This April, Chris Ferns, 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.

In 1993, Ferns acted as chief negotiator for the MSVU faculty association, and served in this capacity for the next five rounds of bar­gaining. He later served as the MSVUFA president for two consecutive terms.

He is also well known for his leadership role during a reorganization of the provincial university teachers’ association, and was later elected president of the new body for four terms.

At the national level, Ferns was elected to CAUT’s Collective Bargaining and Economic Benefits Committee in 2000, and between 2004 and 2006 led the committee as its chair.

The committee spoke to his scope of influence in their nomination letter: “It was Prof. Ferns who took the lead in reforming salary structures in Nova Scotia” and “during his watch we witnessed the mari­time associations involved in ‘pattern’ bargaining,” in an unprecedented move to advance a broader agenda and exert a multiplier effect on the process.

In honouring Ferns, the award brings national recognition to an individual whose activism in advocat­ing and building awareness on academics’ economic and equality is­sues has had a broad impact and “greatly strengthened CAUT’s collective bargaining efforts.”