The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) will launch its Canada-wide "Days of Action" Oct. 13 to 16 to protest skyrocketing tuition fees.

Members of the University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA) have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike vote if there is an impasse in negotiations 14 days after the resumption of collective bargaining.

Your September 1998 issue raises a concern which is all the more serious as the media are reporting Health Canada to be embroiled in similar problems. Researchers are the only people qualified to test medical procedures and drugs, and their willingness to blow the whistle safeguards the health of Canadians.

The selection committee for the J.H. Stewart Reid Memorial Fellowship is pleased to announce that Van Nguyen-Marshall has been awarded the Fellowship for 1998-99. Ms. Nguyen-Marshall is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, where she obtained her MA degree in history. Her field of study is Vietnamese history. Her PhD dissertation "Poverty and Poverty Relief in Northern Vietnam (1883-1945)" will focus on the perceptions of poverty and practices of poverty relief during the period of French colonialism in Vietnam's history. Ms. Nguyen-Marshall hopes to make teaching and researching Southeast Asian history her life's career.

Earlier this summer, after a month of intensive bargaining, the University of Northern British Columbia Faculty Association reached an accord with the board of governors on their second collective agreement. Members of the faculty association voted 87 per cent in favour of the new contract, which is effective from July 1, 1998 to June 30, 2001. Highlights include a 1 per cent wage increase after 20 months, a 1.5 per cent lump sum in the third year, and a new method of calculating teaching workload (by contact hour). Other terms of the new agreement feature improved job security for contract instructors who have been employed at UNBC for four years, a streamlined complaint and grievance procedure, improvement to the promotion and tenure process, and inclusion of both lab instructors and regional chairs.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board handed down its decision on May 26 ruling in favour of the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association that full-time and part-time faculty should be in a single bargaining unit. As reported in the April issue of the Bulletin, full-time and part-time faculty at the University of Western Ontario voted 65 per cent in favour of certification. With the newly ascertained trade union status the parties were left to resolve whether or not full-time and part-time faculty should form a single bargaining unit or two separate units.

The Memorandum of Agreement ratified by the Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo and the board of governors this past May and June contained a proposal to introduce a Rand Formula at the University of Waterloo. At present approximately 63% of the faculty at the university are dues-paying members of the faculty association. Whatever costs are incurred by the faculty association in representing the interests of all faculty members are borne only by those who (voluntarily) pay membership dues. Under the Rand Formula, faculty who do not wish to become faculty association members will pay an amount equivalent to membership dues. Faculty members are being asked to vote by Oct. 15 on the issue of the Rand Formula.

On Sept. 8, members of the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa ratified a three-year agreement which will expire in 2001. The settlement includes the following provisions:

A three-year agreement, expiring Aug. 31, 2001, has been reached between full-time college professors, counsellors and librarians represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, and the Ontario Council of Regents of Applied Arts and Technology.

The call for more scholarly work on the professoriate is beginning to sound like the adage that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. Anthony Potts' College Academics acknowledges this gap in the study of higher education by asking penetrating questions about the identity of the academic in a specific social, historical, economic, and political milieu.

University revenue from government grants and contracts declined again in 1996/97. Revenue from government sources fell 6.9% from a year earlier and 14.1% over the previous five years. These declines were partially offset by both increased revenue from student fees and bequests, donations and non-government grants. Overall, however, university revenue fell by 1.4% in 1996/97.

Russel Ogden, a successful M.A. candidate at Simon Fraser University, braved a contempt of court charge in order to protect the confidentiality of his research sources and uphold the broader principles of academic freedom.