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 bylaw change marked a significant day in CAUT history — a day when CAUT defined itself more clearly than ever as an organization dedicated to achieving equity for all members,” said Penni Stewart, president of CAUT.
The idea for a new governance structure was introduced more than a year ago at CAUT’s first equity forum and presented by the association’s equity committee to the executive for discussion.
“The executive committee was diligent in ensuring that equity and the role of CAUT in achieving equity for its members remained on the agenda for every meeting until we could come up with a proposal we could take to council for a vote,” said Anver Saloojee, an executive member-
at-large and chair of the equity committee.
In her president’s address to the November 2009 council meeting and at the women’s caucus
at the same council, Stewart described the general direction of the proposal.
CAUT’s equity committee and women’s committee voted to support the proposed changes at their March 2010 meetings.
The bylaw changes create two member-at-large executive positions for aboriginal and francophone academic staff, convert the executive’s contract academic staff committee to a standing committee of council, and establish a national women’s working group to replace the existing women’s committee.
In addition, three new working groups will be formed to represent racialized academic staff, academic staff with disabilities, and academic staff who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, two-spirited, queer or questioning, also known as LGBTQ.
The four working groups will take the lead in developing proposals for CAUT’s equity work in relation to their communities and will share ideas and information in a diversity council — a new
standing committee to monitor progress that replaces the executive’s equity committee.
Each of these working groups will choose two members to sit on the diversity council, which will also have two co-chairs, one of whom must be a woman. Both chairs are to be elected by council and will become members of CAUT’s executive committee.
Two member-at-large positions to represent the interests of the general membership remain on the executive (previously three) and candidates are elected by council.