At a press conference in Halifax on August 29 "Rationalization of the Nova Scotia Universities" was released -- a CAUT commissioned report that criticizes the Nova Scotia Government's rationalization of the province's universities between 1991 and 1996.

The authors of the report concluded the rationalization exercise was illconceived, consumed immense quantities of the time and energy of administrators, staff, and faculty, and yielded only minor benefits. It produced a paper blizzard that suggested a lack of clarity from beginning to end. The CAUT report suggested this was a classic example of top-down management and bureaucratic overkill. "In Nova Scotia," they said, "an old-fashioned bureaucratic model characterized by a strict hierarchy held sway." Those in charge assumed amalgamations and the like would necessarily make academic sense and save money. But, they noted, "in the age of the Internet and the web site people do not all have to be herded into one place in order to do creative work . . . Consequently it seems odd that just as the computer seems likely to dissolve old-fashioned bureaucracies, the Nova Scotia Government developed a love affair for them."

One of the problems, the authors suggest, was the widespread view in the university community that the Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education (NSCHE), which was responsible for the rationalization exercise, ". . . operated as a section of the Department of Education, but pretended otherwise, thereby raising suspicions about the process of rationalization." Coopers and Lybrand eventually recommended that this de facto situation become a legal reality -- a result almost unanimously opposed by the university community which wanted an independent agency to give fair-minded advice to the government.

A set of subject reviews took place during this period. The CAUT report found difficulty in accepting the value of these reviews, for it was never clear to participants whether the criterion was merit or political/bureaucratic expediency. The report suggests the solutions -- particularly in the review of education -- were political. Universities that recognized this from the start did better in the rationalization sweepstakes. Nor was it clear whether reviews would be backed by serious academic research. Those who assumed these reviews were research exercises sometimes found, too late, how wrong they were.

The report also found the education review itself to be unfair because it allowed the stakeholders in the school system to make public written representations about the teacher training programs in universities and then to give quite different views in private interviews without those affected knowing about the private criticisms. The authors thought the decision to close the school of education at Dalhousie was influenced by those private interviews. Over the years some members of the school had been critical of primary and secondary schooling in Nova Scotia. The authors found many Nova Scotians thought Dalhousie was being punished for its radical past. This was both unfair and signaled to university researchers in Nova Scotia that they might better devote themselves to the defence of the status quo rather than risk offending powerful interests who might counterattack in any future rationalization. This, said CAUT, is an unfortunate message.

The transition in education was also unfair. Dr. Bernard Shapiro, chair of the education review, originally recommended all permanent faculty affected should have the option of moving to new amalgamated centres or of being bought out. Faculty were stampeded by the offer of buyouts -- but without guarantees of future employment if they turned down the offers. In the event, no real choice was involved.

No one comes out terribly well in the eyes of the authors of the report. The presidents of the universities dropped the ball at the beginning of the nineties and invited government interference they rapidly came to regret. The faculty associations and CAUT were effectively sidelined and unable to do enough to defend the interests of members caught in the bureaucratic whirlwind. The NSCHE created a bureaucratic monster that sucked up the energies of the university system for more than five years with only minimally useful results. Although the government was devoted to cutting higher education budgets, it never bothered to find the true net savings (if any) produced by its efforts. This is especially peculiar if one adds in the annual costs of creating a Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education, in light of the fact there already is a longstanding Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission. Furthermore no one appears to have estimated the cost in person hours of all those administrators and faculty who prepared responses to the endless requests of the Council.

The authors offer advice for the future. To academic staff across the country, they say that there is no substitute for strong, politically astute and active representation on behalf of faculty in Ottawa and the provincial capitals.

To ministers responsible for higher education, they suggest that if a minister wants program amalgamation or its like, he or she should say so from the outset. The minister should then set up a truly independent and purpose-driven public commission to do research, to hear the interested parties, to give advice on whether it is a good idea, and, if appropriate, to suggest practical options. That advice and the decision of the minister should be debated in the legislature and in the province within a reasonable time. Then the government should make a decision for which it will take responsibility vis-à-vis the electorate at the next election.

CAUT twice circulated the report to the interested parties. Janet Halliwell (former chair of the Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education) preferred to debate with the authors the methodology of the report rather than to comment on the specifics, except to say that the report was flawed and that the speedy timetable was dictated by the Minister and not by her or her Council. In February 1997 the acting president of the Council Marilyn Gaudet also refused to comment, saying that she disagreed with the process and conclusions. Nova Scotia Education Minister Robert S. Harrison took the same position. Professor David Cameron, interim chair of the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, wrote that the report was "offensive, inaccurate, and insulting" and could best be described as "figments of a vile imagination." None offered any corrections of fact.

On the other hand, the former president of St. Francis Xavier University, David J. Lawless, wrote: "Generally, I believe the report has merit and I particularly endorse the concluding remarks that the education review was a 'horrible example'." However, he did think that the report, like the whole process, was mainly focused on the Halifax universities and that the course of the rationalization exercise may well have been heavily influenced by the war between Saint Mary's and Dalhousie over the development of business administration.

The president of the faculty association at Université Sainte Anne wrote that the report "...articulated many of our complaints and frustrations, for example with the secrecy and the heavy-handedness of the process (which was painfully in evidence on our campus) ... I also identify with the frustrations of those who worked hard on internal evaluations, visions and mission statements, only to have them brushed aside."

There was an informal meeting of the Nova Scotia faculty associations after the press conference. It was agreed that they would meet formally at the CAUT Council meeting in November to consider what actions might follow from the report.