RAAS Report
RAAS REPORT
A biweekly newsletter from your
Association of Academic Staff
Friday, December 6, 2019
RAAS PRESIDENT'S UPDATE
Welcome to our newest members! RAAS is now 43 members strong. As we heard from members during the recent membership meeting, faculty are feeling more supported and understood by their colleagues thanks to RAAS.
We have been fortunate to have the solidarity of our peers on campus through the faculty associations at UW, St. Jerome’s, and across the country through OCUFA and CAUT. At our membership meeting, we voted in favour of demonstrating our own solidarity in two important ways: (1) by providing $250 in financial support for UNBC faculty who have been on strike for 3 weeks (see story below); and (2) by providing two young people with minimum wage compensation for their childcare work, in solidarity with members of the OSSTF/ETFO during their one-day strike on Wednesday.
RAAS is calling for a volunteer to sit on the FAUW Council of Representatives. Council members serve as an important point of communication between FAUW and the general membership across the disciplines/areas. The Council is a group composed of the FAUW Board and one rep from each UW department and school. As the RAAS President, I am an ex-officio member of the FAUW Board and thus also a member of the FAUW Council of Reps. Given my role on the negotiating team and my meetings with CAUT, I have requested to designate a RAAS member in my place. The Council meets once a term and receives electronic communications more frequently. You would be expected to report on the Council as appropriate RAAS meetings. Please email me at kristina.llewellyn@uwaterloo.ca if you would be willing to serve on the Council as the RAAS representative.
NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE
We have a full-day negotiation session scheduled for December 11. Negotiations stalled a bit in our last session with disagreement on some fundamental principles, but the RAAS team is confident that we will have found suitable compromises to progress in our December 11 session. The following table lists proposals being negotiated.
BOARD UPDATE
The November Board meeting was quite uneventful, and the December board meeting has been cancelled due to a lack of pressing business. The Board will reconvene In January with three new members, with Brian Hendley as the new Chair, and with Karen Spencer as the new Vice-Chair.
The November Board meeting included an in-camera session to receive updates on negotiations from their Lead Negotiator, Kathryn Meehan. Because of his other role as Association Lead Negotiator, the faculty representative on the Board agreed to recuse himself from that segment of the meeting.
SATIRE
Honest Latin Mottoes for Your Overrated University
Dani Bostick, McSweeney’s (August 29, 2017)
NOT SATIRE
Vision, Values, and Branding—Universities as Corporate Caricatures
Henning Schroeder, Academe Blog (December 2, 2109)
I wonder if the public is aware of the endless hours faculty spend in committees to come up with vision, mission, value (VMV) statements when this time could instead be spent doing research, which, ironically, is supposed to be objective and value-free…
OCUFA NEWS
RAAS is a member of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), a province-wide association of our peers.
Women in engineering: Barriers remain 30 years after École Polytechnique shooting
Wendy Cukier, The Conversation (December 3, 2019)
The 30th anniversary of the Montréal Massacre is an opportunity to reflect on what has changed after three decades of advocacy on violence against women, on gun control and on women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Gun control: It's been 30 years since the massacre, so if not now then when?
Heidi Rathjen, CBC News (Dec 06, 2019)
This is an op-ed piece by Heidi Rathjen, a graduate of École Polytechnique in Montreal and coordinator of Poly Remembers. She was in a nearby study room when a gunman killed 14 women and injured 14 other people on Dec. 6, 1989.
Wages, class sizes and online courses: What’s behind the rift with high school teachers
Caroline Alphonso, Globe and Mail (December 4, 2019)
Ontario’s public high schools shuttered on Wednesday as teachers and support workers walked the picket lines, the first province-wide strike in more than two decades. Contracts for all education unions in the province expired at the end of August, and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation has expressed frustration in reaching a new deal with the provincial government.
New agreements reached at Trent, Western, and Laurier
OCUFA News (December 3, 2019)
Several faculty associations reached new agreements with their employers in the recent weeks and months.
UNBC Faculty Association ends picketing, files Labour Board complaint
Academica Group (December 3, 2019)
The University of Northern British Columbia’s Faculty Association announced Friday the removal of pickets but indicated that job action will continue in the form of a withdrawal of internal committee service.
Manitoba introduces bill to make collective bargaining more flexible, responsive
Academica Group (December 2, 2109)
The Manitoba government has introduced new legislation that would enable more flexible and responsive collective bargaining processes for public-sector employers and employees.
CAUT NEWS
RAAS is a member of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), a nation-wide association of our peers.
Laurentian University administration violated academic freedom
Lisa Keller, CAUT News (November 21, 2019)
The Laurentian University Faculty Association (LUFA) has won an important legal battle in asserting the right to academic freedom across the country. In December 2015, Dr. Michael Persinger was abruptly removed from teaching a psychology course after the administration received a student complaint. An arbitrator concluded that the administration violated the late professor’s rights.
CAUT Survey of Academic Staff at Canadian Universities
Please help CAUT spread the word about an important survey in the field until today, December 6, 2019. The survey will provide an overview of career experiences and barriers to career advancement for academic staff working at Canadian universities, colleges and polytechnics. CAUT, the Tri-Council granting agencies, the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), Statistics Canada, and other post-secondary education sector stakeholders jointly sponsor this survey. The survey will provide invaluable information on barriers facing researchers and academic staff, helping inform policy and practice to improve equity, diversity and inclusion in research.
More information about the survey can be found online here: https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/survey/household/5299
For further information, please contact Andrea Stuart, Policy & Government Relations Officer, at stuart@caut.ca
FAUW NEWS
RAAS has a service agreement with the Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo (FAUW), a campus-wide association of our peers.
A Message from Dan Brown, president-elect
Over the past several years, I’ve learned how much FAUW serves the Waterloo community. In advocating for our salaries and benefits, working to ensure fair employment conditions, and helping found an equitable and ethical campus community, FAUW’s staff, board, committee members and representatives, and volunteers are the basis of so much that is good about Waterloo.
We are at a particularly challenging moment. The provincial government slashed tuition, and threatens to force us to accept pay raises below the rate of inflation, and tries to re-enact forced retirement. We need Waterloo, and FAUW in particular, to advocate for academic freedom, collegial governance, and institutional independence. We also need all parts of campus to thrive amidst the chaos; we can’t weather the storm by worsening conditions for vulnerable faculty or Faculties.
My administrative background includes both extensive service in my unit (as Acting Director for six months, Associate Director for two years, and Undergrad Director for over four years), as FAUW Treasurer since 2016, and as a member of FAUW’s Status of Women and Equity Committee (now the Equity Committee) from 2010 to 2014. I served on Senate for six years, and was Waterloo’s academic colleague to the Council of Ontario Universities at the end of my Senate term. Because of my administrative service, I understand many of the motivations of administrators, while still having an eye for FAUW’s priorities and chief values.
I look forward to bringing my experience and passion while serving as FAUW president.
FAUW Lecturers Committee Meeting: A Brief Synopsis
Aga Wolzcuk (December 1, 2019)
Committee members congratulated Dan Brown on being elected as the next FAUW president.
In her report, Su-Yin Tan, Committee Chair, stated the Policy 76 Revision Committee Chair might need only one extra meeting to complete the revised draft of this policy. Tan clarified that the revisions related to sabbaticals for lecturers will not be addressed in this draft because it is UW Policy 3 that deals with sabbaticals. Tan also reported that she is planning to visit McMaster University to talk to some sessional instructors and possibly to some teaching faculty.
Afterwards, Committee members discussed some specific pathways and actions needed to complete the main objectives for this academic year, including better connection and community among lecturers; appropriate representation and voice in University governance; clearly defined and consistent career progression for lecturers; an opportunity to do research for all lecturers; salary equity; connecting with the CTE and Office of Research to express a concern about ineligibility for LITE grants; [and] monitoring histograms in relation to merit assessment for lecturers. […]
FAUW Events This Month
Laura McDonald, FAUW Blog (December 3, 2019)
Nov 25–Dec 6 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence
December 3 New mandatory accessibility training launches
December 6 National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
December 10 Webinar: A Health Promoting Campus
Dec. 10 & 17 Performance Conversations workshops
December 11 Waterloo Women’s Wednesdays potluck: 12–1:30 in EIT 3142
Ongoing Research ethics drop-ins: 10–12 on Wednesdays until December 18
**Happy Holidays from RAAS**
RAAS Report will resume in January…