Tag Archives: Faculty

150 signatories call #UBC search committee for Dean of Education to account

In a show of solidarity today, 150 signatories submitted a petition to University of British Columbia President Ono to account for a decision to disregard Dr. Samson Nashon‘s application for Dean of the Faculty of Education. The petition calls for the UBC President to correct procedural and evaluative oversights of an Advisory Committee (16 members):

Petition for addition of Dr. Samson Nashon to the Shortlist for Dean of the Faculty of Education
(November 21-25, 2020)

As the Black Lives Matter movement called higher education practices into question, President Ono communicated to faculty, staff, and students on June 1st, 2020: “I encourage you to think about the role you can play in fighting racism.” This petition is in the spirit of that fight.

We are concerned with the process of finding a new Dean of the UBC Faculty of Education. The President’s Advisory Committee charged with this task seems not to have taken into account the groundswell of support for Dr. Samson Nashon. Apparently, the Committee ignored the overwhelming evidence in his support from the process of shortlisting. Up through a communication indicating Dr. Nashon’s exclusion from the shortlist on November 20, over five months have passed since the Advisory Committee’s last communication to the faculty, staff, and students (on June 9, 2020). Short of a problematic election for faculty members on the Committee (only 4 Committee members out of 11 were voted in by the faculty members), faculty and staff had little input into the Committee’s composition. Consequently, the President’s Advisory Committee excluded ALL African Canadian faculty, staff, and students.

Colleagues reviewing Professor Nashon’s application for this search for a Dean of the Faculty of Education and faculty, staff, and students recommending him to the Advisory Committee via Boyden Vancouver know full well his competitive qualifications. They meet and exceed those of many Education Deans across Canada, including UBC. Why were these qualifications seemingly overlooked? Dr. Nashon was encouraged to apply by Boyden, but was then excluded from the shortlist. What does the recruitment of an African Canadian applicant mean, if the goal is merely to enrich the pool of applicants for the sake of optics?

For too long and in too many instances, UBC senior managers have created Advisory Committees that excluded and under-valued well qualified African ethnic and diasporic applicants, who are internal to the university, for leadership positions across UBC campuses. These practices account for the lack of diversity in the demographic of senior and middle management ranks in Education and elsewhere on the two campuses.

Given this, we submit this petition requesting Professor Samson Nashon be added to the shortlist for the Dean of the Faculty of Education Search.

Signed: 150 Signatories

Peter Wylie: Report on the Workplace Experience Survey Results for Faculty, Barber School of Arts & Sciences (2011, 2014, 2017)

Report on the Workplace Experience Survey Results for Faculty, Barber School of Arts & Sciences (2011, 2014, 2017)

Peter Wylie, Department of Economics, Philosophy and Political Science, March 2018

The following are the results of the 2011, 2014 and 2017 Workplace Experiences Surveys (WES) based on the responses of all faculty in the Barber School – that is, all regular, permanent faculty members as well as sessional faculty, deans, associate deans, heads, post-docs, and research associates. The 2011 and 2014 results are presented in absolute terms and the 2017 results are presented both in absolute terms and relative to the responses of all faculty at UBC (UBCO plus UBCV).

The company that completed the 2017 survey, TalentMap, states: “Generally, a % Favourable of 70 or above is considered good, a % Favourable in the 60s is considered acceptable, and a % Favourable of lower than 60 would indicate the need to investigate further.” Or, to put in the parlance of what faculty members might better relate to, an overall grade of above 70 is good (B- and above), a grade in the 60s in acceptable (C), and a grade lower than 60 is generally unacceptable. An overall grade n the 50s is a marginal pass (D), but generally seen as still not good enough, and a grade lower than 50 is a fail (F) and entirely unacceptable.

The 2011 results overall

54 faculty in the School completed the 2011 survey, a reported response rate of 32%, implying that there were approximately 165 such faculty in the School when the survey was completed in November 2011. The vast majority of the faculty respondents were permanent faculty members (47) and the others respondents were 3 sessional faculty and 4 deans, associate deans, heads etc. The survey misclassified heads as non-bargaining unit faculty.

The 2011 WES results for all faculty in the Barber School were generally negative, reflecting an overall disengaged faculty. The average percent of all faculty giving favourable responses (“very satisfied/satisfied” or “agree/strongly agree” etc.) across all 79 questions in the survey was 47%, which in most faculty members’ estimation is an F, fail.

The results were known as of February 2012 but no action was undertaken by the Barber School Dean’s Office to discuss them with faculty until, on the initiative of faculty members themselves, an ad-hoc committee of the Barber School Faculty Council was established in February 2013. This was the first such committee ever established by Faculty Council, and it was to study the poor results in detail and to make recommendations that would help make the Barber School a better, or at least a less bad, place for faculty to work. No interest was shown by the Dean’s Office in the work of this committee over its approximately one full year of deliberations, and both the Barber School acting dean at the time and the Barber School dean at the time the survey was completed (the then acting provost) refused to meet with the committee.

The 2014 results overall

The 2014 results were brought to the attention of faculty in the School by the Dean’s Office only in November 2017, and, it appears, were not analyzed nor acted upon by the School before then. The 2014 survey reported a response rate of 33%, the same as in 2011, but did not report the actual number of responses. If there were approximately 180 faculty in the School in November 2014 inclusive of all permanent faculty members as well as sessional faculty, deans, associate deans, heads, etc., then a response rate of 33% implies that approximately 60 faculty or so in the School completed the survey in November 2014. The survey in 2014 again misclassified heads as non-bargaining unit faculty.

The 2014 WES results for all faculty in the Barber School were again generally negative, reflecting an overall disengaged faculty. The average percent of all faculty giving favourable responses (“very satisfied/satisfied” or “agree/strongly agree” etc.) across all 69 questions in the survey was 57%, which in most faculty members’ estimation is a D grade, a marginal pass, but generally unacceptable.

The 2017 results overall

The 2017 results were brought to the attention of faculty in the School by the Dean’s Office in February 2018. 82 faculty in the School completed the 2017 survey, a reported response rate of 44% and implying that there were approximately 185 or so such faculty in the School when the survey was completed in November 2017.

The 2017 WES results for all faculty in the Barber School remain generally negative, reflecting an overall disengaged faculty. The average percent of all faculty giving Favourable responses (“very satisfied/satisfied” or “agree/strongly agree” etc.) across all 91 questions in the survey was 49%, which in most faculty members’ estimation is an F, fail.

For UBC overall, the average percent of all faculty at UBC giving Favourable responses (“very satisfied/satisfied” or “agree/strongly agree” etc.) across all 91 questions in the 2017 survey was 61%, so just marginally acceptable. Results for the Barber School are hence an average of 12% lower, pushing the Barber School into the fail, unacceptable range.

So there has been little improvement overall in the Barber School in the results 2011 to 2014 to 2017, and the average grade is an F across the period. So I think we have to ponder why, in our School with its $15m endowment and commitment to “an environment of academic excellence” and “a liberal arts and sciences school in the finest tradition” workplace experiences of faculty are apparently so poor, both in absolute terms and relative to faculty elsewhere at UBC.

Comparison of results of similar questions across the 2011, 2014 and 2017 surveys

Of course an overall grade across all categories and across three different surveys where the questions differ to different degrees, and the respondents differ to different degrees, is only a fairly crude comparison, but still valid to a large extent (we do the same comparisons in the student grade averages in our courses across sections and years). However, if some of the questions remained largely the same across the three surveys it is also instructive to look at the results of specific questions. Unfortunately, the questions change quite a bit across the surveys, especially for the 2017 survey relative to those of 2011 and 2014.

The ad-hoc committee of Faculty Council established to analyze the 2011 WES results for the Barber School identified four major themes of workplace dissatisfaction:

1. Low Level of morale and organizational engagement

2. Dissatisfaction with senior leadership, managerial communications and transparency

3. Dissatisfaction with workload, workload flexibility, support/resources and work-life balance

4. Dissatisfaction with opportunities for career progression and professional development

Themes 1 and 2 fell into the category of “general work atmosphere issues” and themes 3 and 4 into the category of “personal work and workload issues”. The committee presented its final report to Faculty Council in March 2014 and made a number of recommendations that it felt would improve things in each of these two major categories, but none of these recommendations were implemented by the

School. The acting dean and provost at the time showed no interest in the final report of the committee, and made no official response to it, and when its report was brought to the attention of the new(and current) dean in 2016, he said he had never heard of it and hence had never read it.

We will however use these categories found to be the major areas of concern in the final report of the ad-hoc committee to discuss below the differences and similarities between the 2011, 2014 and 2017 results, because these areas still show up in 2017, not unexpectedly given the lack of attention to the results of the 2011 and 2014 surveys by Barber School or University management to date, as the major areas or concern.

Comparison of results of inside and outside the Barber School at UBCO, 2017 survey

The total results for faculty of the 2017 WES for UBCO overall have not been released to the UBCO academic community yet. What has been released is a PowerPoint presentation put together by the survey company for the UBCO Department of Human Resources (HR). In this presentation, only results of 35 of the 91 questions are revealed for faculty only. Avoided entirely in the presentation are the results for the most negative areas for the Barber School and presumably UBCO overall for faculty; work environment, work/life integration, communications, collaboration, immediate unit head/manager, UBCO’s senior leadership, and health and wellbeing. It is perhaps to be expected that HR might wish to dwell on the positive rather than the negative. More worrying is the fact that on the PowerPoint, all of these areas where the % responding favorably at UBCO are the lowest are assigned a “medium to low priority” by HR! Maybe these areas are seen as lost causes?

So the focus of the PowerPoint is only on the “key strengths” to “leverage and expand” that is, the most positive results. It states “focusing on the low…scores…may not fully address what is needed…” Is this not perhaps contradictory to the survey company’s argument that low scores “would indicate the need to investigate further”?

The PowerPoint then states that the focus should be on the areas where the performance is low but that are somehow designated as “key drivers of engagement” – faculty support, senior leadership and collaboration. But then presented are only the detailed results for faculty for only the three most positive scoring areas – professional growth, student focus, and inclusion and respect. Very odd indeed.

The faculty response rate for UBCO overall was 173 out of 459 faculty; or 38%. Since the response rate in the Barber School was 82 out of 185 (44%), that implies that the response rate outside of the Barber School was 91 out of 274, that is a response rate of 33%, for an overall UBCO response rate of 38%. So there was a better response from faculty in the Barber School than from faculty in the rest of UBCO.

Of the results of the 35 questions revealed, for 22 of these questions the results were more-or-less identical for the Barber School and for UBCO overall. For 13 of the questions, the results are much worse in the Barber School than outside of the Barber School. For no question or statement of these 35 were the results for the Barber School more favourable than for UBCO overall. The results of the 13 questions are below where the results for the Barber School faculty (UBCO-BS) are much worse than for faculty outside of the Barber School (UBCO-O). This can be inferred from decomposing the UBCO overall results into UBCO-BS (which is known) and UBCO-O (which is inferred from the overall UBCO results, which are also known).

How are we to interpret these results? Is it just that the Barber School has a higher proportion of grumpy old members (e.g. “heritage faculty”?) than elsewhere at UBCO, or is it that there are there serious problems in the Barber School that don’t exist elsewhere at UBCO? Probably not the first hypothesis (FCCS, Nursing etc. also perhaps have a high proportion of “heritage faculty”) so perhaps the second hypothesis should be taken seriously by the UBCO senior administration and HR?

Read the complete report here: WES 2011 to 2017

#UBC time to lay down the mace in graduation and governance #ubcnews #bced #highered

*Apologies to the medievalists again. Customized below is our semi-annual appeal to UBC managers to Lay Down the Mace:

As we count down to and roll through graduation, can we please remove the mace from convocation and governance at the University of British Columbia? The mace had its day in the first 100 years of this esteemed University but that day has gone.

Dalhousie University is currently embroiled in controversy over its mace, decorated as it is to demonstrate racial supremacy (“the rose, thistle, fieur-de-lys, and shamrock, depicting the major racial groups of our country”). Indigenous peoples and advocates have said enough already.

Some traditions just aren’t worth maintaining…

At the Nexo Knights’ Graduation Day,

Jestro grabbed a sword, a mace, and a spear and began to juggle them… The unimpressed crowd started to boo… Sweat broke out on his forehead…. He let go of the mace, and it flew across the arena. The crowd gasped and ducked… Then … bam! It hit the power grid on the arena wall. The area lights flickered, then turned off. Soon the power outage surged throughout the city.

Yes, this really did happen in a Lego story! And in England, Bradford College faculty members called the admin’s decision to spend £24,000 on a new mace for graduation ceremonies a “crass bit of judgement.”

At UBC, things were questionable again this past year. With an opportunity to follow faculty and staff members’ and students’ proposal to divest from fossil fuel investments, in mid February UBC chose to continue to be a part of the problem of climate change instead of the solution. Still heavily invested. And after chalking up a $22m budget surplus, in April & May UBC jumped the line at Wholefoods to draw $7,230 in grocery bag donations. On 24 April an Open Letter signed by 110 faculty members was submitted to the UBC Chancellor Reappointment Committee questioning the process.

The days of the mace in Convocation and governance are of the past and that part of the past is no longer worth reenacting.

It’s difficult to know where this University now stands or what it stands for.

It is time to retire the mace, symbol of aggression, authority, and war. It’s time to march to graduation ceremonies in late May and November with open and empty hands as symbolic of peace and reconciliation of controversies and roles of the President’s Office.

UBC’s mace is a relic but a relic of what? The mace is symbolic speech but what is it saying about us now?

From ancient times, this club, this weapon of assault and offence, the mace was gradually adorned until the late twelfth century when it doubled as a symbol of civil office. Queen Elizabeth I granted her royal mace to Oxford in 1589. From military and civil power derives academic authority. The rest is history and it is not all good.

Dr. Thomas Lemieux, School of Economics with UBC’s Mace at the May 2015 Convocation.

Dr. Thomas Lemieux, School of Economics, with UBC’s Mace at the May 2015 Convocation.

It is time to retire the macebearer, whose importance is inflated every year by the image’s presence on UBC’s graduation pages leading to Convocation. In pragmatic terms, if the mace falls into the hands of the wrong macebearer or manager at this point, someone’s liable to get clocked with it.

Is UBC’s mace still a respectable appendage to Convocation?

Remember, since that fateful November day in 1997, just five months into Martha Piper’s Presidency, when student activists put their bodies and minds on the line at the APEC protest, Tuum Est adorns both the can of mace sprayed in their eyes and the ceremonial mace that the President’s Office is eager to carry across campus every November and May.

Is it not time to retire the mace?

Is #UBC Okanagan Education merging with #UBCeduc Education? #ubcnews #ubconews #bced #bcpoli

E. Wayne Ross provided this gem of information and insight to UBC’s “first” Faculty of Education:

In the recent past, Dean Frank has spoken of the possibility of the UBC Okanagan Faculty of Education being “merged” with or administered by the UBC Vancouver Faculty of Education.

I am not aware of any recent developments or announcements regarding this merger, take-over (or what have you) nor am I aware of any discussions or reports on the implications of such an action.

I am raising the issue because in paper delivered earlier this month Peter Wylie, professor of economics at UBCO, describes the take over as a done deal [p. 31].

I agree with Wayne’s points and it would be nice to know which analogy to adopt: merger, make-over, take-over, left-over, etc.? On the other hand, the information here seems like an easy lob over a net just wanting a return…

UBCO’s Faculty of Education has been innovative from its beginning in 2005. Deputy Vice-Chancellor Deborah Buszard called UBCO a “bold new UBC presence” when it was founded.

UBCO Education is a full Faculty that apparently gets along quite well without any Associate or Assistant Deans. That is bold. Apparently, it has gotten along quite readily for nearly the past three years without a Dean. Or if you will on a technicality, an Acting Dean that covers two Faculties.

Indeed, UBCO’s Faculty of Education has done its part in reducing admin bloat and demonstrated quite readily that faculty members can self-manage and govern. That is bold.

Under these conditions, the faculty members and students managed to rescue their BEd program mid December last year from closure. Or, at least they won a reprieve for a year (i.e., new closure date December 2017) and had to limit the admissions to just over 50%. Still, that is bold.

The gist of what Wylie reports as a “done deal” is that UBCO Education was expanded but is now submitted to a process of downsizing to the point of transfer or conversion into UBCV Education. This is *not* bold.

Hello? For what problem is this transfer a solution?

Hello again? At UBCV we have had no (read “0”) discussion about this. This is *not* bold.

#UBCclean protest disrupts #UBC Board mtg #ubcnews #ubc100 #ubysseynews

UBCcleanProtest2Feb16a

UBC faculty, staff, students, and citizens turned out in mass to protest the Board of Governors’ unaccountability and damaging lack of transparency. The message being enough is enough. We’re fed up with the the backroom politics that are pervasive enough to move a new President out of office with no review, rhyme nor reason.

UBCcleanProtest2Feb16c

UBCcleanProtest2Feb16b

After a rally in front of the Alumni building, the protest proceeded upstairs to the door of the Board meeting. The disruption was direct and effective, with a subset marching into the meeting. Chants of ‘hey hey, ho ho, the BoG has got to go’ roaring outside the door and the Board’s discomfort inside. Shockingly, the Board allotted time for a colleague to speak out at the mic!

UBCcleanProtest2Feb16d

Amazing demonstration of the grass roots on campus everyone! Next time we may move to occupy.

@ubcnews time to apologize to Gupta & #UBC members #ubc100 #ubcclean #ubcnews #bced

The management and legitimacy crisis at the University of British Columbia is growing worse. Putting out fires from crisis to crisis, the University’s public relations has been a disaster from day one.

Following the release of Freedom of Information records, replete with embedded files– smoking guns– UBC has had little to no comment. The first comment was “UBC will not be commenting.” No comment… from the VP External Relations and University Counsel.

The second comment elaborated on a technicality: “it is necessary to take the additional step of “sanitizing” the [FoI] PDF file to remove the hidden copies of the unredacted attachments.

“UBC deeply regrets the error that led to this privacy breach,” University Counsel continued.

That’s it? That’s the extent of the apology? A technical regret for a failure to sanitize?

Advice to the VP External Relations and University Counsel: 1) Apologize to Dr. Gupta. 2) Publicly apologize to the faculty, staff, and students of UBC.

That would be a start…

Protest at #UBC Feb 2, Alumni bldg. 12:30 #ubcgss #ubysseynews #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced

Protest at UBC
Protest the BoG Meeting

Why: Demand UBC management and Board accountability
When: Tuesday, February 2 at 12:30 2:00
Where: Robert H. Lee Alumni Bldg, Centre, 6163 University Boulevard, UBC
How: Faculty, staff and students will gather w/ guests & speakers, etc.

UBC faculty, staff and students will protest the upcoming UBC Board of Governors Meeting, and will publicly demand that

  • the Board of Governors stops holding secret, undocumented meetings
  • the Board honours its duty to operate in a transparent and accountable fashion
  • an external review of its past practices takes place immediately

For more background on the issues leading to this protest, see this letter from the Faculty Association of UBC, which details how the BoG has, among other things, held committee meetings that left no official record, and made decisions about personnel matters without formal assessments or performance reviews.

Please share with all interested UBC people: faculty, students, alumni.

And faculty are encouraged to wear academic robes if they have them!

We have invited MLA David Eby, MLA Andrew Weaver, Minister Andrew Wilkinson, and President Arvind Gupta to join us and speak about these issues.

More details

#UBC FA questions FoI disclosure and calls for review of BoG #ubc100 #ubcnews #bced

The Faculty Association has levelled an extensive critique of senior management and governance of the University of British Columbia. The FAUBC begins:

Information that has come out from freedom of information requests, as well as Wednesday’s leak of documents, has justified our concern that the Board of Governors had acted via secret, in camera processes that do not meet the standards of best practices for public bodies in British Columbia. Worse, it is becoming apparent that such a lack of public accountability is the normal mode of operation for the UBC Board of Governors, and we are concerned that the actions of the Board may expose the University to charges of contravention of the University Act and provincial privacy and access to information laws….

It is alarming to us that the records supplied in response to a formal request under the Access to Information laws should be incomplete, and that University Counsel should be supplied with incomplete records. As such, this would appear to be a violation of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA)….

What remains unknown about Board procedures is, we think, significant in the matter of Dr. Gupta’s resignation. Board procedures, more generally, appear not to be documented. Instead, they appear to be maintained as some form of “oral knowledge” managed by either the Board Secretary or the University Counsel, depending on the matter. This is at variance with best practices, and certainly inconsistent with a notion of open and transparent university governance….

Given the events that have unfolded thus far and the information that has been revealed, we believe it is time for an external review of the UBC Board and its practices. Such a review should be an open process that engages fully the faculty, students, staff, and alumni of the University of British Columbia.

Superb work on behalf of members of the University and the public good.

Dear John, head’s up, Arvind is now talking RE #UBC disrespect #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced

Dear John, how goes it?

Did you hear what happened? Spoiler Alert: you’re not going to believe it!

Just a bit of a head’s up cause Arvind is now allowed to talk! (Hey, see if you can get UBC to say something lol)

First Law of UBC’s Statement on Respectful Environment: Thou cannot complain up.

You and our good ‘ol Board of Governors knew this better than everyone; after all, pursuant to Policy #1, you administrated all 97 Policies, plus the Statement.

And we all know what that Statement says about complaining up: “Bullying or harassment does not include the exercise of appropriate managerial or supervisory direction, including performance management.”

The President, of all people, has the right under the Statement to be uppity, snippity, and, to be candid, John, “void of empathy” whenever he, she, or they exercise/s managerial direction. It’s b&w in the Statement. It’s in the book.

Truth be told John, if the middle managers deemed Arvind “too quick to engage in debate in a confrontational or dismissive manner, which is demoralising to a group of executives in fear of their employment security,” you should have enforced the First Law, took those managers to task, and protected that top level.

Remember, the purpose of the Statement is not only to pit faculty against faculty, staff against staff, and student against student. It is all that, secondarily for sure.

The primary purpose of the Statement is to protect managers from any bottom up criticism. That toxic critique of Arvind should’ve been nipped in the bud.

Top down, never bottom up.

It’s awesome to know you and we all now feel we know you even better. You now know us a little better too! Sometimes a “course correction” is ok.

Be good (and if you can’t be good at BMO, by all means, be bad).

No confidence #UBC time to recall Board, rescind tuition hikes #ubysseynews #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced

Given the implications that an unelected body has been running the show at the University of British Columbia, through a series of behind the scenes ad hoc committees, confidence in governance has waned. It is time to recall the Board of Governors. And time to rescind the tuition hike the Board approved in December. Accountability?

#UBC Arvind Gupta speaks and sorts out distortions #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #highered

After six months of silence, Arvid Gupta is speaking and sorting out distortions of his resignation and what transpired behind the scenes. The Globe and Mail posted a summary last night and this morning Gupta took to the airwaves on CBC.

A one-sided story prompted the University of British Columbia’s ex-President to introduce a reality check. UBC fumbled with Freedom of Information requests for six months but finally disclosed a package earlier this week. UBC Insiders detailed the serious implications of  the embedded files, and by yesterday’s end Gupta broke the silence.

Turns out UBC’s Board of Governors formed an ad hoc committee to deflect the President’s attention from reform to their concerns with his style. Listen to CBC for Gupta’s side.

Letter to @UBC President: time to lay down the mace #ubc100 #ubcnews #ubc #bced #highered #caut

Open Letter to UBC President Piper:
Time to Lay Down the Mace

It has been an emotional year for the University of British Columbia. As budgets moved from Central, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada launched Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future. The residential university and college take on new meaning. As we launched the celebration of our Centennial at UBC 100, our President resigned under a cloak of secrecy. As we began to party, we launched an investigation to discover the lengths to which a Chair of the Board of Governors and administrators might go to suppress academic freedom. Now, as we march to Convocation, students and alumni launch evidence that UBC is failing to properly respond to sexual assaults on campus.

In the meantime, terrorists and terror struck Sharm el-Sheikh, Beirut and Paris while the dogs of war howl for bombers and drones to command from the skies above. Increasingly larger regions of the world live in a state of emergency.

It’s difficult to know where this University now stands or what it stands for.

To take a stand symbolic of peace and reconciliation, please lay down the mace for ceremonies and Convocation. Please put away the coat of arms and lay down the mace. If not for good, then how about for peace?

It is time to retire this symbol of aggression, authority and war. It’s time to march to graduation ceremonies this week with open and empty hands as symbolic of peace and reconciliation of controversies and roles of the President’s Office.

UBC’s mace is a relic but a relic of what? The mace is symbolic speech but what is it saying about us now?

From ancient times, this club, this weapon of assault and offence, the mace was gradually adorned until the late twelfth century when it doubled as a symbol of civil office. Queen Elizabeth I granted her royal mace to Oxford in 1589. From military and civil power derives academic authority. The rest is history and it is not all good.

Dr. Thomas Lemieux, School of Economics with UBC’s Mace at the May 2015 Convocation.

Dr. Thomas Lemieux, School of Economics, with UBC’s Mace at the May 2015 Convocation.

It is time to retire the macebearer, whose importance is inflated every year by the image’s presence on UBC’s graduation pages leading to Convocation. In pragmatic terms, if the mace falls into the hands of the wrong macebearer or manager at this point, someone’s liable to get clocked with it.

Is UBC’s mace still a respectable appendage to Convocation?

Remember, since that fateful November day in 1997, just five months into your Presidency, when student activists put their bodies and minds on the line at the APEC protest, Tuum Est adorns both the can of mace sprayed in their eyes and the ceremonial mace that the President’s Office is eager to carry across campus every November and May. That’s “too messed,” as the students say.

Is it not time to retire both?

#UBC Senate defeats transparency motion #ubc100 #ubcnews #ubysseynews #highered #bced #ubcgss

A few weeks ago, we posted “Shared governance hits rock bottom at UBC.” Respondents noted that there was still a glimmer of hope for governance and recoiled at the suggestion that “equally futile in introducing even a modicum of accountability or insight into the non-disclosure scandal is the UBC Senate.”

At this evening’s Senate meeting, Senator Anstee moved a motion for transparency in the confidentiality agreement between UBC and past-President Arvind Gupta, but the motion was defeated. Yes there was debate but the motion for transparency was defeated.

The initial premise holds: equally futile in shared governance– when it really counts– is the UBC Board of Governors and Senate. Sure, faculty, staff and students can banter over the objectives of a new course or the fine print of a new policy. But on the meaningful decisions at this point at the University of British Columbia, governance is dominated by developers and investment bankers and confined by legalism. The two are hand in glove.

Again, the BoG’s, Senate’s and Senior Administration’s rejection of multiple requests and appeals for accountability in the President’s resignation marks the low point of shared or faculty governance at the University. Hoping to rise to the occasion of its 100th, UBC instead sunk to rock bottom.

FAUBC blasts #UBC admin for academic freedom failures #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #highered

Dear Colleagues:

The Faculty Association is disappointed with and surprised by UBC’s statements at yesterday’s press conference on the Honourable Lynn Smith’s findings.

In keeping with the language of the Collective Agreement, the terms of reference established a fact-finding process to investigate whether Dr. Berdahl’ s academic freedom was “interfered with in any way.” The Investigation concluded that it was.

The University, however, repeatedly stated that Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom was not infringed. This communication is not entirely consistent with the Summary Report.

While the Summary Report concludes that no single individual alone is responsible for the infringement, it clearly communicates that the cumulative effect of the actions as well as inactions of the University amounted to interference with Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom. To quote directly from the public Summary Report, Professor Smith found that:

UBC failed in its obligation to protect and support Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom. The Collective Agreement Preamble creates a positive obligation to support and protect academic freedom. Through the combined acts and omissions of Mr. Montalbano, the named individuals in the Sauder School, and others, UBC as an institution failed to meet that obligation with respect to Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom.

Further, because the question of whether interference occurred was foreseeable, the University and the Faculty Association had a phone conversation with Professor Smith to clarify the matter. Professor Smith explicitly confirmed for the Parties that one of her findings was that Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom had indeed been interfered with.

It is therefore disappointing that despite such explicit clarification the University failed to acknowledge this important finding of fact in the press conference yesterday and instead simply repeated that there was no infringement of Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom. In essence, the University has only acknowledged part of the problem….

Read More: FAUBC

Mark Mac Lean, President
On behalf of the UBC Faculty Association Executive Committee

Teflon Admin at #UBC #ubcsauderschool #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #highered

We have to say, the comedy of errors continues in the administration of the Sauder School of Business while nothing sticks to the teflon Dean.

“As it happened,” the Honourable Lynn Smith reports, there was a flurry of suppressions of academic freedom in the building but “the Dean of the Sauder School of Business was away and only intermittently in touch.”

When the Sauder students chanted a rhyme about rape two years ago, again no administrators were home. In that fact-finding report, again there was no accountability. Curiously, the words “administration” and “administrator” do not appear while “student/s” appears 46 times. Then and now, there were no facts to find on administrators or administration in Sauder.

With this new non-finding in the Smith Report, Sauder Dean Robert Helsley has to be laughing.

Is this not a pattern and a failure of legalism here at UBC?

Failures of legalism and academic freedom at #UBC #caut #ubysseynews #lawstudents #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced

Faculty members at the University of British Columbia are now left in the dark of legalism. On one hand is the overuse and abuse of legalistic non-disclosure agreements, such as that between the Board of Governors and ex-President Gupta. This form of legalism prevents us from knowing why our President resigned and who was behind the resignation.

Now, on the other hand is the Honourable Lynn Smith’s Report on interference with academic freedom, specifically on whether BoG Chair Montalbano and Sauder School of Business administrators acted to suppress Jennifer Berdahl’s inquiry into the resignation. Smith delivered one of the most legalistic fact-finding Reports one could write on the case. This form of legalism prevents us from knowing why a faculty member was submitted to forces of suppression and who is accountable.

In a masterful crafting, Smith found that

UBC failed in its obligation to protect and support Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom… UBC as an institution failed [however] Mr. Montalbano, on his own, did not infringe any provision of the Collective Agreement, the UBC Statement on Respectful Environment, or any of the applicable university policies. No individual in the Sauder School of Business identified by the Faculty Association, on his or her own, infringed any provision of the Collective Agreement, the UBC Statement on Respectful Environment, or any of the applicable university policies. (pp. 3-4)

“UBC failed…” UBC the corporate person contravened the Collective Agreement and interfered with academic freedom. But no human person contravened or interfered.

If Lynn Smith finds the corporation of UBC liable for violating an article of the Collective Agreement and a faculty member’s academic freedom, then which of its administrators or officials are responsible? Through which administrators or officials was the University acting in this case?

It’s a basic question of corporate liability that first year law students confront. But it’s also an advanced question that tests legal scholars. One retributivist option is to acknowledge UBC corporate personhood and responsibility while at the same time holding to account senior officials, whether or not they participated in the transgressions, tolerated the actions taken, in this case by Montalbano and Sauder administrators, or just looked the other way.

“UBC failed,” and legalism is failing UBC. Jennifer Berdahl’s response takes the next step, noting she’s “disappointed that university leaders” lost sight of academic freedom. The Faculty Association’s response takes the next step in this process, noting that “Senior academic leaders were conspicuously absent and silent.”

Who then were the senior administrators that tolerated the breaches or looked the other way? Provost and VP Academic pro tem? VP Human Resources? University Counsel? Dean of Sauder School of Business?

Through which administrators or officials was UBC acting in this case?

Once again, now is the time to speculate.

Faculty Association holds #UBC to account for failure to uphold academic freedom #ubcnews #ubc100 #caut #bced #highered

15 October 2015

Dear Colleagues:

The Honourable Lynn Smith, Q. C., completed her fact-finding process last week and presented the parties with her report. We thank Professor Smith for her fair and impartial process and for producing a high quality, nuanced report, a public summary of which is available on our website (Please follow this link).

The key finding of the Smith Report is that the University of British Columbia failed in its duty to support and protect Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom and that it interfered with her academic freedom. The finding thus has two clear implications. First, the University itself actively impinged Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom by the cumulative effects of various University actors’ behaviour. And, secondly, because the duty is a positive one, requiring affirmative and proactive support for academic freedom in situations such as Dr. Berdahl’s, the University’s silence in relation to the attack by others on Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom was an additional failure.

More specifically, the conclusions to be drawn from the Report are as follows. The Report finds that the University acted without regard for the well-being and interests of Dr. Berdahl. Following her online posting of a blog, Dr. Berdahl became the target of attacks by email, by social media, and in columns appearing in the national press. At no time did any university official speak out in defense of her right to academic freedom or issue any other statement of support for her or scholarship. The Smith Report, consequently, concludes that, as a result of the combined acts and omissions of Mr. Montalbano and others, Dr. Berdahl “reasonably felt reprimanded, silenced and isolated.” The events initiated by the University following the publication of Dr. Berdahl’s blog post have had, the Report continues, a “significant negative impact” on Dr. Berdahl.

The main agents involved in the University’s response to the blog post were the Chair of the Board of Governors, Mr. John Montalbano, the Chancellor of the University, Mr. Lindsay Gordon, the Sauder Dean’s Office, as well as UBC staff and others advising the Board on how to handle the aftermath of President Gupta’s resignation. Senior academic leaders were conspicuously absent and silent.

While Dr. Berdahl received support from international scholars and experts in her field, and from faculty throughout UBC and other universities, we are troubled that neither the Administration nor the Board spoke fully and publicly in defense of Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom. The silence with respect to Dr. Berdahl on this issue from these two central sites of university leadership is extraordinary. Senior administrators and board members bear responsibility for this failure.

These mistakes and missteps in the case of Dr. Berdahl have occurred under Mr. Montalbano’s leadership, often as a result of his direct personal involvement.

We await the responses from the Administration and the Board of Governors.

Sincerely,

Mark Mac Lean, President
On behalf of the UBC Faculty Association Executive Committee

Shared governance hits rock bottom at #UBC #ubc100 #ubcnews #ubysseynews #highered #bced #ubcgss

The Board of Governors’ rejection this week of the Faculty Association’s request for accountability in President Gupta’s resignation marks the low point of shared or faculty governance at the University of British Columbia. It’s a shame that UBC sunk to rock bottom as it intended to rise to the occasion of its 100th birthday.

Although among the 21 members of BoG there are 8 elected by faculty, staff and students, which gives a facade of shared governance, the reality driven home in the non-disclosure scandal is that governance at UBC is dominated by developers and investment bankers. Silenced or muzzled, the elected faculty, staff and students have been irrelevant if not useless in protecting the best interests and being honest with the members of the University.

Equally futile in introducing even a modicum of accountability or insight into the non-disclosure scandal is the UBC Senate. At the moment when we needed shared or faculty governance most, when it really counted, the UBC Senate accepted its Nominating Committees’ recommendation to stick with status quo practice in the search for a successor President “instead of attempting to make significant changes at this time.”

The public requests for accountability from faculty and librarians (FAUBC), from staff (CUPE) from graduate students (GSS) and undergraduate students (AMS), are symbolic of appeals for shared governance. And each appeal or request has been rejected out of hand by the University. In the words of the BoG, “personal privacy” trumps accountability and access to information of a public body. Irrelevant is its duty under the University Act to protect the best interests of the University and be honest with the members of UBC.

In 2004, the Federal Information Commissioner expressed concerns that civil servants, lawyers and managers of public bodies in Canada were managing “to find ingenious ways to wiggle and squirm to avoid the full operation of the law.”

Two recent books, The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance and The Fall of the Faculty, document this descent to the rock bottom of shared or faculty governance. UBC is not alone at the bottom and there were never expectations that it would be any different.

But the explicit rejection by the BoG this week of requests for shared governance in accounting for the resignation of a President paves that rock bottom for a long stay.

There is much more to say, as shared or faculty governance is by no means limited to BoG or Senate at UBC. At the lower levels of Faculties, Schools and Departments, there is an atrophy of shared or faculty governance. Budgets, for example, have been made sacred and secret at UBC, with Deans and Associate Deans (appointed at whim) making the budgets and centralizing more and more budget decisions while reporting less and less.

In “A Love Affair with Secrecy,” we are reminded that the “Access to Information Act was supposed to get government documents into the hands of Canadians. Instead, it has created a state in which there are often no documents to get.”

#UBC v Gupta, checkmate and game #ubcnews #ubc100 #ubyssey #bced #highered

Well, there it is University of British Columbia. Game over. The advantage was President Arvind Gupta’s, who now checkmates you in just 3 moves.

First move: resigns. Second move: ties UBC up in its knots of non-disclosure. Third move: walks out the door to U of T, which is #1 while UBC battles for its comeback to #2.

Checkmate.

Arvind then sends this message back to UBC, which is still staring at the chessboard, stunned: At U of T “there’ll be lots of opportunities to build new kinds of links.”

Lots of opportunities, new kinds of links, to say the least.

Game.

#UBC BoG rejects FAUBC request for accountability in Gupta resignation #caut #bced #ubcnews #ubc100 #highered

September 21, 2015

Dr. Mark Mac Lean, President
Faculty Association
112 – 1924 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 122

Dear Dr. Mac Lean:

I am writing in response to your letter dated September 1, 2015 in which you reiterate your desire for more information about Professor Gupta’s decision to resign his appointment as President.

The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act strikes a balance between the desire for citizens to access information about public bodies and the need to protect the personal privacy of individuals. UBC proactively publishes large amounts of information about its operations, including the amounts that it pays to all senior employees. Recognizing how access to financial information contributes to public accountability, the legislation explicitly permits this. However, the legislation also recognizes the exceptionally sensitive nature of certain types of personal information such as personal employment history (including information about employees’ reasons for resigning their positions) and therefore explicitly provides that the disclosure of such information is presumed to be an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy.

Regarding the search for a new President, I assure you that the Presidential Search Committee will work to include the viewpoints of all stakeholders, including faculty, staff, students, and alumni. We will be in touch with the Executive of the Faculty Association in the near future to invite your input as we begin this process. I look forward to working with you and your colleagues as we embark on the important work ahead.

Regards,
Ms. Alice Laberge, Acting Board Chair
UBC Board of Governors