RAAS Report
RAAS REPORT
A biweekly newsletter from your
Association of Academic Staff
Friday, March 8, 2019
Negotiation Update
The RAAS negotiating team met with the Administration Team twice during Reading Week. Updates on specific proposals were provided in the previous newsletter, but academic staff at Renison should be aware that our discussions last week also involved the Administration Team walking us through some projected consequences of the Ford government's 10% cut to tuition fees. Renison's board passed a no-deficit policy a few years ago, and the Administration is thinking now about what our institution should anticipate in terms of reduced revenues and how it can adjust. While there are other areas of the budget where savings can be found, the RAAS negotiating team is taking the financial presentation as a signal from the Administrative team that this development will be brought up again in the course of negotiations.
The next negotiation session takes place on Friday March 7. RAAS is currently working on new proposals describing the Grievance and Arbitration, Appointments, and Salary & Workload.
Remembering Rob
This is what Rob Case used to do before becoming VP and Lead Negotiator for RAAS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO2YrBQljFE
CAUT NEWS
RAAS is a member of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), a nation-wide association of our peers. CAUT fees are included in RAAS membership dues each month.
James Compton, CAUT Bulletin (February, 2019)
Taxes, populist common sense, and the value of a university
(March 1, 2019)
Members of the Faculty Union of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (FUNSCAD) set up picket lines after negotiation with their employer reached an impasse.
OCUFA News
[with thanks to Ben Lewis at OCUFA]
RAAS is a member of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), a province-wide association of our peers. OCUFA fees are included in RAAS dues each month.
Universities should not depend on international students for revenue
Academica Group (March 5, 2019)
UPEI professor Tim Goddard tells the Guardian that diplomatic disputes with countries like China and Saudi Arabia can pose risks for Canadian universities.
Record-high international student enrolment
Larry Kusch, Winnipeg Free Press (March 2, 2019)
Manitoba welcomed a record number of international students last year, with enrolment in schools and post-secondary institutions reaching 18,725, an increase of 17 percent.
High university drop-out rate in Maritimes worries student advocates
Shaina Luck, CBC News (March 4, 2019)
As university administrators met with Nova Scotia government representatives Monday to discuss the future of post-secondary education, student advocates were raising concerns about the large number of students that drop out without graduating.
National survey to shed light on postsecondary student homelessness
Matthew Halliday, University Affairs (March 4, 2019)
UNB professor Eric Weissman is leading a study to bring the issue of student homelessness out of the shadows.
Anna McKie, Times Higher Education (March 1, 2019)
Academics have criticized plans for Oxford’s new graduate college, which they say is a push from central management to diminish the collegiate system. In a break from centuries of tradition, they say central administration will control it.
Supporting mature female students enrolling in university STEM programs
Liette Vasseur, University Affairs (March, 2019)
“Women face many barriers when it comes to post-secondary education, and this is especially true in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) ... These barriers are even higher for mature female students.”
Overworked and isolated: the rising epidemic of loneliness in academia
Olivier Sibai, Bernardo Figueiredo, and Marcia Christina Ferreira, University Affairs (March, 2019)
“[A] UK survey has found 46% of researchers feel lonely at work. Social isolation is particularly common among early career academics – 64% of PhD candidates report such feelings ...”
FAUW News
We are grateful to the Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo (FAUW) for providing support to RAAS and its members in accordance with our service agreement.
Dues Collected by FAUW Are Tax Deductible
Here are some instructions for finding your tax slip on Workday.
How Collegial Governance Works at UW
George Freeman (March 7, 2019) [excerpt]
The University of Waterloo is organized on a bicameral model. Loosely, this means that our Board of Governors looks after the institution as a nonprofit corporation with an annual cash flow of about a billion dollars, and our Senate looks after the institution as an educational community of about 40,000 scholars (faculty, students, many staff).
It’s not a total separation of interests, however. To manage finances and risk, our Board must know the higher-education sector, its value and values, its trends, and Waterloo’s distinctive roles in it. To manage academic programs and policies, our Senate must promote academic initiatives that show an attractive cost-benefit and risk-reward tradeoff. Tensions are part of the model: autonomy versus dependence, academic freedom versus responsibility, individual versus group ambitions, etc.
Power is largely decentralized at Waterloo, especially between our centre and the six faculties. Students, faculty members, and most academically involved staff are not unionized. Our policy and procedures framework is relatively sparse. If anything can be said to be built into the Waterloo DNA, it is our desire to plan and solve problems without a lot of bureaucratic overhead. One result of this is that the routes to change are not always immediately obvious.
FAUW’s relationship with the University is defined in the Memorandum of Agreement but made operational through the Faculty Relations Committee (FRC). Like a union, we negotiate salary in a highly structured way every few years. Unlike a union, we negotiate almost everything else through discussions that happen every two weeks (September to June) at FRC. That committee has ten representatives, five from FAUW and five from the administration. I ended up serving almost continuously for about eleven years on FRC (spanning two university presidents, seven provosts, and five FAUW presidents) over which period I learned a lot about FRC. The one constant is a need to continue productive conversations.
Trust and respect have to be maintained across different personalities and across issues where interests and passions may align or not. Mostly, the spirit is one of engaged problem solving. Mostly, the solutions involve adapting to change in rational ways. Mostly, we strive to avoid policy or procedure overhead. This arrangement is precious and rather unique to Waterloo, and, in my opinion, serves as an ideal model of collegial governance.
FEATURE
RAAS Member Profiles
In this issue, we are very pleased to feature Lifang Wang,
Lecturer in Social Development Studies (SDS)
What brought you to Renison?
I came to Renison in 2017 to teach SDS 215R: Education and Social Development from a Global Perspective, a course in which students explore how education contributes to social development, peace, sustainability, gender equity, and social justice. I enjoyed that teaching experience and stayed on to teach more courses.
What do you like about Renison?
I like Renison's inclusive and multidisciplinary community, especially the fact that its students come from various cultural backgrounds and countries of origin.
What do you like about RAAS?
I am excited and proud to be part of RAAS. I like it because it enables the academic staff at Renison to build solidarity and express a collective voice to reach common goals.
What are you passionate about in your work?
My passion is to help other people flourish and succeed. In my academic work, I am passionate about understanding how education can promote social justice. I feel happy and fulfilled when I can support student success through teaching.
Could you tell us a 'fun fact' about yourself?
Since 2015, I have attended five 10-day meditation courses at Ontario Vipassana Centre and periodically volunteered to serve meditators. Now I am a serious meditator!
Do you have any pets?
Not yet. I look forward to having one when an opportunity arises, as I grew up with a cat, Huahua, who kept me company. Below is a picture featuring Huahua, my younger sister, and myself, which was taken in 2000.