On May 25 the B.C. Labour Relations Board issued a decision which confirmed the University of British Columbia Faculty Association as "the sole collective bargaining agent for a unit which includes both sessionals and faculty." In its ruling, the board dismissed an application by the Canadian Union of Public Employees to represent the sessionals at UBC in a separate bargaining unit or as part of an existing teaching assistants local. In addition, the 16-page decision officially recognizes the status of the UBCFA as a union which is voluntarily recognized under the Labour Relations Code.

Canada's university libraries are conspicuous victims of provincial and federal underfunding of post-secondary education.

On May 23, CAUT president Tom Booth wrote to Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe calling on him to publicly condemn acts of violence against teachers, particularly in rural areas of Zimbabwe. With elections in Zimbabwe imminent, human rights agencies believe teachers and other citizens are being persecuted because of personal political affiliation. The text of the letter follows. - ed.

There is plenty of room to criticize the Ontario government's plan to allow private universities in the province. Most of the criticisms being made, however, strike me as being wide of the mark.

"We are harvesting our children as a cash crop." This stark keynote message from Alex Molnar, head of the U.S.-based Centre for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education, captured the sentiments of the three hundred educators, support staff and students from B.C. schools, colleges and universities gathered in Vancouver on May 23 and 24 to learn about, and discuss how to resist, the growing commercial intrusion into education.

Faculty members from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and other states converged early in May on Bennington, Vermont, to protest faculty firings and curbs on academic freedom at Bennington College

The giant American book retailer Barnes & Noble Inc

Sessional lecturers at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières are locked out of Summer Session

A recent decision by the Ontario government to change the distribution of the Ontario Graduate Scholarships has been thrown out

n mid-May, the status of women committee of the University of Toronto Faculty Association co-sponsored a culture of peace symposium with CAUT to celebrate the International Year for the Culture of Peace.

Media baron Rupert Murdoch and his giant News Corporation company have reached a deal with the 18-member university network Universitas 21 (which includes McGill University, the University of Toronto, and the University of British Columbia) to offer online programs and courses.

Statistics released last month by the Council of Ontario Universities show that the gaps in university funding between the provinces continue to grow and that Canadian universities are increasingly falling behind their American counterparts.

The Canada Research Chairs program (CRC) is just offshore – and the first wave will hit our universities in September. Universities will be submitting their strategic research plans for the first slate of nominations to the CRC Steering Committee early in September 2000.

Recent initiatives by the Ontario and Alberta governments to tie post-secondary funding to how many graduates quickly get jobs may be well-intended but they are seriously misguided.

The education journal Our Schools/Ourselves, which suspended publication last year, will be re-launched this fall as a publication of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In a report released last month, Statistics Canada says the so-called "brain drain" of highly skilled Canadians to the United States remains small in an historical sense, small in relation to the supply of workers in sensitive occupations, and is more than offset by a huge "brain gain" -- the immigration of knowledge workers into Canada from the rest of the world.

CAUT is supporting three Trent University faculty members seeking judicial review of a Trent Board of Governors' decision to overrule the university's senate.

After a year and a half of talks and the first special meeting of the McGill senate in more than a decade, senators are no closer to approving a new policy on intellectual property rights for faculty.

CAUT has donated $1,000 to assist two Colombians seeking political asylum in Canada. The request for assistance came from Education International, the world-wide body of teachers unions from more than 100 countries.

Queen's faculty will get a salary increase, but not as much as they hoped for, an arbitrator has ruled.