Full-time academic staff at St. Jerome’s University have voted overwhelmingly to form a union.

In a secret ballot conducted by the Ontario Labour Relations Board at the end of March, academic staff voted more than four to one to name the newly formed St. Jerome’s University Academic Staff Association as their sole representative in contract negotiations with the university.

David Seljak, president of the association, said academic staff are concerned about the arbitrary changes the administration has made in employment policy and procedures as well as the collapse of morale at the institution.

“We are trying to preserve the academic integrity and sense of community that St. Jerome’s was known for,” Seljak said. “That integrity and that sense of community were built on the fact that professors had a voice in the way the university is run. This is no longer the case.”

The vote on unionizing the full-timers came two months after a majority of academic staff voted non-confidence in university president David Perrin.

Twenty-seven of the 30 members of the bargaining unit voted on certification, with 22 voting for the union and five opposed. The academic staff association is seeking to represent 29 teaching faculty and one librarian.

St. Jerome’s University is a public Roman Catholic university federated with the University of Waterloo.