Emily Carr University Faculty Association
We would like to acknowledge the support of Berger-Marks Foundation in helping students and faculty work together on protecting the quality of and access to public post-secondary education. Students were able to participate in this conference thanks to the Berger-Marks Foundation.
We occasionally post news articles on our Facebook page, and encourage you to post links there if you have an article you’d like to share with colleagues. Posts could be about pedagogy, debates and issues in post-secondary education, or events that may be of interest to faculty…
In May 2014, Alex Phillips, Rita Wong, and Peg Campbell participated in the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators’ annual conference. Rita presented on a panel looking at what has happened at special purpose teaching universities (Capilano University, University of the Fraser Valley, Thompson Rivers University, Vancouver Island University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and Emily Carr University of Art + Design) since we were designated as such in 2008.
Photo credit: Leah Squance
ACCUTE offers a reality check into post-secondary education in Canada from the perspectives of contract academic faculty: http://accute.ca/2014/01/30/representing-the-new-faculty-majority/
This article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Richard Moser, “Overuse and Abuse of Adjunct Faculty Members Threaten Core Academic Values,” gives a good overview of the American context, that is relevant for faculty in Canada to consider.
The following handout (building on CAUT’s work) offers some working definitions that may be helpful to consider:
Collegial Governance is defined in terms of the degree of autonomy members of a department or discipline can expect in participating in and determining every aspect and condition of their work: for example, meetings, workload, workload planning, academic planning, and so on.
The term turns on two elements:
“collegiality” which means the participation of faculty in governance structures.
Collegiality does not mean congeniality.
To be collegial, academic governance must:
(a) allow for the expression of a diversity of views and opinions,
(b) protect participants so that no individual is given inappropriate advantage (for example, due to power differentials) with respect to decisions, and
(c) ensure inclusiveness so that all who should be participating are provided the opportunity to do so.
Collegial governance depends on the participants being given, and being able to deliver, their share of the service workload.
“consultation” refers to the process whereby the person(s) consulting a person(s) is obligated to take into consideration the circumstances and interests of the person(s) being consulted, and, also, to ensure that these circumstances and interests are reflected in the determination made at the end of the process.
Consultation also refers to a formal meeting by which the consultation occurs around a specific agenda item(s) and whose procedure and outcome(s) are documented.
The Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC (CUFA) has released an e-book called Academic Governance 3.0. It is worth a read for any faculty member seeking to think through the ways in which we come to make decisions as communities and learning organizations. When professor Cary Nelson recently spoke at SFU’s Institute for the Humanities, he identified shared governance, tenure and academic freedom as being crucial for the integrity and the future of post-secondary education.
The City of Vancouver, located on unceded Coast Salish territory–the traditional homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil Waututh and Sto:lo people, has declared 2013 – 2014 to be a Year of Reconciliation. As educators, we are part of a larger, historic moment of reckoning, an opportunity to face Canada’s painful history of colonization with honesty and courage. It has been said that South Africa’s apartheid system was based on Canada’s Indian reserve system. Canada’s residential schools, which attempted to destroy Indigenous cultures, are part of a colonial system that continues, as we see more Indigenous children being apprehended from their families today than even at the height of the residential schools.
At the same time that systemic colonial violence continues, many efforts at healing and resilience are growing and deepening. An excellent example of this is the CBC show, Eighth Fire. As Eighth Fire shows, the arts have a key role to play in healing and reconciliation. The project, From the Heart: Enter into the Journey of Reconciliation, is another great example. In her book, Unsettling the Settler Within, Paulette Regan writes:
Unless we who are non-Indigenous undertake to turn over the rocks in our colonial garden, we will never achieve what we claim to want so badly— to transform and reconcile our relationship with Indigenous people. Rather we will remain benevolent peacemakers, colonizer-perpetrators bearing the false gift of a cheap and meaningless reconciliation that costs us so little and Indigenous people so much. But what if we were to offer the gift of humility as we come to the work of truth telling and reconciliation? Bearing this gift would entail working through our own discomfort and vulnerability, opening ourselves to the kind of experiential learning that engages our whole being— our heads, our hearts, our spirits.
In the spirit of this deep, experiential learning, UBC and Emily Carr are both suspending classes for a day so that students and faculty can participate in the activities organized in conjunction with the arrival of the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Vancouver from Sept 18 to 21. Members of the Emily Carr community will be drumming to welcome the All Nations Canoe Gathering in Senak’w Staulk (False Creek) on Sept 17, and classes will be suspended on Sept 20 so that everyone can participate in reconciliation and resilience activities at Emily Carr. On Sunday, Sept 22, there will be a 4 km walk for reconciliation, starting at 10 am at Queen Elizabeth Plaza (near the central library) downtown. We invite you to come walk with us, or start your own team of walkers.
Rita Wong
Earth, Water, & Fire (ie. Peg Campbell, Rita Wong and Danuta Zwierciadlowski) representing the Emily Carr Faculty Association at the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators’ AGM, Vancouver Island University campus, May 2013. The artwork they are standing by was made by a VIU student to remember and respect murdered women.
Notwithstanding the gorgeous sunny weather this long weekend, it’s also one of the most intense times of the year for studio and academic faculty. After the crunch eventually subsides, it may be healthy to take a step back to reflect on how post-secondary education is evolving, as well as our responsibilities to protect the quality of education in this province. While we each have our individual strengths and challenges, we’re also in this arts, media & design education community together, and it’s through mindful coordination that we’ll achieve more.
If you’d like to compare the collective agreements of post-secondary institutions that are members of FPSE (Federation of Post-Secondary Educators), they can be found online at http://www.fpse.ca/agreements/collective.
Also, for more context and discussion, the latest issue of Canadian cultural studies journal Topia, entitled Out of the Ruins, the University to Come, can be found in our library: http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/topia/issue/current.