Ottawa has tabled its long-delayed copyright bill, proposing to legalize common practices, such as copying a CD to a computer or an MP3 player for personal use, but criminalize breaking digital locks.

After reading this commentary and the response from Ismet Ugursal, I am compelled to respond as well. I agree with professor Ugursal that we are incredibly lucky on many fronts due to our job autonomy, flexibility and the varied and creative nature of our work.

The federal government’s allowed 13 universities to hire 19 “academic stars” without including a single woman is an obvious symptom of sexism.

If I were asked to write and im­plement a political prescription that ensured long-term social disaster among Native peoples, it would be something that would absolutely bring about a near total collapse of their societies and non-recovery.

The University of British Colum­bia Faculty Association and CAUT are welcoming the Supreme Court of Canada's decision to deny leave to appeal a ruling by the B.C. Court of Appeal that ended a years-long lawsuit against the university and four academic staff members.

As my Trent University colleague put it, last month, the university did itself proud. The occasion was senate approval of a new vision statement for the university. The outcome of a year-long process of discussion and reflection, the vision says that: “We foster an environment where Indi­genous knowledge is recognized as valid means by which to understand the world.”

The International Labour Organ­isation has issued a stinging rebuke to the government of Saskatchewan over two pieces of anti-labour law adopted in 2008.

Rosa Barker and Robert Ramsay have been named new professional officers at CAUT. Rosa has a PhD in English Literature from Queen’s U, and Robert is from uToronto, where he just completed two terms as chair of CUPE Local 3902.

In a decision that will have serious implications for academic staff across Canada, the British Colum­bia Court of Appeal has upheld an arbitrator’s decision that he had no jurisdiction to consider whether a policy on student evaluation of teaching was in violation of the collective agreement.

This April, an English professor at Mount Saint Vincent University was honoured with CAUT’s Donald C. Savage Award for his many years of collective bargaining achievements at the local, regional and national level.

CAUT turned a corner in April when council voted in favour of a bylaw amendment ensuring that marginalized groups will be represented in its governance structure.

The Legitimacy of Quality Assurance in Higher Education is a collection of papers published by the Council of Europe. Although a European publication, there are useful nuggets about education quality that can be applied to Canada.

Documenting a black professor’s account of his own professional experience, this study describes what it feels like to be a non-white academic in one of the “big three” disciplines in the humanities — English, history, and philosophy.

The large-scale, publicly-funded system of post-secondary education in Ontario has been largely successful in fulfilling important societal needs in the areas of education, human resource development and research. Existing approaches, however, are unlikely to be sufficient to address the challenges of the coming decade.

Le gouvernement fédéral a présenté son projet de réforme du droit d’auteur, lequel propose de légaliser des pratiques aussi courantes que la copie d’un CD sur un ordinateur, mais de crimina­liser le crochetage des serrures numériques.

L'Université Trent a pris le mois dernier une initiative qui est tout à son honneur, se réjouit mon collègue de cet établissement. En effet, après des années de discussion et de réflexion, le sénat de cette université a adop­té le nouvel énoncé de vision qui favorise le respect des connaissances autochtones.

Deux nouveaux agents professionnels ont joint les rangs des effectifs de l’ACPPU. Rosa Barker, titulaire d’un doctorat en littérature anglaise de Queen’s, et Ro­bert Ramsay, de Toronto où il venait de terminer son second mandat de président de la section locale 3902 du SCFP,

La Cour d’appel de la Colombie-Britannique a confirmé la décision d’un arbitre selon laquelle ce dernier n’avait pas compétence pour déterminer si la po­li­tique adoptée par le sénat de l’UBC contrevenait à la convention collective du personnel académique de cet établissement.

L'ACPPU a atteint un nouveau ja­lon lorsque son conseil a voté une modification du règlement général de l’association pour assurer une juste repré­senta­tion des groupes marginalisés au sein de sa structure de gouvernance.

L’association du personnel académique de l’Université de la Colombie-Britannique et l’ACPPU se réjouissent du refus de la Cour suprême du Canada d’entendre l’appel interjeté contre une décision de la Cour d’appel provinciale, mettant ainsi fin à une poursuite judiciaire de longue date.