Category Archives: Environment

Eve Seguin: Academic mobbing, or how to become campus tormentors #ubcnews #caut_acppu #ubceduc #highered

To discipline and punish a colleague via academic mobbing, professionals— yes, professionals, including managers— conspire and solicit. This is one insight gathered from Eve Seguin’s astute and timely analysis of the pervasive phenomenon.

Eve Seguin, University Affairs, September 19, 2016,

Academic mobbing, or how to become campus tormentors

For Professor Caroline Patsias at Université du Québec à Montréal, once a professor at Université de Sherbrooke.

If you’re a university professor, chances are fairly good that you have initiated or participated in mobbing. Why? First, because mobbers are not sadists or sociopaths, but ordinary people; second, because universities are a type of organization that encourages mobbing; and third, as a result, mobbing is endemic at universities.

Unlike bullying, an individual form of harassment in which a typical scenario consists of a boss victimizing an assistant, mobbing is a serious organizational deficiency. Its many consequences are so severe that it is considered a major public health issue. The term itself, mobbing, describes its four essential characteristics: it is a collective, violent and deliberate process in which the individual psychologies of the aggressors and their victim provide no keys to understanding the phenomenon.

Workplace mobbing is a concerted process to get rid of an employee, who is better referred to as a “target” than a “victim” to emphasize the strategic nature of the process. The dynamic is reminiscent of Stalin’s Moscow Trials: the targets are first convicted and evidence is later fabricated to justify the conviction. As sociologist of science Brian Martin put it, everything they say, are, write and do will be systematically used against them.

Successful mobbing leads to any of a number of outcomes: the targets commit suicide, are dismissed (or often at universities, being denied tenure), resign, retire early, take permanent or recurring sick leave (the last three being the most common cases for university professors), or have all their responsibilities withdrawn (as in the case of sidelined senior public servants).

The process begins when a small group of instigators decides to cast someone out on the pretext that he or she is threatening their interests. This concept covers a variety of cases; perhaps the target is not behaving the way they would like, does not share their view of the organization, earns more than they do or challenges questionable practices. Mobbers use negative communication as their powerful weapon of elimination.

At first unbeknownst to the target, negative communication consists of rumours, complaints (often anonymous), conniving looks, mocking, gossip, misrepresenting facts, insinuations, hearsay, defamation, lies, secret meetings to discuss “the case,” disparaging comments, police-like surveillance of the target’s work and private life to gather “evidence” that justifies the aggression, and so on.

The other side of negative communication is directed at the target and includes unjustified accusations, manipulating or withholding information, sending menacing or hateful messages, calling purportedly friendly or disciplinary meetings, psychologically destabilizing the targets by incessantly accusing them of making mistakes, intimidation, tampering with their workstation, offering to “help” with so-called adaptation problems, and public humiliation.

Read More: Eve Seguin, University Affairs, September 19, 2016, 

Divest #ubc from fossil fuel #globalwarming #faubc #bced #bcpoli

UBC faculty members, one hour left to vote on the Referendum for

 Fossil Fuel Divestment at the University of British Columbia: 

A Responsible Investment Proposal 

Go to UBC Faculty Vote (poll closes at 12:30 today, 8 February 2015)

CFP: Academic Mobbing (Special Issue of Workplace) #edstudies #criticaled #occupyed #bced #yteubc

LAST Call for Papers

Academic Mobbing
Special Issue
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

Editors: Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross

Editors of Workplace are accepting manuscripts for a theme issue on Academic Mobbing.  Academic mobbing is defined by the Chronicle of Higher Education (11 June 2009) as: “a form of bullying in which members of a department gang up to isolate or humiliate a colleague.” The Chronicle continues:

If rumors are circulating about the target’s supposed misdeeds, if the target is excluded from meetings or not named to committees, or if people are saying the target needs to be punished formally “to be taught a lesson,” it’s likely that mobbing is under way.

As Joan Friedenberg eloquently notes in The Anatomy of an Academic Mobbing, the toll taken is excessive.  Building on a long history of both analysis and neglect in academia, Workplace is interested in a range of scholarship on this practice, including theoretical frameworks, legal analyses, resistance narratives, reports from the trenches, and labor policy reviews.  We invite manuscripts that address, among other foci:

  • Effects of academic mobbing
  • History of academic mobbing
  • Sociology and ethnography of the practices of an academic mob
  • Social psychology of the academic mob leader or boss
  • Academic mobbing factions (facts & fictions) or short stories
  • Legal defense for academic mob victims and threats (e.g., Protectable political affiliation, race, religion)
  • Gender norms of an academic mob
  • Neo-McCarthyism and academic mobbing
  • Your story…

Contributions for Workplace should be 4000-6000 words in length and should conform to APA, Chicago, or MLA style.

FINAL Date for Papers: May 30, 2014

Aboriginal rights forum Dalhousie U #idlenomore #edstudies #bced #ubc #ubced #bcpoli

IDEALaw: Aboriginal Rights in the Spotlight

Canadian Civil Liberties Association–January 25, 2014–On January 24th-25th 2014 academics, practitioners, community members, and students have been gathering at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University to discuss and examine the state of Aboriginal rights in Canada. The biennial IDEALaw conference has never seen a comparable response in numbers and media interest. The line up of speakers, cultural events, and discussion focus of the conference has created a buzz in Halifax.

Organized by students, the conference attempts to address a number of pressing issues facing Aboriginals. Environmental concerns, poverty and criminal law issues, and police and institutional responses to protest are all on the bill. The conference was develped to encourage discussion and openness to new approaches, different perspectives, and engaging the public in legal and political action in response to community concerns. While the conference is ongoing, all talks thus far have addressed the chilling effects of organised and concerted rights abuses on the civil liberties and human rights of Aboriginals in Canada and abroad.

The conference opened with a fascinating and rousing talk by Sheila Watt-Cloutier on human rights. Her experience as head of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference and own experiences as an advocate for Inuit in Canada and overseas gave a fascinating and “on the ground” perspective on alternative ways to perceive climate change. Her commentary on and analysis of the success attached to the ICC’s Petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Seeking Relief from Violations Resulting from Global Warming Caused by Acts and Omissions of the United States set the tone for continued discussion into the night. Of particular interest to most was the role of democratic and social rights and their protection in communities facing significant and overwhelming changes due to environmental impact.

Read More: CCLA

January 28 National Day of Teach-ins focused on First Nations Education Act #idlenomore #ubc #bced #bcploi #occupyeducation #edstudies

IDLE NO MORE + DEFENDERS OF THE LAND
TEACH-INS
JANUARY 28, 2014

Idle No More— As we begin a new year, we invite Idle No More groups to organize local teach-ins on January 28th based around the First Nation Education Act and the broader Termination Plan that it represents.  We recognize that every Nation and community has their own unique stories, struggles, and practices and we hope that every teach-in is rooted in the on-the-ground realities that are the heart of the movement. When we include our local allies and supporters to attend, help, and promote local teach-ins we believe this adds strength to the bundle of arrows we continue to build through education.

As a support to teach-in organizers we are developing educational tools to use at local teach-ins that will focus on the  First Nation Education Act and the broader Termination Plan of the Canadian government.  Please feel free to use these tools, or to develop your own!  We are also hoping that each teach-in will create a quick list of local struggles or issues and that we can share these lists to help guide the Idle No More movement.

We need to support one another as we continue to fight for our lands, water, sovereignty, and our future generations.  We hope that these teach-ins help to deepen and strengthen our roots and prepare us for the work that lies ahead.

Read More: Idle No More

Oka joins national protests against oil sands pipeline #idlenomore #ubced #yteubc #davidsuzuki

Photo by Arij Riahi, July 12, 2013

Catherine Solyom, Montreal Gazette, November 16, 2013– About 130 communities across Canada held simultaneous protests Saturday against the expansion of oilsands production and of pipelines to bring the oil east from Alberta, including a protest in Oka, where Kanesatake residents want to stop the reversal of Enbridge’s Line 9B pipeline.

Three buses left Montreal on Saturday morning to take part in the protest, where members of the Idle No More movement, representatives of Québec solidaire and prominent activist Ellen Gabriel addressed the crowd of a few hundred people.

Kanesatake Mohawks are opposed to the expansion of oilsands production in Alberta to the detriment of First Nations communities there, and to the reversal of the flow of Enbridge’s 9B pipeline through Mohawk territory.

The pipeline carries oil west, from Montreal to Westover, Ont., but Enbridge has applied to the National Energy Board to be allowed to ship oil from Western Canada to Montreal, where it would be processed in east-end refineries.

The NEB held public hearings on the project in Montreal and Toronto last month. A decision from the board is expected by January.

But after a year of demands by several Quebec municipalities, including the city of Montreal, and environmental groups for Quebec to hold its own hearings into the pipeline project, the Quebec government announced this week a parliamentary committee will hold hearings from Nov. 26 to Dec. 5, with a report to be submitted to the National Assembly by Dec. 6.

Opponents of the project, however, including the David Suzuki Foundation, the Association québecoise de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique and Équiterre, are not satisfied. They said only the government will be able to ask questions of Enbridge, the hearings are to be held only in Quebec City and the issue of greenhouse-gas emissions from oilsands production does not appear to be among issues that will be discussed.

In Oka on Saturday, where banners compared Enbridge to the Montreal & Maine Railway, which had a deadly train crash in Lac Mégantic, Québec solidaire president Andrés Fontecilla told the crowd they want the parliamentary commission to be given a wider mandate to look into all the potential environmental consequences of the project.

“What a paradox to see a minister for the environment set aside questions related to oil spills and greenhouse-gas emissions,” Fontecilla said, adding between 1999 and 2010, Enbridge has been responsible for 804 spills that sent 25.7 million litres of oil into the environment. “These consultations won’t expose the whole truth to the Mohawk community of Kanesatake nor to the whole population. We expect something different from a sovereignist Parti Québécois government than to act as an accomplice to the oil industry and the Harper government.”

The “Defend Our Climate” protests, which took place in communities from Happy Valley-Goose Bay in Labrador to Tofino, B.C., were intended to show a wall of opposition from coast to coast against the continuing expansion of the oil industry to the detriment of future generations, said Jean Léger of the Coalition vigilance oléoduc (COVO).

“We, our children and our grandchildren will not sit idly by while the oil industry dictates the level and growth rate of greenhouse-gas emissions in this country,” Léger said.

Read More: Montreal Gazette

UBC Sauder Business admin, still no accountability? #ubc #ubcsauderschool #mba #bcpoli #bced #yteubc

Call this and this research, call it evaluative opinion, call the facts, facts. Perhaps cheer-fully, perhaps not, UBC campus waits for accountability over the Sauder rape cheer.

Thus far, President Toope’s Measures fail to effect any form of accountability at the top. For example, the last measure, “[Dean] Helsley announced that the Sauder School of Business will no longer support the CUS FROSH events,” is meaningless, if according to a.nony.mouse in the Ubyssey comments section, “the CUS is its own entity and operates separately from the administration, something that has also been made clear in all investigative documents to date.”

I guess it is plausible that former Dean Muzyka micro-managed the students for over a decade and once he left, the repressed returned and they went wild, so to speak. But I don’t buy this narrative.

Instead, I stand with Nathan in the Ubyssey comments, “there is some fault on the part of the administration.” There may be, as Harbinder says, a “culture of shallowness” and as I say a “culture of entitlement.” For the record, I’ve worked with excellent students and faculty from Sauder, but evidently something (or someone) is failing at the top.

The facts speak: In the fact-finding report, curiously, the words “administration” and “administrator” do not appear while “student/s” appears 46 times. There were no facts to find on administrators or administration?

If it is plausible that of the 11 Assistant and Associate Deans + Dean Helsley, none have responsibilities for “students” in their portfolio, then the President’s Office has failed. That’s a fact of administrative bloat: Between 1999 and 2013, this Faculty’s administrators at that level more than doubled. Yes, Sauder has Dean Muzyka to thank. And increasing tuition and fees have that to factor in. Yet none of these 12 now have any responsibilities for students? I don’t buy that. So is the buck or loonie passed back to the Sauder Dean’s Office?

Similarly, someone or something is failing at the top if of the 12 senior administrators none have curriculum in their portfolio. I find it incomprehensible that it has taken this cheer, a fact-finding report, campus outrage, and nearly 2014 for Sauder to finally get around to, announced on 1 November by Dean Helsley, “Implementing changes in the curriculum to enhance themes of social justice, ethics, gender and cultural sensitivity, and their role in corporate social responsibility and the creation of a civil society”?

A top business school finally getting around to this? In this economy and world? There are 12 senior administrators and none have curriculum and courses in their portfolio? What exactly are they doing? Not all can be running around consulting, like Bob Sutton, teaching CEOs how not to be assholes.

Decolonizing initiatives to accompany police presence at #UBC #yteubc #idlenomore #bced #occupyeducation

Wei Laii, The Ubyssey, November 6, 2013– As a student who had studied at UBC, I am very displeased with the lack of new educational initiatives in response to the six reported cases of sexual assault against young women on the UBC campus.

I do not need armed officers with a saviour complex to harass me about how I can make their jobs easier and become more grateful by policing myself. I resist slut profiling, racial profiling and all other tactics informed by colonial oppression.

Granted, not all officers have been resistant to practicing anti-oppressive solidarity and responsibility. However, we need to look to recent news and examine our police force as an institution with an organizational culture of colonial oppressive values — including but not limited to gender policing, systemic sexual assault against indigenous women and the colonial construction of their bodies such acts require, and insidious systemic misogyny within the RCMP.

It’s important to acknowledge that we need a lot more than increased arrests, criminalization and demonization of perpetrators of violence. An increased police presence alone does not ensure students’ feelings and realities of safety, physical, emotional and cultural. At best, police presence is a bandage solution that makes some students feel safer, others less safe and retraumatized, and it may deter public acts of physical violence.

In our society, systems of oppression include but are not limited to white settler colonialism, ableism, Eurocentricism, heterosexism, cissexism and hegemonic masculinities.

In the cases of UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan, the operation of some of these systems on both campuses have been documented in “Implementing Inclusion,” a report released by UBC in May 2013. The report presents “the substance of concerns voiced to [UBC] during the consultation process that pertain to the lived experiences of students, alumni, staff and faculty at both campuses” and includes concerns about race and ethnicity, gender and transgender and disability. If not to become a place of advocacy in the world, UBC must at least become a place of good mind, by dealing with oppression in its own backyard where students are suffering and ill.

Read More: The Ubyssey and Tumblr

UBC President Toope addresses sexual assaults at press conference #bced #ubc

Will McDonald, The Ubyssey, October 30, 2013– UBC president Stephen Toope addressed the recent sexual assaults at a press conference today.

Toope said UBC is doing all they can to keep students safe in the face of the environment of insecurity currently felt on campus.

“I have kids who live on campus and I am every bit as concerned about their safety as any parent. I can reassure parents across the world that we are doing everything in our power to ensure the safety of their children.”

Toope said the university has already increased both lighting and security patrols on campus, but questioned adding security cameras due to privacy concerns.

“That’s going to be a longer term discussion,” he said. “I certainly am reluctant to make a commitment at this point that the entire campus would be subject to surveillance.”

He said a working group has been formed to discuss issues such as the merits of adding cameras and the possibility of adding more lighting on campus.

“What I can tell you is that we are putting [in] the resources that are necessary to keep this campus as safe as we can. Frankly, we are not counting pennies right now.”

Toope also commended students who have banded together in organizations like Safewalk in the wake of the sexual assaults.

“This is a moment for community building. This is a moment to resist fear, to push back at a person who is making our community feel vulnerable,” he said.

Toope emphasized that the new security measures are a temporary response to the recent sexual assaults. He said the working group would look at longer-term security plans.

“This is one of the safest campuses in North America. There is not normally a climate of fear of or insecurity on the campus.”

Read More: The Ubyssey

Welcome back to the “respectful environment” of your academic workplace

All characters and actions in the story linked below are purely fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or activities experienced in any supposed “respectful environment” of an academic workplace is purely coincidental.

From McSweeney’s:

“Everyone Did Such a Great Job in the Leadership Workshop Today Except Spencer”

By Tim Sniffen

 

David Suzuki: Government not protecting wild salmon, scientists censored

David Suzuki, CBC Radio, April 18, 2013– David Suzuki gave an extended interview on CBC’s On the Coast, profiling Alexandra Morton’s new film “Salmon Confidential” and elaborating on the Canadian government’s censorship of scientists.

Listen to CBC’s On the Coast Interview with David Suzuki

Muzzling scientists is an assault on democracy

David Suzuki, Rabble.ca, April 9, 2013–

Access to information is a basic foundation of democracy. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms also gives us “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.”

We must protect these rights. As we alter the chemical, physical and biological properties of the biosphere, we face an increasingly uncertain future, and the best information we have to guide us comes from science. That scientists – and even librarians – are speaking out against what appear to be increasing efforts to suppress information shows we have cause for concern. The situation has become so alarming that Canada’s Information Commissioner is investigating seven government departments in response to a complaint that they’re “muzzling” scientists.

The submission from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre and Democracy Watch alleges that “the federal government is preventing the media and the Canadian public from speaking to government scientists for news stories – especially when the scientists’ research or point of view runs counter to current Government policies on matters such as environmental protection, oil sands development, and climate change” and that this “impoverishes the public debate on issues of significant national concern.”

The complaint and investigation follow numerous similar charges from scientists and organizations such as the Canadian Science Writers’ Association and the World Federation of Science Journalists, and publications such as the science journal Nature. Hundreds of scientists marched on Parliament Hill last July to mark “the death of evidence”.

The list of actions prompting these grievances is long. It includes shutting the world-renownedExperimental Lakes Area, axing the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, eliminating funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences and prohibiting federal scientists from speaking about research on subjects ranging from ozone to climate change to salmon.

All of this has been taking place as the federal government guts environmental laws and cuts funding for environmental departments through its omnibus budget bills. It has justified those massive environmental policy changes in part by saying the review process was slow and inefficient, but research by scientists at the University of Toronto, published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, “found no evidence that regulatory review in Canada was inefficient, even when regulators had an ongoing load of over 600 projects for review at any given time.”…

Read More: Rabble.ca