A long and jumbled post, but there's a lot going on right now

A few interesting things happened this weekend. Well, starting on Friday and continuing right up to 11:30 this morning, which is when I tried to stop paying attention.

The Chair of the BoG, Laurel Hyde, responded to my email with a nice note. All we have gotten from the Premier, the Ministers, and the President have been auto-replies, locked doors, and unplugged phones. So Laurel Hyde, I thank you for your time and consideration. I’ll thank you even more if you and the Board can lean on the Dark Side (the administration) and if necessary the Province, to Be Reasonable as negotiations proceed.

Last week, UMFA proffered our latest offer, which to no one’s surprise was rejected by the Dark Side. On Friday evening, just in time to send us strikes into a tailspin of emotions and anxiety, not only did the Dark Side reject the offer, but indicated that it was refusing to counter. This is not a good example of free and fair negotiation, but whatevs. The announcement was accompanied by an indication that they would seek ‘advice’ from the mediator to try to find a solution for this apparent impasse. Considering they created this impasse by refusing to counter…. Well, whatevs.

The mediator, seeing no resolution on the horizon, suggested that perhaps it was time to go to binding arbitration. As we’ve indicated, binding arbitration is no one’s best choice, particularly not now. The Dark Side has proposed ‘binding arbitration with no conditions’. What that means exactly isn’t clear, but the union has some conditions. We’ve got some non-salary governance issues that we think need to be hammered out before arbitration. Among these are a proposal guaranteeing staff (in particular our overworked and underpaid Instructors) a contiguous 21 days away from teaching ever year, to catch up on journal reading and advances in the field, to plan and retool courses, and to have a little time to themselves just to recharge. Another is a guarantee that (absent a public emergency) we cannot be forced to deliver a class online.

As a professor, I typically don’t teach in the spring or summer terms (except by choice, on overload, or very, very occasionally to make up for an earlier class that gets cancelled), so the contiguous days issue doesn’t really effect me. But our instructors typically teach at least 8 courses a year (compared to the 3-5 most professorial staff teach, because we’re supposed to maintain an active research program as part of our work). Most of the instructors I know in fact manage to do research in spite of it not being technically part of their job. And many of these classes involve hundreds of students.

Moving instructors onto the librarians grid (who likewise often maintain research in spite of not being paid for it) would go a fair way to addressing the issue, and providing a significant increase to the salary grids in general would do more.

I’m particularly concerned about online teaching. The Dark Side, and apparently the Province,love the idea of online delivery of courses. They can open and even increase enrollment in popular classes, they can get students from far away to take and pay exhorbitantly for classes. And (they think) it means they don’t need as much teaching faculty. One of the sentiments we hear from the public and the province is ‘why do we need professors at all? Can’t they just record a lecture once and then use it forever?’

Well, no. Aside from eliminating professor-student interaction (which is arguably one of the most important factors in student satisfaction), professors and instructors work hard at updating courses, keeping them current with the state of the field; adapting to current events when appropriate. Imagine class in public health, immunology, genetics, or medicine, recorded just two years ago, that makes no mention of the current COVID situation. Insanity. And it would contribute to the ‘erosion’ of the value of a university education (and the promotion of the anti-science sentiment) that we see all around us.

And we need enough autonomy to pursue the work we think is important, irrespective of capricious provincial or administrative whim. This is an important component of Academic Freedom, which maybe we’ll talk about another time.

Along with recruitment and retention, we are very concerned about educational standards. What is the value of a university education. It’s so much more than what you get in a college or vocational education. It’s getting exposed to fields, points of view, and analytical approaches. It’s applying critical thinking/reading/writing skills not only in your major, but across the board. For those of us in less familiar fields, it’s presenting things to students who didn’t know anything about us, and inspiring them to an interest in something they didn’t know was a thing, let a lone one that might occupy a lot of the rest of their lives.

UMFA is limited in the kinds of things we can control through collective bargaining. We have no authority over majors or credits or which courses have significant ‘writing’ components or ‘math’ components. We have no say on administrative appointments or policies (except insofar as individual members may be on particular committees). As I wrote in 2001, UMFA is not the Excellence Task Force.

So salary scales may (and quite well could) end up in arbitration. But there are some things we’re going to dig our heels in on, and these governance issues are high on the list.

At 11:37am, we all received word from the President of the University that the Vice President (External) was resigning, effective Dec 3. Apparently this has been in the works for a while, with the President doing his best to convince the VP(Ext) to stay, but the timing of this is weird. We’re on the verge of the longest UMFA strike in history (today is day 21, equaling the 2016 record). We are in the middle of difficult negotiations. We keep talking about the quality of the university. The VP(Ext)’s job entails overseeing, among other things, community relations, PR, and especially fundraising. Cajoling industry and commercial interests in partnering and funding the university. Reminding alumni of everything they owe to their University experience and getting them to support it. That kind of thing. Also, it seems to be, officially, only 11 days notice.

So the timing of this seems … odd. It kind of undermines the Dark Side’s claim that they can’t afford anything, since the soon-too-be-former VP(Ext) is responsible for some of the most successful fundraising and university profile campaigns ever. It also means that the next VP(Ext) is walking into a powder keg, caught between the Dark Side and the Provincial Government, and the Dark Side and alumni relations, and a very serious discussion of the decline of university standards and the value of the university experience happening all around us. I cannot fathom what the next VP(Ext) is walking into, and that’s just the things I know about. No idea what other forces the VP(Ext) has to balance and manage. Good luck to you, whoever you are.