In this inaugural column I want to introduce myself and briefly sketch some of the challenges facing us. I was elected vice-president of CAUT in 2007, following a long history of activism within my local association at York University, where I served in many capacities, including a three-year term as chair and most recently as one of two chief stewards of the association. My scholarly research is concerned with equity issues in universities.
Over the past year as vice-president, I have been struck by the extent and scope of CAUT’s advocacy, organizing and service to its member associations. I participated in highly-successful workshops and conferences and developed an appreciation for CAUT’s leadership in defending the cardinal academic values of academic freedom and academic staff control of educational decision-making within our institutions. I look forward to an exciting year as CAUT president.
Often, issues that seem entirely local and which demand response from our member associations are manifestations of national and even international trends. One of CAUT’s important roles is to monitor the changing post-secondary political and organizational environment and provide advice to members. For example, across Canada employers are coming to the bargaining table with demands for more bureaucratic and extensive performance reviews. Seized with the immediate issue, a local association may not see beyond this to the general trend and the way these demands lead to increasing corporatization and loss of collegial governance.
CAUT has been active in monitoring and responding to “free trade” agreements, including the new General Agreement on Trade in Services and other free trade agreements. In last month’s Bulletin, we reported on a new OECD review of post-secondary education that is chilling in its embrace of performance reviews, targeted research funding and diminished institutional and professional autonomy. This is a perfect example of an international phenomenon that will have significant and detrimental local effects.
Contrary to rumours about a past golden age, life has never been easy or simple in the post-secondary sector, and there is no reason to think this will change. Chronic underfunding of higher education is now increasingly compounded by provincial allocation schemes that funnel money to government priorities while neglecting base funding. At the same time, federal funding programs are designed to buy maximum policy leverage while contributing as little as possible to the base cost of our institutions.
Funding is increasingly performance-based and competitive and justifiable public demands for accountability have been used as a rationalization for more centralized managerial control.
The increasing reliance on targeted research and institutional funds pits institutions against each other, eroding the close bonds among academic colleagues nationally and internationally. Universities are increasingly changing their authority structure. Academic senates are increasingly dominated by administrators, and their powers diminished in favour of higher level management.
The withering of collegial governance becomes a challenge and an opportunity for our member associations. Academic staff associations become the only autonomous and collective voices for academic staff on our campuses. As a priority for our associations, defending collegial governance must join our traditional concerns with economic issues and the defense of our teaching and research autonomy. CAUT must continue to lead in identifying and addressing these issues.
Across the country, college and university sectors are increasingly intertwined, often in new hybrid organizations. This can lead to diverse and creative joint endeavors. The danger is that governments will see this as a means to define education entirely in terms of narrow job qualifications, rather than the development of general skills, critical skills, intellectual life and citizenship.
The corresponding challenge for CAUT is to organize effectively across the entire post-secondary education sector. To this end, delegates at last month’s CAUT Council meeting strongly endorsed membership applications from CUPE 3902 (Unit 3), which represents 850 part-time contract academic staff at the University of Toronto, and the Alberta Colleges and Institutes Faculties Association. With more than 6,000 members, ACIFA is part of the new face of post-secondary education. CAUT must be at the forefront of forging coalitions across the post-secondary sector, so that employers and governments cannot play us off against each other and diminish the quality and rights of academic staff in both universities and colleges.