Tag Archives: Ontario

Laurier could face strike by faculty in early March

The Record: Laurier could face strike by faculty in early March

WATERLOO — Full-time faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University will be in a legal strike position on March 3 if a contract settlement isn’t reached with the university.

The Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association said Wednesday that 520 members approved a strike mandate with a 91 per cent vote last Friday. The group includes 19 librarians. Their contract ran out on July 1.

Main issues include salaries and pensions, both sides said.

Ontario Will Add 20,000 New Students at Colleges and Universities…but no new professors

The Chronicle: Ontario Will Add 20,000 New Students at Colleges and Universities

Ontario, already the province with the most universities and colleges in Canada, will add 20,000 new places for students this fall, according to details in yesterday’s provincial budget. The province will spend more than $300-million for the expansion, in addition to more than $200-million that was previously announced. The budget also says Ontario plans to aggressively promote its colleges and universities abroad to encourage the world’s best students to study and settle in the province. It will also pay for an improved credit-transfer system. The higher-education expansion was welcomed by the universities and colleges, but faculty members said there was no mention of hiring additional professors.

Ontario college professors want ‘academic freedom’

The Record: College professors want ‘academic freedom’

WATERLOO REGION — Conestoga College isn’t what it used to be.

The college now grants degrees as well as diplomas. The people who teach there call themselves professors. Some of them even take sabbaticals to do research, just as university professors do.

Posters raise questions on adjunct roles at Queen’s University

The Journal: Posters raise questions on adjunct roles

Quality of academic programs, applied lessons will suffer without term adjunct faculty, professor says

The timing of this year’s Fair Employment Week couldn’t be better, Roberta Lamb, Queen’s University Faculty Association (QUFA) political action and communication committee co-chair, said.

Arts and Science Dean Alistair MacLean sent a memo to all department heads this week asking them to plan their 2010-11 budgets and curricula without using term adjunct professors, Lamb said.

Union updates

Philadelphia Inquirer: Temple says faculty stalling contract talks
Temple University has filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint against the faculty union, accusing it of failing to continue negotiating a contract because of disagreement over union membership fees.

Socialist Worker: Contract fight at Manhattan School of Music
NEW YORK–After winning a hotly contested union certification battle in May, some 150 teachers of the Manhattan School of Music’s Pre-college Division–all of whom are trained as classical or jazz musicians–will enter into collective bargaining negotiations with the administration this fall.

South Coast Today: Faculty union and administration not on same page at UMass Dartmouth
When the fall semester begins at UMass Dartmouth next week, it won’t just be the physics students who will be getting a lesson in friction. The university’s administration and largest professional union aren’t seeing eye to eye over the most recent round of budget cuts and consolidations and, almost to a person, faculty and staff describe the situation as “tense” and “confusing.”

Hartford Courant: UConn Rattled By Union Drive For Doctors
Doctors are getting nervous about changes in health care, too, especially the ones at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. Everybody’s on edge as the health center administration adopted a dangerous strategy against the doctors when it distributed an e-mail Thursday seeking to impede a movement by doctors to form a union.

Sudbury Star: LU reaches deal with non-faculty staff union
Laurentian University reached a tentative agreement with the union representing about 250 non-faculty staff on Sunday morning.

Sun Journal: Union, USM may have agreement
LEWISTON – One of four unions working without a contract for the University of Maine System has reached a tentative agreement on a new deal.

Sun-Sentinel: Brogan, FAU faculty union duke it out to governor
Florida Atlantic University President Frank Brogan’s relationship with the faculty union isn’t improving much in his final weeks in office. Brogan, who plans to leave FAU by mid-September to become chancellor of the state university system, sent a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist saying he’s “disappointed by the level of vitriol,” that United Faculty of Florida has expressed on its blog.

India Express: IIT, IIM faculty to get better pay
The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the revision of pay scales of faculty, design, scientific and other academic staff of the centrally funded institutions including IITs and IIMs with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006.

Indiana Daily Student: IU officials decide to continue with employee bonus plan
IU will continue with its plan to distribute up to $500 per person to faculty and staff making less than $30,000 a year despite a meeting between IU officials and union leaders July 31.

San Diego News Network: California Budget Crisis Diaries: Lawsuit targets Schwarzenegger
Legislative leaders may be out for summer session but their vacation can’t be too sunny. The cuts throughout the budget – which was signed into law July 28 – are gradually sinking in. Some agencies still don’t understand the impacts, while others continue to receive IOUs, and now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is facing a lawsuit.

San Francisco Chronicle: Execs still get raises as UC cuts staffing, pay
On the same July day that the UC Board of Regents cut $813 million from UC budgets – setting in motion pay cuts, layoffs and campus cutbacks – the board quietly approved pay raises, stipends and other benefits for more than two dozen executives.

The Crimson: FAS Cuts Janitor Hours
School officials say the moves save jobs, but union calls reductions ‘drastic,’ ‘unnecessary’
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences implemented work hours reductions for over 100 janitors in July—a move that FAS officials say will help cut costs while avoiding layoffs, but union representatives say will devastate worker living standards.

Ontario: Man wanted in France teaching at Carleton

Canadian Press: Man wanted in France teaching at Carleton

Hassan Diab, who denies involvement in a fatal Paris synagogue bombing, returns to job while awaiting extradition hearing

An Ottawa university professor accused of playing a role in a deadly Paris bombing nearly three decades ago and currently awaiting an extradition hearing is back teaching at Carleton University.

Hassan Diab, 55, is teaching a part-time introduction to sociology summer course every Tuesday and Thursday for a few weeks, according to the university.

Provincial Ombudsman Wants Ontario to Crack Down on Rogue Career Colleges

The Chronicle News Blog: Provincial Ombudsman Wants Ontario to Crack Down on Rogue Career Colleges

Ontario’s ombudsman, investigating the abrupt closure of an unregistered private career college, said in a report released today that the Canadian province is “abjectly inept” in policing such rogue academic institutions, which can leave unwary students “out in the cold.”

Canadian profs lose fight against G-Mail

CAUT Bulletin: Arbitrator Dismisses Google Grievance

Lakehead University Faculty Association contested the switch to Google’s e-mail in 2007, alleging violations of collective agreement rights to privacy and academic freedom.

In his decision, arbitrator Joseph Carrier acknowledged the university exposed its aca­demic staff to greater danger because “…the likelihood of such incursions by U.S. authority into a private e-mail system (Lakehead’s own former system) was marginal compared to what might occur in the presence of the Google system.”

Ontario: Queen’s atmosphere ‘tense’

The Kingston Whig Standard: Queen’s atmosphere ‘tense’
EDUCATION: Faculty association accuses university of balancing books on the backs of professors

Tension is mounting at Queen’s University, where the faculty union is accusing administration of balancing the books at the expense of professors and instructors.

Last week, Principal Tom Williams said layoffs would be unavoidable unless all staff agreed to cost-saving measures such as unpaid days off.

Profs blast lazy first-year students

Toronto Star: Profs blast lazy first-year students

Wikipedia generation is lazy and unprepared for university’s rigours, survey of faculty says

University professors feel their first-year students are less mature, rely too much on Wikipedia and “expect success without the requisite effort,” says a province-wide survey to be released today.

Ontario: Teachers, province play nice; But union hints at work action

Toronto Sun: Teachers, province play nice; But union hints at work action

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne was given a rousing welcome by the province’s educators yesterday, even though she refused to be dragged into a looming work showdown involving high school teachers.

Wynne ducked questions about possible work action by 6,500 members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, whose contract talks with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) broke off last month.