Tag Archives: John Montalbano

Comments on Academic Freedom at the University of British Columbia

Comments on Academic Freedom at the University of British Columbia
Delivered at “Breakfast with the Dean” panel April 21, 2016

E. Wayne Ross, PhD
Professor
Faculty of Education
University of British Columbia

First of all I would like to thank Dean Blye Frank for inviting me to participate on this panel and thanks to all of you for coming out this morning to participate in a discussion on academic freedom.

On the surface, it’s easy to be pro-academic freedom, kind of like being for mom and apple pie. But, academic freedom is a contested issue in universities (and schools, but that is a very different matter).

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), describes a number of major academic freedom cases in Canada ranging from the University of Manitoba blocking a documentary film that reports findings of research on genetically modified crops; to irregularities that lead to the suspension of David F. Noble’s appointment to an endowed chair at Simon Fraser University; to Mary Bryson, the Faculty’s senior associate dean, and her battle with UBC over intellectual property rights. The arbitration decision in the Bryson case is described by CAUT as “landmark in the struggle to insure that faculty, not administrators, determine the content of courses.”[1]

In recent years there has been international attention given to the academic freedom cases of Professors Norman G. Finkelstein and Steven Salaita, who lost jobs as a result of social justice scholarship and activism, in particular, criticisms of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians living under occupation.

Threats to academic freedom are real and have a long history in Canadian postsecondary education and beyond.

CAUT defines academic freedom, in part, as including:

the right, without restriction by prescribed doctrine, to freedom to teach and discuss; freedom to carry out research and disseminate and publish the results thereof; freedom to produce and perform creative works; … freedom to express one’s opinion about the institution, its administration, and the system in which one works; … Academic freedom always entails freedom from institutional censorship.

Academic freedom does not require neutrality on the part of the individual. Academic freedom makes intellectual discourse, critique, and commitment possible.

Academic staff must not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as individuals including the right to contribute to social change through free expression of opinion on matters of public interest. Academic staff must not suffer any institutional penalties because of the exercise of such rights. [2]

In short academic freedom is essential to the mission of the university.

Dean Frank asked the members of this` panel to focus on issues of academic freedom in light of the current search to fill the new UBC position of Senior Advisor to the Provosts on Academic Freedom.

My first thought was that if we have provosts who need advisors on academic freedom, maybe they shouldn’t be provosts, really. But, perhaps I’m being too glib, even for a short breakfast talk.

Of course the creation of this new advisory position is the result of controversy created by the former chair of the UBC Board of Governors, John Montalbano, when he interfered with the academic freedom of Sauder School Professor Jennifer Berdahl, after she blogged about UBC President Arvind Gupta’s “resignation” after 13 months in office.[3]

Oh, wait a minute. Let me correct myself, like many of UBC’s self-investigation exercises the external report on the Berdahl case, written by former justice Lynn Smith, did not find fault with any individual university administrators.

“No individual intended to interfere with Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom, or made a direct attempt to do so… However, sometimes several relatively small mistakes can lead to a failure of the larger system.”

Despite whatever good intentions might lurk behind the creation of the new academic freedom advisor position – and I do believe that its existence is primarily a public relations effort – at best this position is a band-aid on a life-threatening wound and at worse it is yet another diversion – a manifestation of an ideological stance that is widely held in society and practically hegemonic in universities—liberal neutrality. I’ll briefly address both of these circumstances.

Corporatization of the University (The life-threatening wound)

The corporate takeover of education at the K-12 and postsecondary levels, facilitated is by governments that might best be described as executive committees of the rich.

The trouble begins when the framework for understanding the nature and aims of education and scholarship is as a tool vital for economic success. As Thomas Docherty argues in his book Universities at War, the university has become a servant of the national and provincial economies in the context of globalization. Its driving principles of private and personal enrichment are understood as necessary conditions of progress and modernity.

Docherty sees this circumstances as a radical impoverishment of the university’s capacities to extend human possibilities and freedoms, to seek earnestly for social justice, and to participate in the endless need for the extension of democracy. Docherty argues that we must take sides in this matter because market fundamentalists are on the march and the war is being fought not just for scholars but also for a more democratic, more just, more emancipatory way of life.

The Problem of “Liberal neutrality”

In her article “Why I’m Not a Liberal,” Robin Marie Averback argues that

“In the liberal imagination, education and accommodation are self-evident solutions, since the problem can neither be understood as a matter of brute power struggles nor as a product of structural inequality fundamental to the functioning of entire institutions … You can’t choose a side when liberalism insists there are no sides at all.”[4]

This notion, helps to explain how the Smith Report on the Berdahl academic freedom case creates a victim without a victimizer. This is a pattern played out in numerous instances at UBC in recently. See, for example, the reports on:

  • the privacy breach related to documents on the Arvind Gupta imbroglio[5]
  • Commerce Undergraduate Society Frosh Week “rape chants”[6]
  • UBC handling of sexual assault complaints[7]

Averback reminds us of the picture book version of social justice that we often see on walls of community centres,

“In this picture book version of social justice struggle, no one ever opposes freedom’s forward march. All the oppressed need to do is rise up and assert themselves; the world they are fighting for is realized simply by the act of self-declaration.”

At UBC everybody seems to be for academic freedom. It’s like a picture book version of academic freedom. But in the all-administrative university – a phrase coined by Benjamin Ginsberg in his book The Fall of the Faculty – the response of the administration to an academic freedom crisis is the creation of yet another administrative position, aimed at educating and accommodating.

This reminds me of a comment someone made in the context of the recent UBC Board of Governors debacle(s) and the compromised Presidential Search Committee, “UBC doesn’t need a new driver, because the problem is with the car.”

Here are some academic freedom issues that the new position will like never come close to addressing:

  • Intellectual property rights;
  • Corporate influence on campus academic programs and research.[8]
  • Faculty loss of control over academic programs (such as the teacher education program in our faculty)
  • Respectful workplace statements that become instruments that encourage bullying and mobbing of faculty with dissenting points of view or who merely ask questions that make people uncomfortable;
  • Middle managers, like those in Sauder, who intervene like their corporate counterparts to threaten the rank and file on issues of solidarity and criticism of management (e.g., the recent UBCFA no confidence vote);
  • People like those faculty members who have warned UBC Professor Jonathan Ichikawa (sponsor of the UBCFA no-confidence vote in the Board of Governors) that his activism would negatively affect his advancement at the university;
  • Students/faculty self-funding themselves;
  • Administrative efforts to “right-size” academic programs;
  • Tenure and promotion committees that forego evaluative reading of faculty scholarship and instead focus on impact factors or the amount of external dollars won in competitions.

When no one is understood as protecting a position of power (liberal neutrality) how do we combat these threats to academic freedom? I don’t think the answer is by appointing an advisor to the provost.

Questions for discussion:

To what degree are the new policies for academic speech inscribed in academic work, regardless of where it’s done? As the academic workplace is increasingly displaced and distributed, are academic policies displaced and distributed as well? Observed at work, monitored at home and tracked in between—these are not so much choices as the cold reality of 21st century academic work.[9]

BC Premier Christy Clark has warned provincial postsecondary institutions that they must do a better job of producing graduates who meet the needs of the private sector (2014 Throne Speech). What happens to academic freedom when universities are cast as servants to the provincial or national “economic success?”

Notes

[1] CAUT, Major Academic Freedom Cases: http://www.caut.ca/issues-and-campaigns/academic-freedom/academic-freedom-cases

[2] See full CAUT statement on academic freedom here: https://www.caut.ca/about-us/caut-policy/lists/caut-policy-statements/policy-statement-on-academic-freedom – sthash.0grFSra5.dpuf

[3] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ubc-chair-john-montalbano-resigns-after-report-finds-academic-freedom-not-protected-1.3272776

[4] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/07/why-im-not-a-liberal/

[5] http://universitycounsel.ubc.ca/files/2016/03/D-Loukidelis-Report-on-UBC-FOI-Processes-final-7-Mar-16.pdf

[6] http://president.ubc.ca/files/2013/09/Fact-Finding-Report-copy.pdf

[7] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ubc-sexual-assaults-complaints-expulsion-1.3328368

[8] See government appointments to UBC Board and U of Calgary/Enbridge relationship: http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/calgary/caut-ucalgary-uofc-dru-marshall-david-robinson-1.3531851

[9] See Petrina, Ross, & Mathison (2015). Threat convergence: The new academic work, bullying, mobbing and freedom. Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, 24, 58-69. Retrieved from http://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/article/view/186137/185332

Vancouver Observer: Professors blast UBC’s “failures of governance”

The Vancouver Observer recently published a commentary co-authored by Sandra Mathison, Stephen Petrina and myself (co-directors of the Institute for Critical Education Studies) on the recent failures of governance at the University of British Columbia.

Read the piece on the Vancouver Observer site, here.

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Why the UBC Leadership Crisis Matters Beyond the Ivory Tower

The ongoing drama at University of British Columbia may look like a tempest in a teapot, but the dispute among university governors, managers, and faculty has implications that reach beyond the ivory tower.

Two principles are at the heart of the crisis: transparency in governance and academic freedom.

The early August announcement that Arvind Gupta had suddenly and immediately resigned as president was startling, coming just 13 months after his term began. In March 2014, UBC Board Chair John Montalbano said “The opportunity to lead one of the world’s great universities attracted outstanding candidates, but Dr. Arvind Gupta clearly stood out as the best choice to lead this great university.”

What happened?

Well, Montalbano and the UBC Board are not saying. The Board justifies its silence by pointing to non-disclosure agreements, which they drafted and signed, as did Gupta.

Non-disclosure agreements protect secrets. The Board ruled out issues of competence, discipline, and health as reasons for Gupta’s departure. Which makes many wonder why no reasonable explanation has been offered.

Why shouldn’t we just accept the Board’s decision and move on? Because effective oversight of government and public institutions requires transparency, access to information, which helps to hold officials accountable and ensure public interests are served.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark, who is responsible for appointing a majority of the UBC Board, says “open government is about giving people a sense of confidence that government is working for them, not trying to do something to them.” And, that is exactly the point. Clandestine Board meetings – which are the norm at UBC – and refusal to fully disclose information lead people to believe that something is being done to them.

Mark Mac Lean, UBC Faculty Association president, has argued that in “the absence of an informed explanation” any non-disclosure provisions related to Gupta’s departure are “contrary to the public interest and contrary to the best practices expected of a major public institution.” If you support open and transparent government, I do not understand how you could disagree.

Two days after the Gupta announcement, Kris Olds, a UBC graduate and global higher education expert, wrote that a key lesson from recent university leadership crises is that an early lack of transparency and full communication heightens the risk of a major crisis erupting.

And just days later, as predicted, UBC was in damage-control while the crisis went from from bad to worse, with a faculty revolt and full blown public relations disaster.

A major complicating factor is the allegation that Board Chair Montalbano interfered with the academic freedom of Professor Jennifer Berdahl, attempting to silence her. A charge he has denied.

Following the announcement of Gupta’s departure, Berdahl wrote that perhaps Gupta had “lost the masculinity contest among the leadership at UBC, as most women and minorities do at institutions dominated by white men.”

Some in the media have dismissed Berdahl’s analysis; made jokes about it.

Research on the gendered nature of work is no joke, but only a few insiders know whether this dynamic applies in Gupta’s case. Berdahl’s perspective isn’t constructed out of thin air, it is based on her experience of UBC as workplace and her academic expertise.

As the Montalbano Professor in Leadership Studies, Berdahl studies power, discrimination, harassment, and diversity. Her mandate is to promote diverse leadership. One of the research groups she leads focuses on work as a masculinity contest, an effort that is, ironically, funded by donations from Montalbano and his employer, Royal Bank of Canada.

So when the board chair – who also happens to be on the advisory board of your faculty, and a major donor to the university ­– calls to discuss your critical analysis of the decision he just announced, direct threats do not have to be made. The power imbalance makes it nearly impossible the conversation to be a collegial exchange.

Obviously, Berdahl was not cowed, but it’s fair to say that in similar situations many others would be. As a recent New York Times article puts it “when you’re in charge, your whisper may feel like a shout.”

Universities exist for the common good, not to further the interest of an individual or institution as a whole.

And, as the influential 1940 statement of American Association of University Professors argues, the common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free expression. These are principles that are clearly stated and even extended further in the policies of UBC.

Transparency in governance and academic freedom contribute in profound ways to the health of democracy and the common good.

Secrecy is an obstacle to good and open governance.

Actions that have the effect of intimidating or harassing (whether intended or not) undermine the ability of people to “freely work, live, examine, question, teach, learn, comment and criticize,” activities that the UBC Board of Governors state they are committed to maintaining at every level of the university.

It is time for the Board to start walking its talk, if they don’t they are damaging more than a university.

[This article was published August 27, 2015 in the Times Colonist (Victoria, BC).]

How not to run a university (Part 3): The art of misdirection [updated]

If you thought UBC was actually investigating the charges its board chairman breeched the academic freedom of a professor, you’d be wrong. 

Following the University of British Columbia Board of Governors’ secret  meeting on Monday, Angela Redish (Provost Pro Tem) and Martha Piper (Interim President) released a statement on academic freedom.

This statement was widely reported as an announcement that UBC was initiating an active investigation of the charges made by Professor Jennifer Berdahl against UBC Board of Governors Chair John Montalbano for breeching her academic freedom in his response to her analysis of the sudden departure of Arvind Gupta as UBC’s president. Details here and here.

Sample headlines:

UBC statement: “Serious” allegations of breaches of academic freedom to be investigated [Georgia Straight]

UBC to investigate Prof. Jennifer Berdahl’s claim she felt ‘gagged’ [CBC]

UBC to investigate complaint over blog post about former president [Globe and Mail]

Problem is the Redish/Piper statement does not actually say that there is or will be an investigation.

The Redish/Piper statement only describes the existing UBC policies on academic freedom and grievance and arbitration procedures.

Redish and Piper state,

UBC has rigorous processes in place – established with the agreement of the Faculty Association – to investigate any allegation of breach of academic freedom. It is imperative that we follow this impartial process embedded within and protected by the collective agreement before pre-judging unproven and untested allegations at this time.

The high and mighty tone of the statement regarding UBC’s commitment to the principles of academic freedom and “rigorous processes” is a misdirection from the fact that this statement does not announce an investigation of Berdahl’s complaints that Montalbano breeched her academic freedom.

All the bluster about academic freedom is followed by a non-sequitur describing a non-existent investigation.

The facts will be gathered and all parties will be heard before reaching any conclusion. We welcome this process and it would be entirely inappropriate to comment further on the allegations until this process has been concluded.

Presuming the process would actually ever start.

It is curious that the Redish/Piper statement focuses on the university’s collective agreement with faculty and does not mention the UBC Board of Governors Policy 3 on Discrimination and Harassment.

Investigation of the academic freedom charges via the collective agreement requires an individual faculty member (or the UBCFA) to file a complaint. This raises interesting questions: Why would Professor Berdahl file a grievance via collective agreement processes? What kind of remedy could she possibly receive as a result of the process?

Berdahal’s blog post on academic freedom says as much, that is, as a tenured full professor she can continue to exercise her academic freedom, albeit in an hostile environment. And, as she points out, the most deleterious of the effects of Montalbano’s meddling will be on faculty and students who do not have the protection of tenure, creating a chilling effect on critical discourse.

Indeed, today’s announcement by the UBC Faculty Association describes how the usual collective agreement processes have been already ben undermined by Montalbano and the university:

… the University itself has sidestepped standard protocols for handling grievances. More specifically, the Chair of the Board of Governors, the Board’s chief spokesperson, gave public, personal testimony related to the case in a University media release. We were shocked that this happened in a formal University media release posted on a University website. (This media release seems to have been removed from news.ubc.ca late Tuesday evening. We have a downloaded copy.) Mr. Montalbano has confused personal interests with the University’s interests. …

While the University has publicly said that a grievance involving Mr. Montalbano could be managed under our usual collective agreement processes, this no longer seemed possible.

So, if UBC leadership is serious about investigating the alleged breech of academic freedom in the Montalbano/Berdahl case they could and should proceed via Policy 3 on Discrimination and Harassment, which is what they should have done in the first place.

Policy 3 begins with this statement,

The University of British Columbia has responsibility for and is committed to providing its students, staff and faculty with an environment dedicated to excellence, equity and mutual respect; one that is free of Discrimination and Harassment; and one in which the ability to freely work, live, examine, question, teach, learn, comment and criticize is protected. Academic Freedom and freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression carries with it the expectation that all Members of the University Community will conduct themselves in a responsible manner so as not to cause, condone or participate in the Discrimination or Harassment of another person or group of persons.

There is no doubt Policy 3 is relevant in this circumstance.

The fundamental objective of Policy 3 is prevention discrimination and harassment on grounds protected by the B.C. Human Rights Code, and it provides procedures for handling complaints, remedying situations, and imposing discipline when such discrimination or harassment does occur.

The responsible executive for initiating an investigation under Policy 3 is the Provost and Vice-President Academic, Angela Redish.

UBC is making a quite a name for itself as a result of its lack of transparency in governance and administration.

The shroud of secrecy around the departure of Arvind Gupta is at the heart of the current crisis. And the lack of clarity about the actions of the Board and the administration in responding to Professor Berdahl’s academic freedom charges only compounds how the university’s leadership crisis is undermining academic integrity at UBC.

UBC needs to makes clear if there is an active investigation on Berdahl’s complaint and what the terms of reference are for that investigation. Or, admit that the university is not as dedicated to preserving academic freedom as they have claimed to be.

Related posts:
How not to run a university (Part 2): Intimidation, bullying & harassment at UBC
How not to run a university (Part 1): Secrecy at UBC
Arvind Gupta: Known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns …

How not to run a university (Part 2): Intimidation, bullying & harassment at UBC

What should a university do when the chair of its board of governors uses intimidation tactics in an attempt to bully and harass a faculty member who critically analyzes university decisions?

This is the question facing the University of British Columbia today following Professor Jennifer Berdahl‘s revelations in a blog posted last night.

Following the announcement of Arvind Gupta’s sudden and mysterious departure as president of UBC, Berdahl suggested that perhaps Gupta had “lost the masculinity contest among the leadership at UBC, as most women and minorities do at institutions dominated by white men.”

I was initially skeptical of  Berdahl’s speculation, but it seems that UBC Board of Governors Chair John Montalbano is hell bent on proving her right.

Berdahl’s blog describes attempts by Montalbano and the administration of the UBC Sauder School of Business — where Berdahl is (ironically) the Montalbano Professor of Leadership Studies: Gender and Diversity — to intimidate and bully her over the issues she raised in her initial blog post.

According to Berdahl, Montalbano phoned her to say that her blog post

was “incredibly hurtful, inaccurate, and greatly unfair to the Board” and “greatly and grossly embarrassing to the Board.” He said I had made him “look like a hypocrite.” He said my post would cause others to question my academic credibility. He repeatedly mentioned having conversations with my Dean about it. He also repeatedly brought up RBC, which funds my outreach activities, to say that people there were on “damage control” should the media pick up on this.

Then the Sauder School managers and bureaucrats started their harassment campaign.

They proceeded to tell me that my blog post had done serious reputational damage to Sauder and to UBC, and that I had deeply upset one of the most powerful donors to the School who also happened to be the Chair of the Board of Governors. They said they had heard he was even more upset after talking to me on the phone that day.

Berdahl was summoned to the Sauder dean’s office, but the meeting was canceled when she said she’d be there with representation.

This might seem small potatoes to folks outside academe, but assuming her account is accurate (and there is absolutely no reason to doubt it), this is a direct attack on academic freedom by the chair of the university board of governors.

Montalbano’s actions along with those of Sauder School managers at the very least creates a chilling climate for professors, staff, and students.

Berdahl’s description captures it perfectly when she writes:

When I imagine being an assistant professor at this university, or anyone without the protection of tenure, this experience becomes unspeakable. I would be terrified, not angry. I would have retracted my post, or not have written it at all. I would avoid studying and speaking on controversial topics.

Imagine a university of scholars so silenced, and the implications for the world we live in.

Not only has Montalbano engaged in a crass attempt to silence a university professor speaking out in her area of expertise, his actions are in violation of the UBC Board of Governors Policy 3 on Discrimination and Harassment, which states:

The University of British Columbia has responsibility for and is committed to providing its students, staff and faculty with an environment dedicated to excellence, equity and mutual respect; one that is free of Discrimination and Harassment; and one in which the ability to freely work, live, examine, question, teach, learn, comment and criticize is protected. Academic Freedom and freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression carries with it the expectation that all Members of the University Community will conduct themselves in a responsible manner so as not to cause, condone or participate in the Discrimination or Harassment of another person or group of persons.

UBC has gone to great lengths to publicize its respectful environment statement, which is based upon Policy 3 and the university has not hesitated to initiate investigations of faculty and staff and apply sanctions based upon these policies.

Given what we know about Montalbano and Sauder School managers’ actions in this case, there should at least be an immediate investigation. The responsible executive for Policy 3 is the Provost and Vice President – Academic, currently Angela Redish.

What should a university do when the chair of its board of governors uses intimidation tactics in an attempt to bully and harass a faculty member who critically analyzes university decisions? Well, if they are actually serious about creating a climate where academic freedom flourishes and bullying, harassment, and discrimination are discouraged then John Montalbano should choose to “return to his career in banking.”

 

Related posts:
How not to run a university (Part 3): The art of misdirection [updated]
How not to run a university (Part 1): Secrecy at UBC
Arvind Gupta: Known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns …

How not to run a university (Part 1): Secrecy at UBC

Here in Vancouver you learn to live with the months of rain and overcast skies and when the sun shines you can feel the happy vibe just about everywhere you go.

But there is at least one group of folks in Rain City who will do just about anything to avoid sunshine and they’re not vampires, as far as I know. I’m talking about the University of British Columbia Board of Governors and they are apparently trying to suck the life out the university.

On August 7 the UBC Board of Governors announced the departure of the university’s president, Arvind Gupta.

The 13th president of UBC resigns, with no explanation, 13 months into a four year term. For all we know Gutpa resigned because triskaidekaphobia.

(Here’s my overview of the UBC leadership debacle up to yesterday).

The mystery surrounding Gupta’s departure and the Board’s (and Gupta’s) silence on the matter has stirred up quite a bit a speculation. Board chair John Montalbano has constructed a wall around himself, built with non-disclosure agreements and appeals to personnel case privacy so as to control information and thus avoid accountability for Board decision-making.

The Board’s lack of transparency and full communication is not new, indeed this board that has gone to great lengths to make their deliberations inaccessible and keep the public ignorant.

The UBC Board even keeps the contact information for Board chair Montalbano and UBC Chancellor Lindsay Gordon under wraps.

It’s clear that UBC Board of Governors needs a big old dose of sunshine on their activities to hold them accountable for their actions.

One response to current UBC leadership crisis would be for real open government regulations to be enacted for the university and the provincial government as a whole.

We’re in dire need of some sunshine laws to make meetings, records, votes, deliberations and other official actions available to the public. Without these, a small number of appointees are able to make major decisions about a public institution under a cloak of invisibility.

 

 
Related posts:
How not to run a university (Part 3): The art of misdirection [updated]
How not to run a university (Part 2): Intimidation, bullying & harassment at UBC
Arvind Gupta: Known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns …