Recent protests across US colleges and universities to “UnKoch my Campus” have drawn renewed attention to the issue of corporatization of higher education.

CAUT member associations held a coordinated campaign this year to advance a decade of grassroots organizing around Fair Employment Week to highlight and counter the overuse and exploitation of contract academic staff.

A coalition of university teachers, students and support staff in Nova Scotia are seeking equal standing in upcoming deliberations that will set the course for post-secondary education in the province for years to come.

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.

Members of the University of Saskatchewan Faculty Association have voted to accept a deal that puts to rest a controversial presidential power to veto tenure appointments at the Saskatoon institution.

Kudos to congress childcare organizers for getting it right this year. As Guttman and Burnett pointed out, childcare at the annual congress of the humanities and social sciences is an equity issue.

These days you can hardly pick up an issue of a science magazine or a newspaper without reading about a case of scientific misconduct. Twenty years ago, such reports were extraordinary. Is this an epide­mic of misconduct or an epidemic of reporting?

A new academic term has begun, and the excitement of change is in the air. Students are being exposed to new ideas, faculty are trying out new syllabi and developing new research programs, and at CAUT we are delighted to welcome a new associate executive director. We look forward to expe­rimentation, innovation and action in the coming year.

Sylvain Schetagne has joined the staff of CAUT as associate executive director of research and advocacy. He took up his duties in August. Prior to joining CAUT, he served for six years with the Canadian Labour Congress.

A new multi-year contract between Brock University board of trustees and the faculty association has been struck. Under the agreement, chairs’ and program directors’ stipends will show a small increase, as will professional development expense reimbursement.

University of Manitoba professor Patricia Martens had one more mission as an epidemiologist as she confronted her final days with a terminal disease. She wanted the government to stop aiding and abetting the lethal trade in asbestos.

In early August, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign abruptly revoked a job offer to Steven G. Salaita, a former professor of English at Virginia Tech, a move that almost immediately drew scrutiny from the academic community.