Moncton's faculty and librarians ratified a new agreement on April 6 after five weeks on the picket line. They won a salary increase of just under 15 per cent over four years, starting in July 1999, as well as a commitment to parity with anglophone New Brunswick universities by 2006.

The picket lines came down on March 17 when the members of UCCB's faculty association voted 75% in favour of accepting a four-year agreement.

The president of Carleton University, Richard Van Loon, has dragged his institution into a bitter labour dispute by allowing management of the Calgary Herald onto campus to recruit journalism students to work behind picket lines.

The Government of Ontario is once again looking favourably at the question of private universities. This time, however, it isn't Bette Stevenson's Wolf University, but rather institutions such as the University of Phoenix and Unexus — so-called virtual or on-line universities. South of the border the issue is equally hot because of the franchise-like expansion of the University of Phoenix, the establishment of Western Governors University and ICS — a new for-profit university funded by publisher Harcourt Brace. As well, there's the recent decision of the North-Central Association of Colleges and Schools to accredit Jones International University (the first accreditation of a completely virtual institution).

The government of British Columbia delivered its 2000 budget in late March, announcing a continuation of the freeze in tuition fees and an increase of $97 million, or just over 6 per cent, for post-secondary education

The newly elected Conservative government of New Brunswick delivered its first budget on March 28, outlining plans to cut taxes by $33 million while slashing a whopping $100 million in spending

Brian Tobin's Liberal government made health care the focus of its budget last month, raising spending by nearly $90 million, an increase of 7

Mike Harris's Conservative government announced it is increasing grants to universities and colleges by about $68 million, or just under 3 per cent

The NDP-Liberal coalition government of Saskatchewan, bolstered by greater than expected revenues from surging oil and gas prices, is devoting the bulk of its surplus to tax cuts while offering more modest increases in spending for health and education

The federal government must redesign the way it funds post-secondary education in order to ensure the continuing accessibility and quality of the system, concluded a CAUT-sponsored roundtable discussion held last month.

In late March, the Ryerson University Faculty Association hosted CAUT's newest educational program — a three and a half day grievance/arbitration course. The course provides training for faculty association activists in handling grievances and arbitration cases.

More than one thousand Canadian workers were killed on the job last year. Thousands of others died of work related diseases, and thousands more were permanently disabled due to work related diseases and exposures to workplace substances.

In late February, the administration at Mount Allison University and the Mount Allison Faculty Association brokered a last-minute deal for the long awaited salary scales with the assistance of an arbitrator. The terms of a mediated settlement following the 1999 strike at the university called for final offer selection for the determination of salary scales for the final two years of a three-year collective agreement.

Professor Kin-Yip Chun, vindicated by a Feb.1, 2000 report by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, is still waiting for a resolution of his long-standing dispute with the University of Toronto.

CAUT's former executive director, Donald Savage, has completed a study of academic freedom and institutional autonomy in New Zealand universities for the Association of University Staff of New Zealand.

I used to think systemic discrimination was out there somewhere but that it did not impact institutions of higher learning. I thought learned people were broad-minded and accepting of others as equals. I thought by definition the university means encompassing the universe, which is made up of diverse views, ideologies, epistemology and people.