University Affairs - December 2016

constituent parts work together to create the best, most effective and, yes, efficient universe or environment for meeting the needs of students and society. The job requires years of experience and a strong sense of purpose. Academic administrators do not take these positions to become budget gatekeepers; they take them because they care deeply about the societal and personal benefits of higher education. Believe it or not, they also care deeply about advancing knowledge and the careers of the professoriate.

To be clear, senior administrators and boards are hardly blameless for this strained relationship. Indeed, one probable answer to why faculty opt for non-confidence votes is that they have been so disillusioned with perceived or real administrative dictates, perfunctory or non-existent consultations, or poor communication, that they feel powerless in their senates or have lost interest in participating at all. Unfortunately, the sins of one generation of administrators are often visited on the next, whether deserved or not. And presidents and provosts are not always in sync in responding to the early signs of faculty discontent. This lack of consistency undermines efforts to address the root causes of faculty grievances.

This is a plea to faculty to stop shooting the messenger just because they don’t like or don’t understand the message, and to become involved in solving the difficult financial situations most universities face. This is also a plea to boards to gain a better understanding of how universities work, and to appreciate the strengths of their particular university. I urge them also to advocate for the social value of higher education to the public and to government.

Yes, we need to attend to the required job skills and applied research
objectives of today, but we cannot – we must not – sacrifice the future needs
of society and the resilience of students to adapt to these changing needs.
When governments, boards and the public put all their attention and
funding on short-term skills development, when they contemplate lim-
iting student choices, they are mortgaging Canada’s future. This is also a
plea to senior administrators – presidents and provosts – to overcome their
differences and speak as one voice. To faculty, administrators and board
members, I say it’s time to press the reset button. We need to work together,
but first we need to talk. Here’s what we need to talk about:

Funding

We need to come to an understanding that we are working within real financial constraints. No conspiracy theories. We need solutions for living within our means in the short term, while securing a long-term commitment from the public to appropriately fund each institution relative to its mission.

Academic freedom

We need consensus on what it is, what it is not, and why it’s important to get it right. Boards and the public have only a vague understanding of what academic freedom means beyond the notion that in a free, democratic society it is not an issue. Faculty associations need to stop invoking infringement of academic freedom and throwing up a wall every time an administrator proposes changes to course delivery. The bigger danger to academic freedom lies in a university’s inability to bring solutions to its stakeholders. (Witness the recent actions of state legislators in Wisconsin and California in the affairs of flagship state universities.) Faculty resistance to belt-tightening even as many other sectors suffer under a sluggish economy – particularly when played out in the media – diminishes the value of universities and the moral authority of university professors in society.

Clarifying roles and informed governance

The distinction between labour relations advocacy and university governance has become muddied in recent years. Faculty association representatives sit in senates and on senate committees, as do individual faculty representatives. Why? What is the difference between them in this context?