone in the classroom was going to get an A+.

According to Rancourt, grades are only a means of exercising power in the classroom. “It’s not about optimizing education,” he says, “it’s about obedience.”

The school promptly suspended him, locked him out of his laboratory, and told his graduate students to find new supervisors. (Three of those students are now suing the university for taking away the professor who they say is the only person qualified to oversee their studies.) The university administration also banned him from campus and, in a rare move toward a tenured professor, recommended his dismissal. Two weeks later, while hosting his monthly radical documentary series at the school, Rancourt was arrested by police and charged with trespassing.

The university’s treatment of Rancourt shocked David Noble, a York University professor who says he hasn’t given grades for more than 35 years. For most of his teaching career he gave out straight As—until, in 2006, the university prevailed on him to switch to pass-fail. For decades, he got letters from the university remarking on his “anomalous” grades. “I would usually just throw the letters away,” Noble says. “Nothing ever happened.” Based on decades of educational research, including some of his own as a graduate student, he says there’s no doubt that grades are counterproductive.

In fact, the practice of not marking students is becoming increasingly popular, says Carl Leggo, an education professor at the University of British Columbia. In recent years there has been some “compelling research” proving that students are more creative and more productive when grades are removed. Leggo says courses for UBC’s bachelor of education degree, in addition to many other courses at the university, are pass-fail for the simple reason that students learn better. “Evaluation keeps people feeling quite conservative, and they want to do things in formulaic, traditional ways,” he says. “When the competition for grades and the tension around grades is removed, students actually start studying, researching and writing in more creative ways.” (According to a 2006 study of medical students at the Mayo Medical School, pass-fail systems reduce stress levels and increase group cohesion when compared with students who were given grades on a five-point scale.)

Not only are undergraduate pass-fail courses becoming more common in the face of extensive educational research, but the Stanford, Yale and Berkeley law schools have all recently moved to pass-fail grading systems. Alverno College, a Catholic women’s school in Milwaukee, Wis., hasn’t used grades since 1973. Kathleen O’Brien, the school’s senior vice-president for academic affairs, says the system has been infinitely better for students’ education, self-esteem and long-term prospects. The school will produce grades for graduate school or scholarship applications, but they are then promptly destroyed.

It’s a trend that others, though, find appalling. The idea that a student in a science faculty could earn an A+ without demonstrating knowledge is shocking to John Jones, associate dean of Simon Fraser University’s faculty of applied science. “Our graduates are going to be going out and doing things that human lives depend on. It’s very important that our grading reflects their abilities,” says Jones. Plus, he adds, it wouldn’t just be unconventional, it would be a danger to the public. Marks are not necessarily the best way to judge the skills and talents of each student, he says, “but we can’t build a system on wishful grading.”

Professor Gary Schajer agrees. He’s been an undergraduate adviser for aspiring mechanical engineers at the University of British Columbia for six years, and says the controversy around marks is an old one. In many cases, grades do impede learning, says Schajer. However, they are also the fastest and most effective way to evaluate students’ skills and knowledge, he says. “This is a tightrope all professors have to walk, but that is the unfortunate reality of the world.”

Rancourt and his supporters have opened up another front in the debate, saying that the University of Ottawa’s actions are as much an attack on academic freedom as teaching methods. That argument was dismissed in the New York Times on Feb. 8 by American education expert and law professor Stanley Fish. Rancourt, Fish wrote, was trying “to turn serial irresponsibility into a form of heroism under the banner of academic freedom.” But the Canadian Association of University Teachers has nevertheless struck a committee of inquiry to investigate the case. “Here’s a tenured, full professor, one of the most respected physicists and active researchers at his university, who’s being told he’s not allowed to teach,” says Jim Turk, executive director of the association. “This is an extraordinary situation. The complexity of the issues are so great that we felt we had to set up an independent committee of inquiry to untangle this mess.”

Results from the group, which includes Jeffrey Halpern, one of the leading authorities on academic freedom in North America, are not expected before the end of 2009. But Noble says the real issues behind Rancourt’s dismissal are clear: not just academic freedom but tenure, which is earned after decades of teaching and assessment and provides relatively ironclad job security, are under direct threat. “This has nothing to do with grades,” says Noble. “That’s not why the university is firing Denis Rancourt. They want to see if they can get away with firing tenured professors without cause. For them to send security to escort Rancourt off the campus, as if he were a menace who was running around giving everyone A’s, it’s surreal.”

The University of Ottawa has kept relatively quiet about the case, issuing a press release only after it made headlines. The school’s administration expressed concern that the credibility of marks at the entire institution was being thrown into doubt, which would affect scholarships, admission to graduate programs and ultimately the reputations of both students and the school. The university also said a “significant number of faculty colleagues had voiced concerns” regarding Rancourt’s conduct.

Citing confidentiality and legal obligations, the university has declined further comment. But nearly one-third of Rancourt’s colleagues at the school have signed a petition of complaint against him. For many other professors, including Patrick Deneen, associate professor of government at Washington’s Georgetown University, Rancourt’s actions are nothing more than a blatant abuse of academic freedom. After reading Fish’s article, he was outraged a professor would try to corral students into a movement to undermine the institution and then claim it as an academic right. “It seems to me that what he is doing is actually, ultimately, undermining academic freedom,” says Deneen, adding that he can’t think of any other professions where Rancourt’s actions would be tolerated. “It seems fine to me if you want to denounce the institution, but doing that while taking advantage of all of its rewards seems to me to be a bit of a callous and ungrateful thing.”

The final decision on Rancourt is expected from an executive committee of the university’s board of governors later this month, after one final off-the-record mediation session with the administration on March 17. If he is fired, Leggo says the decision will definitely have a chilling effect on professors who want to try cutting-edge approaches in the classroom. “We have a sense of fear that we can’t actually do what many of us feel we have been called and employed to do, which is to be contemporary professors.” If Rancourt manages to keep his post, radical anarchist professors can breathe a sigh of relief.

Says administration has violated principles “fundamental to higher education”

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has voted to censure the First Nations University of Canada after years of turmoil at the Saskatchewan school.The association voted on the motion at a council meeting Nov. 30, saying the university has serious governance problems that must be addressed.

“Censure is a measure of last resort used only when we are faced with violations of principles that are fundamental to higher education,” says CAUT executive director James Turk.

Censure means that most university teachers will be told to refuse appointments at the university, decline invitations to speak or participate in academic conferences hosted by the university, and turn down any distinctions it offers. It was last imposed by the association in 1979.The vote comes after several years of turmoil at the university. In 2005, according to CAUT, “Morley Watson, a vice-chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and then-chair of the university’s board of governors, suspended several senior administrators, seized the university’s central computers and copied the hard drive with all faculty and student records, and ordered administrative staff out of their offices.”

As a result, the FSIN appointed an All-Chiefs task force to recommend a new governance model for the university. Their November 2005 report recommended a smaller and more depoliticized board that would “respect and incorporate First Nations culture and governance traditions, ensure governance effectiveness and efficiency, incorporate high quality governance standards, enable the linkage with and participation of the University’s ownership and improve accountability.”

James Turk, CAUT exective director, says the governance recommendations were never implemented and problems persist.

In most cases, he says, university administrations realize the damage that censure will do to their ability to attract and retain staff, as well as host academic conferences, and try to resolve internal problems quickly.

“While the [First Nations University] administration and board were given every opportunity, they refused to show any serious willingness to address the concerns,” says Turk.

The association says ongoing problems at the university have led to the dismissal or resignation of the president, two vice-presidents, deans of two campuses, more than one-third of the academic staff and about half of the administrative, professional and technical staff. Enrollment has also dropped along with research and special project revenue.

In order to lift the censure, the First Nations University will have to implement the recommendations in its own task force report from 2005 and prove to the association that its governance problems have been resolved.