RAAS Report
RAAS REPORT
A special edition from your
Association of Academic Staff
Friday, May 29, 2020
RAAS PRESIDENT’S UPDATE
I hope this RAAS Report finds you all safe and well in these complicated and stressful times. The ‘oompah-loompahs’ behind the RAAS Report would ordinarily be on hiatus for the spring/summer term. But these are extraordinary times. They’ve agreed to issue a special edition of the RAAS Report at the end of May, June, July, and August. RAAS will send more information by email than usual. This information, often forwarded from CAUT and OCUFA, is meant to assist us all in understanding the norms of the sector in relation to the situation at Renison.
As most of you know, President Fletcher made a public announcement during the Town Hall on Wednesday, May 27 that she wanted faculty to consider participating in the WorkShare program. We are unclear why this request was made in the Town Hall before being brought to the union through the proper processes. We cannot comment on this request as of yet because we must do our due diligence as a union to understand what is being asked of faculty, what aspects of our work the administration considers us unable to do due to COVID-19, and how faculty members and Chairs and Directors feel about it.
As for the suggestion of individuals donating a portion of their salary back to Renison, some RAAS members have been asking about this since the beginning of the crisis, but were told that while it would be possible to donate to a "Staff Emergency Fund", it would not be possible to contribute towards alleviating the deficit. We are determining if faculty members can in fact do this if they wish.
Our next steps are to seek further information by engaging with the administration, Chairs and Directors, and with our members. You can anticipate hearing more from us on this issue, and possibly calling an emergency meeting in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, RAAS would like to stress the importance of advocating for and engaging in collegial governance at Renison. OCUFA and CAUT have signalled worrying trends in post-secondary institutions that decisions about academic programs are being made without the participation of faculty members and their unions. Please look back in your emails for specific information forwarded on this issue. For Renison, it is vital that our Academic Council be part of the decision-making processes concerning our academic programs this coming year and onward. Please take every appropriate opportunity to participate in making decisions regarding the conditions for student learning, which are inevitably tied to our conditions of work.
Lastly, the RAAS Executive has been working on a series of policy proposals with administration to address the changing circumstances for faculty during COVID. You will have received past correspondence about support for faculty regarding your professional allowance, teaching evaluations, parking, and more. Since our last meeting, we have worked on proposals regarding DTL supports and Sabbaticals. Please find below the proposals that were accepted by the administration and those that were rejected.
As always, please be in touch with any member of the RAAS Executive should you have an issue that RAAS needs to consider or if you have ideas/questions.
AGREED re: SABBATICALS:
RAAS requests that anyone with a planned sabbatical that has not yet started has an opportunity to cancel their sabbatical. This applies to both those who have an upcoming approved sabbatical and those who have applied for a sabbatical. Faculty who cancel their sabbatical will not lose credits towards future sabbatical(s). The request to reschedule a cancelled sabbatical requires approval by the VPAD. Teaching assignments upon cancelling a sabbatical is a department-level decision.
*Please note we were awaiting the Dean’s announcement on this, but we believe that he may have asked Chairs and Directors to convey the message. RAAS’ request about sabbaticals is in keeping with FAUW: https://uwaterloo.ca/faculty-association/information-faculty/coronavirus-updates. We caution any faculty member considering a deferral of their sabbatical that any rescheduling date is dependent upon approval by the VPAD and may not be approved due to budgetary issues. We have been encouraged that President Fletcher acknowledges sabbaticals are an important part of faculty work. RAAS has encouraged the administration to continue to support sabbaticals.
AGREED re: DTLs:
A DTL who is not renewed in the Spring and Fall 2020 terms would have a note in their HR file indicating that their employment will be considered continuous for the purposes of potential future consideration for CL positions as long as they are rehired to another DTL position at Renison within 12 months of the end of their current contract.
The Dean is pursuing with UW that a DTL who is not renewed in the Spring and Fall 2020 terms will have continued access to email and library resources.
REJECTED BY ADMINISTRATION re: DTLs:
A DTL who is not renewed in the Spring and Fall 2020 terms would have a note in their HR file indicating that their employment will be considered continuous for the purposes of potential future consideration for CL positions as long as they are rehired to another DTL position at Renison within 36 months of the end of their current contract.
A DTL who is not renewed in the Spring and Fall 2020 terms due to these unusual circumstances will be provided with a first right of consideration should a similar DTL position be opened within the next 3 years. *Please note we were asking for first right of consideration and not first right of refusal.
A DTL member who is not renewed in the Spring and Fall 2020 terms will receive first right of consideration should courses previously taught by the DTL member be required for sessional instruction within the next 3 years. *Please note we were asking for first right of consideration and not first right of refusal.
A DTL member who has a current contract with no anticipated disruption, will be considered for an automatic one-year extension for their terms.
Kristina Llewellyn
RAAS President
NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE
At the request of the Admin team, due to the complications caused by COVID-19, there have been no negotiation meetings since February 28. Two online negotiation sessions have now been set for June. In the meantime, the RAAS team has emailed some proposals to the Admin team that needed to be updated with certification (recognition, dues collection, and no strikes/lockouts), and responded by email to an admin proposal on pregnancy and parental leaves. We have also prepared responses to Admin proposals on program redundancy, financial exigency and lay-offs/terminations related to financial exigency. We are awaiting responses from the Admin team on our proposals onlibrarian and discipline articles, and for a response to our request to re-open an article on appointments in order to address a Lecturer continuity issue presented by the wording the two sides agreed to previously.
We have requested some financial information from Admin to support our analyses related to upcoming negotiations on compensation, and received confirmation on April 30 that the information would be forthcoming for the confidential use of the RAAS negotiation team.
Rob Case
RAAS Lead Negotiator
BOARD UPDATE
The Board met on May 28. The Board passed a motion unanimously expressing confidence in and gratitude for Wendy's leadership through these difficult times. The Board affirmed an accounting recommendation that Renison consider itself a public university or college by Canada Revenue Agency definition (i.e., not private), and therefore not eligible for the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy program. The Board received financial updates, enrolment projects, and updates on Work-Share and other items shared with the broader Renison community at the Town Hall earlier in the day.
The Business Recovery Task Force, comprised of Wendy, Kofi, Tanya, Keely, Jim, Ashton Romany (Board Treasurer), Peter Ringrose, Mike Reed, and Mario Coniglio, has met once. Emerging from that group, Wendy brought forward the question, for Board discussion, of whether Renison is a teaching college or a research institution. The question was presented as relevant to business recovery since research costs Renison money in course releases, research funds, sabbatical, etc. and does not generate any revenues for Renison.
The Faculty Board Rep (Rob) reminded the Board that current tenure-track faculty have been hired (and have received Annual Reviews, promotions and tenure) on a 40:40:20 workload contracts, and that a change in direction would constitute a major change in working conditions. Board members who contributed to the discussion emphasized the importance of research to teaching (and service) in a university college. One Board member raised the question of whether it is fair that research is supported/remunerated in tenure track positions, when it is not in the case of teaching-only positions, many of which are concentrated in the non-degree programs. The discussion was left as an open-ended exploration of Renison's identity.
Rob Case
Faculty Representative
SATIRE
Spine of woman crouched in front of laptop achieves Golden Ratio
Ghazal Ghiami, The Beaverton (May 14, 2020)
In the act of crouching over her laptop for hours on end, Salma Kuchis managed to finally curl her spine perfectly into the approximation of the Golden Ratio. “Here I was thinking that today was gonna turn out just like any other day!” enthused the 29 year-old woman.
NOT SATIRE
If We Had a Real Leader: Imagining COVID-19 under a Normal President
David Brooks, New York Times (May 29, 2020)
If we had a real leader, she would speak of the dead not as a faceless mass but as individual persons, each seen in unique dignity. Such a leader would draw on the common sources of our civilization, the stores of wisdom that bring collective strength in hard times.
CAUT NEWS
RAAS is a member of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), a nation-wide association of our peers.
REMOTE TEACHING DURING COVID-19
CAUT (May 22, 2020)
As universities and colleges develop plans for the 2020-21 academic year, many are preparing for the continuation of remote instruction either fully or in part. The initial pivot to remote teaching in March 2020 was a specific response to an immediate and urgent public health situation arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. As institutions now focus on longer-term planning, decisions about the 2020-21 academic year, including the mode of course delivery, should be made in consultation with academic staff associations, and respect collegial governance processes and collective agreements.
OCUFA NEWS
RAAS is a member of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), a province-wide association of our peers.
The ‘law’ that explains why you can't get anything done
Tiffanie Wen, BBC News (May 28, 2020)
One scholar who has taken a serious look at Parkinson’s Law is Stefan Thurner, a professor in Science of Complex Systems at the Medical University of Vienna. Thurner says he became interested in the concept when the faculty of medicine at the University of Vienna split into its own independent university in 2004. Within a couple years, he says, the Medical University of Vienna went from being run by 15 people to 100, while the number of scientists stayed about the same.
Katherine Keown, Timmins Times (May 22, 2020)
“We’re two separate corporations, two separate legal entities. What we share in common are these courses and these students,” he said. “Thorneloe has absolute authority to determine whether it’ll fund a program or not. What Laurentian will have is a program with no one teaching in it and no students in it. The senate will have no choice then to keep it open on the books, or to close it.”
Unions and Joint Health and Safety Committees must be involved in planning return to campus
OCUFA News (May 26, 2020)
OCUFA, along with other members of the Ontario Universities and Colleges Coalition, sent the following letter to Minister of Colleges and Universities Ross Romano and Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development Monte McNaughton…
UWOFA statement on proposed Western University partnership with Navitas
UWOFA (May 27, 2020)
Western University has been in discussions to forge a partnership with the private education services provider Navitas Ltd. to recruit and educate international students. The proposed deal with this multinational, for-profit company would create new so-called “pathways” for entry to Western for some students from abroad who do not meet our first year entrance standards.
OCUFA calls on university administrations to embrace collegial governance structures
Academica Group (May 27, 2020)
The Ontario Council of University Faculty Association President Rahul Sapra has released a statement calling on schools to ensure that decision-making and future planning efforts include senates, academic councils, and faculty. While the letter notes that universities have and will continue to play important roles in helping the province recover, there are concerns that university administrations may be circumventing democratic, transparent, and accountable collegial governance practices.
The University of Guelph is hiking tuition for international students amid COVID-19
Nicholas Keung, Toronto Star (May 28, 2020)
The University of Guelph has significantly raised its tuition for international students — a move critics say could force some to quit and leave Canada. International students say the fee hike is particularly unfair in the middle of a pandemic, when university courses are being delivered online with no end in sight, and while students and their families are struggling financially as a result of the economic slowdown.
Our dismal relationship with China just got a whole lot worse
Chris Hall, CBC News (May 28, 2020)
Relations between Canada and China are arguably at their lowest point since the prime minister's father was prime minister and established diplomatic ties back in the early 1970s. The ruling already has led to warnings about blowback from Beijing…
FAUW NEWS
RAAS has a service agreement with the Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo (FAUW), a campus-wide association of our peers.
Notes from FAUW’s May 21 Board meeting
Here's what happened at our last Board meeting:
We heard about the updates Bryan Tolson (FAUW president) is getting about the Integrated Co-ordination and Planning Committee (pandemic response) discussions.
We talked about some of our major pandemic-related concerns (now itemized on our website), including the role of Senate in deciding things like whether the Registrar's Office will schedule meet times for the fall term or not (spoiler alert: we think this should be a Senate decision).
The CEPT2 and CTAPT motions both passed at Senate. Bryan voted against the CEPT2 update. We're very happy about the support for CTAPT at Senate and that Waterloo now has a strong, public mandate to use means other than student surveys in evaluating teaching quality.
We discussed our recent member survey about preparing for spring and fall teaching. The results of that are on our website now: COVID-19 member survey results. We are particularly concerned that, at the time of the survey (May 8–13), 71% of respondents teaching in the fall said it was not clear to them how decisions were being made about how their courses should be delivered.
We formally adopted the position that student course perception surveys for spring 2020 should be used only at the discretion of instructors, as was the case for winter 2020. We’ll be advocating for that position with the administration. We're also starting to talk about how to address 2020 performance reviews, overall. That's with our Equity Committee now.
We talked about the various challenges the library is having in responding to the needs of researchers and students while buildings are closed and books are not circulating. FAUW is grateful to our colleagues in the library for all the difficult work they are doing in enabling our members' work.
We got an update about T2200 tax forms and claiming office expenses. The update is that there will be an update from the University at the end of this week.