RAAS Report
RAAS REPORT
A biweekly newsletter from your
Association of Academic Staff
Friday, May 31, 2019
THIS IS SHARED GOVERNANCE
“The distinctive mission of Canadian universities is this notion of
a guild of professors, who are experts in the scholarship, and they
have jurisdiction over the academic direction of the university.”
-SHANNON DEA, quoted in Semley, "Are university campuses where free speech goes to die?” (infra)
Academic staff must play a decisive role in making academic decisions and setting
academic policy if postsecondary institutions are to fulfil their public responsibilities
for the creation, preservation, and transmission of knowledge. This requires that
Canadian universities and colleges have strong systems of shared governance.
Academic staff associations have a role to play in strengthening these systems and
in protecting and fostering the voices of the academic staff within them.
-Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT)
RAAS PRESIDENT’S UPDATE
RAAS was honoured to receive the FAUW Volunteer Appreciation Award on May 21st, 2019. Thank you to everyone who joined us to celebrate! FAUW President Bryan Tolson generously remarked at the award reception that Renison faculty are working hard to ensure they have the same rights that FAUW members have enjoyed for decades.
As President of RAAS, I offered words of thanks on behalf of our members. I noted the tireless support of the FAUW Executive and Staff, as well as the St. Jerome's Executive, since the need for our own faculty association emerged almost two years ago. I also noted the tireless work of RAAS members to ensure that we have a strong association that protects each others' rights and that protects, along with associations across the country, students' opportunity for excellent post-secondary education. Although we stopped to celebrate, the rewarding work continues.
Please be in touch over the spring/summer term should you wish to offer your talents to the RAAS Executive and/or should you need to speak with the RAAS Executive about a pressing concern.
P.S. If you would like a turn with the award — a beautiful blue sculpture — you will need to wrestle it away from Rob Case!
BOARD UPDATE
Your faculty representative on the board was unable to attend the May 29 meeting of the Board of Governors. Reports from that meeting indicate there was a very long discussion of bylaw revisions.
A Bylaw Committee of Academic Council has been working on bylaw revision recommendations, in consultation with faculty members and the RAAS Executive, which they submitted to the Chair of the Board's Governance Committee prior to the board meeting. The Governance Committee brought forward recommendations for a number of bylaw changes (updating job titles and other housekeeping items), which were discussed but not approved. These recommendations have now been tabled for approval at the September meeting of the Board of Governors.
The recommendations from the AC bylaw committee concerning the powers of Academic Council were not included in the recommendations brought to the Board by the Governance Committee. This omission was brought to the Board's attention and generated some discussion. A meeting had already been scheduled between the AC Bylaw Committee and the Board's Governance Committee to discuss these matters, but at this point the recommendations regarding the role of AC in academic decision making do not appear to be included in the recommendations being tabled for consideration at the September board meeting.
LEAD NEGOTIATOR’S UPDATE
Negotiations are progressing, and with agreement being reached on several outstanding proposals at the last two negotiation sessions (May 17 and May 21):
Workload (introduced by RAAS April 16)
Annual review (introduced by RAAS
Promotion & tenure committee (introduced by RAAS Feb. 20)
Promotion & tenure process (introduced by RAAS Jan. 25)
Grievance & arbitration process (introduced by RAAS March 8)
Fees remittance (introduced by RAAS Nov. 30)
Pension and benefits (introduced by Admin Jan. 25)
Vacation (introduced by RAAS May 21)
In the May 21 session, the RAAS team also submitted a new proposal on Leaves of Absence. For the June 10 negotiation session, the RAAS team is preparing its response to the Admin Negotiation Team's May 17 counter-proposal on Discipline, as well as new proposals on Academic Misconduct, Working Conditions, and Chairs & Directors.
While negotiations have been progressing quite well recently, we are receiving consistent signals that the administration will be looking to change the salary scales, annual increases, and salary thresholds are defined. The RAAS team is dedicating significant time and resources over the summer, therefore, to better understand the financial implications and develop our position before we begin negotiating this area of the MoA. The RAAS team's position, to date, has been to maintain consistency in salary and compensation with University of Waterloo and St. Jerome's University.
SATIRE
Ford announces cut to planned cuts, maintains future cuts will not be cut
The Beaverton (May 28, 2019)
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has announced that the retroactive cuts he had previously announced to municipal budgets have been cut, but that the future cuts are uncut.
NOT SATIRE
June 7 Day of Action to Protest Ford Cuts
OCUFA (May 29, 2019)
June 7 marks one year of resisting government cuts to public services, education, health care and decent work. We will be hitting the streets across Ontario to say we didn't vote for that. We'll gather at Waterloo Town Square and march to Kitchener City Hall.
***Join community and labour at the rally and march in Waterloo!***
WHEN
June 07, 2019 at 4pm - 7pm
WHERE
Waterloo Town Square, 75 King St. S., Waterloo, ON
OTHER OCUFA News
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.
Are university campuses where free speech goes to die?
John Semley, The Walrus (May 24, 2019)
"Only scholars can pass judgment on scholars as such,” Kant wrote.
OCUFA (May 23, 2019)
Ontario faculty are concerned that the Ford government intends to interfere in collective bargaining relationships at universities…
Do international students get what they pay for?
BBC News (May 20, 2019)Canada is competing against countries like the UK and US for the minds - and wallets - of international students.
Very troublesome' that Indigenous high school courses won't be mandatoryCBC News (May 22, 2019)
Indigenous courses will not be a mandatory part of the high school curriculum in Ontario — a decision that has angered First Nations members.
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.
FAUW takes part in consultations on public sector compensation
FAUW (May 28, 2019)
The Ontario government is conducting consultations to explore "tools to manage compensation costs” such as "legislated caps on allowable compensation increases that can be negotiated in collective bargaining or imposed in binding arbitration.”
FAUW attended an in-person consultation on May 3 and submitted a written response to the Treasury Board Secretariat last week. We're hearing that the proposed legislation in question may be introduced this week (though the deadline for consultation submissions was only last Friday), in which case it could come into effect as soon as next week.
FEATURE
RAAS Member Profiles
In this issue, we are very pleased to feature ANDREA DALEY, Associate Professor and Director, School of Social Work (SSW)
What brought you to Renison?
I was intrigued by the size of Renison. Having spent a decade in the ‘largeness’ of York University, I was interested in exploring a smaller post-secondary context, thinking about community building at Renison and beyond. I was also very interested in the health focus of the MSW Program given that my program of research is focused on health systems access and (in)equity for 2SLGBTQ+ communities, women living with psychiatric disabilities, and poor communities.
What do you like about Renison?
When I came to Renison for my interview, I was really impressed with its feeling of community — enhanced, I think, by the presence of a student residence. The School of Social Work is firmly connected to community through the field education component of the BSW and MSW Programs, and I have experienced other areas of Renison also being well-connected to community. I hope that during my second year at Renison, I will have more time to explore and build on these connections.
What do you like about RAAS?
I think it's important that faculty and academic interests are formally represented through an MoA. I like that RAAS serves to protect the academic interests of Renison.
What are you passionate about in your work?
I'm passionate about interrogating psychiatry, its relationship to colonization and the ways in which it serves to regulate and discipline sex/gender. I'm passionate about uncovering the ways in which structural violence (racism, homophobia, sanism, classism, etc.) produces distress in people's lives and how this recognition is critical to shifting our thinking about what is ‘disordered’ rather than who is 'disordered.' I'm passionate about working to destabilize psychocentric and individualized accounts of distress that serve to obscure structural violence and hold individuals to be responsible for their distress as well as resolving their distress. I'm passionate about challenging students to think critically about what they have come to understand as "mental illness" ... to shift from wanting to fix people to being passionate about wanting to participate in social transformation.
Could you tell us a 'fun fact' about yourself?
I have a 1997 Fiat Barchetta (see pic below). I bought this car after test driving it on a very snowy, stormy day in February a few years ago. I was fed up with winter and googled "used Miata" in an effort to lift my spirits and the ad for the Barchetta car came up. Done deal. The Barchetta was never imported to North America; only to the UK and Japan (this one came from Japan). What I didn't know is that you can't get parts in North America, so I've become highly skilled at ordering parts from the UK, and in Italy I visit local mechanics before museums and historical sights... I’ve come to know a few Italian mechanics.
Do you have any pets?
I have a beautiful and gentle dog named Ford. He came with the name. Ugh. We've tried calling him other things but as it turns out you really can't teach old dogs... anything. He's about 7 and we've had him for 2 years. Some days we call him 'Mr. Premier,' which he really seems to like. My cat, Cricket, died in March at the age of 15. She's very much missed... especially by Ford.
‘Mr. Premier'
Cricket
1997 Fiat Barchetta