A vote to temporarily halt ongoing implementation of a controversial “call centre” model for tutoring at Alberta’s Athabasca University is a long-deserved win for collegial governance, according to critics of the plan.

In a Globe and Mail article published last month, University of Alberta president Indira Samarasekera lamented the abandonment of the University of Saskatche­wan’s budget review process. She seemingly wants to ensure the recent controversy at the neighbouring campus that led to several highly-placed administrators losing their positions.

It was called a “dirty little secret” in a CBC radio special airing last month. But there is no secret, for those of us working in Canadian higher education, about increased reliance on contract academic staff without benefit of tenure. Nor is there any secret about the sorts of injustices these academics too often face in their working lives.

An arbitration award handed down Sept. 29 has settled outstanding wage issues left over from a three-week strike in January by approximately 575 full-time academic staff at the University of New Brunswick.

A new report on tuition and other fees found what many families might suspect: post-secondary education is becoming less universal and less affordable. The report details the soaring costs to study at Canadian universities.

Oct. 1 was a good day for academic freedom at the University of Sask­atchewan as faculty, students, and community activists, along with representatives from senior administration and the board of governors, came together for a lively discussion about this contentious topic.

A motion that would see union executives banned from serving on Carleton University’s board of governors is a blatant attack on both academic freedom, and freedom of association, critics charge.

CAUT has hired Chantal Vallerand as director of operations. The ap­pointment takes effect this month. Chantal fills a position vacated by Jess Turk-Browne, who left CAUT in September to take up a post based in Pakistan with the National Democratic Institute.

Will Plowright is the recipient of CAUT’s J.H. Stewart Reid Memorial Fellowship for 2014–2015. Plow­right, a PhD political science student at the University of British Columbia, specializes in the politics of insurgency and the negotiation of humanitarian access in ongoing conflict zones.