Tag Archives: University presidents

#UBC Faculty of Education, Dean Shortlist Candidate Forums

*Archiving, as this Search has been deleted from the UBC Faculty of Education’s announcements, deleted from the UBC Provost’s announcements, and in effect deleted from the historical record– as if it never happened, which does not sit well with historians or critical university analysts or journalists or anti-racist activists or …!!!

The President’s Advisory Committee has invited three finalist candidates for the role of Dean, Faculty of Education [screen capture 2021] for full-day finalist interviews, to take place November 9, 10 and 12, 2021. Each of the finalist interviews will feature a candidate forum, to which all faculty, staff and students in the Faculty of Education are invited. Registration closes Tuesday, November 9th at 9:00 am. Learn more [screen capture 2021]

  1. Candidate 1, Yoon Pak, Tues. Nov. 9, 12:00-1:00pm
  2. Candidate 2, Samson Nashon, Wed. Nov. 10, 12:30-1:30pm
  3. Candidate 3, Sandra Jarvis-Selinger, Fri. Nov. 12, 12:00-1:00pm

#UBC Dean Search shut down and Advisory Committee dissolved

Responding to a Petition and attached Letter (below) questioning the decision to exclude an extremely competitive African Canadian applicant from the shortlist in the search for a new Dean of Education at UBC, President Ono shut down the search and dissolved the Advisory Committee. The UBC President also indicated that Provost and Committee co-Chair Ananya Mukherjee Reed resigned from the Committee, seemingly in support of the conclusions and questions raised by the Petition and its 150 signatories.

On 9 December 2020, the UBC President wrote to faculty, staff, and students:

Yesterday, I received Prof. Ananya Mukherjee Reed’s resignation as co-chair from the President’s Advisory Committee for the Recruitment of a Dean for the Faculty of Education. This is effective immediately. I met with the PAC Committee yesterday and heard from members regarding the viability of the search moving forward, and they felt that the search could not proceed. After careful consideration and consultation with the Committee, I have decided to end the current search for a new Dean at this time.

Of course, it is extremely rare for a Dean search to be cancelled in response to grass roots efforts. It is certainly a step in the right direction of accountability. A next step is answering the various questions raised about this Advisory Committee: Why did they do what they did? In the midst of Black Lives Matter, why did they exclude a competitive African Canadian applicant?

 

November 26, 2020
Dear President Ono,

This Letter and attached Petition are in response to the President’s Advisory Committee for the Selection of the next Dean of the Faculty of Education’s decision to exclude Dr. Samson Nashon from its shortlist. I write on behalf of the 150 faculty, students, staff, alumni, emeriti, and community members who signed this Petition to add Dr. Nashon to the shortlist. The Petition identifies flawed procedures underwriting the President’s Advisory Committee’s decision. For example, the Committee excluded African Canadian faculty, staff, and students

The University of British Columbia’s Strategic Plan, Shaping UBC’s Next Century, emphasizes “our intention to be a leader in diversity and equity” (Strategy 1: Great People, p. 41). Leadership in diversity and equity entails fighting against racism at all levels of administration, research, service, and teaching.

The 150 signatories to this Petition expect action to back up the commitments. We hope that you will address our collective concerns, convey them to the President’s Advisory Committee, and consider what can be done to redress the problem and rectify the injustice. This raises a serious procedural question of how a Committee that excluded Dr. Nashon from the shortlist can now fairly include and consider his candidacy?

The Petition with signatories is attached. On behalf of this groundswell of support for Dr. Nashon’s candidacy, thank you very much for addressing our concerns and request.

Respectfully, the [150] signatories of the Petition.

cc. Dr. Andrew Szeri, Provost and Vice-President Academic, UBC Vancouver (Co-chair)
Dr. Ananya Mukherjee Reed, Provost and Vice-President Academic, UBC Okanagan (Co-chair)

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 on academic mobbing at the University of British Columbia #ubc #ubcnews #ubconews #bced #highered

The account and evidence of how, when, where, and why Professor Wylie (Peter) was mobbed by UBC administrators are disturbing. It’s a travesty that he had to endure this mobbing. Faculty are tremendously grateful that he brought the facts out for an airing and hearing.

My Campus Administration, Faculty Association, Senate, and Me: A Case Study in Academic Mobbing

Peter Wylie
Faculty member, University of British Columbia

This in the author’s view is a clear case of academic mobbing. The case fits perfectly with what is argued that almost all scholars who study academic mobbing agree is its primary characteristics; it is initiated by administrators whose malfeasance was questioned or revealed though the expression of academic free speech; the target tend to be tenured professors who publicly speak out about administrative wrongdoing; it involves manipulation or misrepresentation of the facts regarding the victim’s motivations or behavior; the target’s colleagues are either poisoned against him or her, or choose not to support the victim due indifference, or a lack of conviction, and the target is left personally and professionally injured, while the perpetrator(s) goes unpunished (MacDonald et al., 2018, para. 12). To this the author would add that the kangaroo court investigation procedures of the university are merely an extension of the academic mobbing process. (pp. 206-207)

Read More: Wylie, P. (2019). My Campus Administration, Faculty Association, Senate, and Me: A Case Study in Academic Mobbing. In C. M. Crawford (Ed.), Confronting Academic Mobbing in Higher Education: Personal Accounts and Administrative Action (pp. 187-210). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

#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?

Really #UBC? Taking $7,230 in grocery bag donations? #ubcnews #bced #bcpoli

It has become increasingly difficult to entertain appeals that the University of British Columbia is underfunded by the Ministry. Surely, other postsecondary institutions in BC are chronically underfunded, as the CBC reported on a FPSE report in the fall:

British Columbia’s post-secondary system is in crisis and is failing students by forcing them into careers they may not be suited for, says a group of university and college teachers.

But not UBC and nor are its Faculties, Schools, and bloated Offices underfunded.

One problem is how the Central Managers and Middle Managers (Deans, ADs, Directors) allocate or distribute the money. UBC has a $2b budget and its Properties Trust generated another $2b over the past decade.

Yet managers see it opportunistic to go to grocery stores and take bag donations, effectively from desperate non-profits. *See UBC shameless in taking shopping bag donations.

In February-April, UBC was attached to the cash registers at Whole Foods Market at the Cambie, Kitsilano, Robson, and West Vancouver locations. UBC took $7,230.38 in grocery bag donations from the tills.

UBC took half of the $14,460.76 total while the Environmental Youth Alliance, Harvest Project, Stanley Park Ecology Society, and Westside Food Collaborative took fractions of the balance. For instance, the West Side Food Collaborative received just $1,539.76 and the Stanley Park Ecology Society a mere $889.54.

What exactly is going on at UBC with its finances? Where is the accountability?

#UBC #shameless in taking shopping bag donations #ubcnews #bced #bcpoli

Why is the University of British Columbia now taking bag donations from Whole Foods supermarket, effectively robbing from the poor to give to the rich? Yes, UBC, which boasts a $2b annual budget has been taking bag donations from Whole Foods for the past two months.

During this time, UBC has been shamelessly battling it out with the Westside Food Collaborative for donations (i.e., bring your shopping bags and Whole Foods donates 10 cents per bag saved). It adds up to thousands of dollars for the needy non-profits and now, UBC.

Yes, you heard it right. In addition to battling it out with the University of Toronto and McGill University for the large Development funds, UBC is competing with the likes of co-ops, Kitsilano Neighbourhood House for kids, and the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre.

Apparently, UBC has no shame in insisting that it meets the Whole Foods Community Chest program criteria for bag donations. Whole Foods gives to

non-profit organizations in our local community … those organizations that most closely align with Whole Foods market’s core … hunger relief and organic farming/sustainable food resources.

In this case, and it’s not the first time for UBC, it’s the noted Botanical Garden taking the donations. The Botanical Garden is sitting flush on unceded Musqueam Territory and on the border of the ultra-rich Point Grey area of Vancouver and University Endowment Lands, and in the heart of UBC Properties Trust, which oversaw another $2b in real estate development over the past 10 years.

The Botanical Garden has been lobbying hard for its $20m redevelopment plan. One of the first things the Garden’s Director, Patrick Lewis, succeeded in was

winning the ear of the senior administration, noteably the support of comptroller Ian Burgess and vice-president of finance Pierre Ouillet and through him members of the executive committee.

So there you go, a seat at the table of a $2b operating budget and still ‘want your bag donations’ from Whole Foods. Is this greed or just finesse?

Give back the money UBC! Redirect the donations back to the needy non-profits, many of which have little to no budget to speak of.

#UBC100 at a glance: Vague memories of life at #ubc #ubcnews #bced #highered

Dear UBC diary,

Year 100: Does anyone at the University of British Columbia remember last year, when on the day of the institution’s 100th birthday party Arvind resigned? If memory serves me right, Martha waltzed in, blew out the candles, and made the wish. Does anyone recall this happening? Like a dream, there are some vague memories of documents and decisions being hidden from access and scrutiny. Speculation. Secret meetings and the like…

I vaguely remember a resignation of the Chair of the Board of Governors and an academic freedom complaint. I kind of remember a Freedom of Information bungle in UBC’s Office of the University Counsel. My memory is incomplete but I sense that I signed a few petitions, went to meetings, protests, and rallies, and voted No Confidence in the BoG. Who doesn’t remember the Deans being made to reappear? And the pablum in the sun? That was a good Houdini trick! There are traces of the Faculty Association sabre-rattling with a few PDFs.

Anybody remember any of this at UBC?

I think I remember some brouhaha over an Advisory Committee for the appointment of a new President and a resignation from said Committee. I remember hearing that President Gupta phoned the Committee but was left on hold! I don’t remember candidates meeting with faculty, staff, and students. Was busy and may have missed that part.

Year 101: Santa is here! I think some other new people were hired on campus but irrelevant, Santa is here! And then Dave came back to set the birthday year right again. Just in time.

The UBC year at glance confirms that we were dreaming! Nothing that we vaguely remember happening in year 100 actually happened! None of those memories made it onto UBC’s 2015-2016 highlight reel or appear in Dave’s yearbook!

Alas, we were finally ordered to “cease using the UBC 100 logo and revert back” to, well, you know, this was like an order to cease thinking about last year and revert back to, well, you know…

Summer and fall 2016 at UBC, back to business as usual… restoration… so calming, like an aromatherapeutic misty spritz on the wrist…

#UBC Committee of Deans making decisions, covering tracks #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #highered

Since the announcement of University of British Columbia President Arvind Gupta’s resignation on 7 August 2015 and subsequent disclosure and leak of records on 25 January 2016 via Freedom of Information requests, one of the most pressing questions has been the role or seeming conspiracy of Deans. Upon public circulation of the records, on 9 February the Deans quickly circled the wagons in defence, ostensibly a sign of patronage.

The records still in question involve a series of meetings and exchanges between Gupta and the Deans beginning around 1 May and extending through June 2015, e.g.:

1 May 2015 (FoI Record 439)

Hi John [Montalbano, Chair of the BoG], Things seem to be going well with the Deans now (or at least I think so). Thanks again for coming over today and hope you weren’t too late in [redacted]. Talk soon. (Gupta)

What exactly happened wherein the President hesitates in resolving that “things seem to be going well with the Deans”? What was going on wherein problems escalated and the Deans apparently made an offensive to play a role in seeing through the President’s resignation or ousting him?

Perhaps the meetings and exchanges of the Committee of Deans would provide insight.

At UBC, there are two decanal governing bodies: UBC-V’s Committee of Deans and UBC-O’s Deans’ Council. Concern here is with the Committee of Deans’ records.

A Freedom of Information request was made on 8 February 2016 for disclosure of records of the Committee of Deans, which meets twice per month for 2 hours each meeting.

Lo and behold, it turns out that this decision-making and governing body does not keep any records and claims it has no obligation or intention to do so. Upon a series of requests over the last four months, Access and Privacy in UBC’s Office of the University Counsel shockingly confirmed:

There is no UBC record-keeping mandate for these committees [of Deans]. Therefore the records kept are at the discretion of the Provost offices. In terms of UBCV material – no minutes are taken at the Deans meetings, therefore no minutes exist to provide to you. UBCV 2016 agendas were included [or reconstructed] in the records released to you.

There were no 2015 records in the disclosure

So, this decision-making body– all the Deans and the Provost, etc.– meets twice per month for 2 hours each and keeps no records. The Committee of Deans met multiple times with President Gupta and prepared or kept no records. Nada. Nothing.

On 28 January 2016, the Faculty Association levelled an extensive critique of senior management and governance of UBC for shoddy record-keeping or lack thereof.

Guaranteed, there is something to hide. Too much, in fact.

Wary of corruption, cronyism, and patronage, on 22 October 2015, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC released a scathing report of the practice of withdrawing decision-making to shadow systems.

Similarly in 2004, the Federal Information Commissioner expressed concerns that civil servants, lawyers and managers in public institutions in Canada were managing “to find ingenious ways to wiggle and squirm to avoid the full operation of the law.” Reflecting what we see nowadays at UBC, the Commissioner observed 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… The attitude has truly become,”‘Why write it when you can speak it? Why speak it when you can nod? Why nod when you can wink?'”

UBC hired a new President and we are wont to look forward. UBC set a new precedent and we are now bound to look backward.

Left with no confidence in the Board of Governors (see chronology) and now no confidence in the Committee of Deans, things are much worse than we thought at UBC.

Rich Gibson: Robert Kerrey–Like Drowning Cats

Robert Kerrey–Like Drowning Cats
By Rich Gibson
Professor Emeritus
San
 Diego State University

Robert Kerrey is now appointed to be the top at a new US-sponsored university in Vietnam.

Former Senator Robert Kerrey admitted that as leader of a Navy Seal unit he participated in the murder of civilians in Vietnam. The Seal unit was part of an assassination squad, operating under the guidance of Operation Phoenix which, in the course of the war, killed more than 30,000 Vietnamese, using what its leader, William Colby, called a “scatter-gun approach,” in later congressional hearings. Villagers on the scene say Kerrey’s Seals not only shot more than 100 women and children with automatic fire, but slit the throats of five people, all considered less than human: Gooks, Slants, Slopes, Cong, Charlie, VC.

Kerrey’s admissions came in The New York Times Magazine, a story initially quashed by the television networks. Clearly indictable under existing war crime statutes, Kerrey participated in a cover-up of his unit’s killings for nearly three decades while he used his claims to valour to promote his political career.

Following The New York Times revelations, though, two interesting things happened, both relating to how history is constructed, not only as a vision of the past, but as a call to action in the future. In that context, Kerrey’s thinking about his experience in Vietnam, written not too long after he returned, is instructive.

As the Times article developed, Kerrey and his friends first began to commiserate with one another about the tough times they had, the strain on their consciences, the difficulty they had in living with dirty secrets, how their reputations of valour may be imperfect. Besides, what were we to do when everyone was an enemy? This experience traces the path of many convicted fascist war criminals in Germany who, exposed long after WWII closed, said the same thing.

Second, the debate shifted to who we shall call heroic. The mainstream outlook is now at least two-fold: perhaps nobody, or maybe people like Kerrey since war is hell. Three kinds of heroes are missed altogether.

Certainly those working-class US youth who found themselves enmeshed in a web that led directly to the front lines of battle in Vietnam, those of them who refused to go on burn-all kill-all missions, those who shot their own officers and blew them up in their tents, creating a new word in the lexicon, fragging; those who returned to the US, joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and, denouncing the war, threw their Medals of Honor back at Congress;  those young men and women, black and white, like Bill Marshall and Scott Camil, wounded and decorated heroes who rejected the war, are mostly unnoticed.

The working class anti-war movement is almost equally opaque, as if the resistance emanated from Harvard and Columbia, behind the cavalier lead of rich liberal children with bombs like Billy Ayers whose contempt for people sought to substitute explosives for a mass conscious movement.  In fact the blue-collar student movements at Wayne State in Detroit, San Francisco State, Kent State, and related schools seriously took up the issues of people who had a lot to lose, whose draft deferments were not coming from counsel with connected pals in the medical school, and who could wield real power by exerting their natural influence in their birth-class. Often under the leadership of Black and Latin youth, those people then led the mass sit-down strikes in auto in Detroit, and the community uprisings throughout the US, while the terrorists hid in million-dollar homes, returning to academic prominence after legal wrist slaps a few years later–now rich liberals without bombs.

Further outside the imperial gaze, even today, is the heroism of the Vietnamese, not only those who Kerrey and many other US officers caught up in the genocidal invasion sought to exterminate, but those who defeated the empire, politically, militarily, and morally, causing imperial troops to run away in their helicopters, pushing their allies off the struts as they ran. Despite every effort to reconstruct that piece of history, whether through relentless Hollywood endeavors to recapture the good old days of World War II, or the repositioning of responsibility to suggest that all US troops in Southeast Asia were war criminals, and hence none of them were, nothing ever will be the same.

At the end of the wars on Vietnam, when the US fled at the end of April, 1975, the US military was in utter collapse, the economy a shambles, the presidency upended by Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, and the campuses in full uproar. Reversing all of that has been a 40 year project, with some success, especially the project to eradicate the memory of the facts of the war itself.

There are no Vietnamese victors on Vietnam Wall, yet millions of them died–and changed the world.

However, for purposes of clarity, it is worthwhile to look back on what Robert Kerrey wrote after he returned from Vietnam, more than twelve years ago, perhaps when his recollections were sharper, less opportunistically censored by the polish of electoral success. This is what Nebraska’s Robert Kerrey said in the opening paragraph of an article titled, “On Remembering the Vietnam War:”

“Around the farm, there is an activity that no one likes to do. Yet it is sometimes necessary. When a cat gives birth to kittens that aren’t needed, the kittens must be destroyed. And there is a moment when you are holding the kitten under the water when you know that if you bring that kitten back above the water it will live, and if you don’t bring it back above in that instant the kitten will be dead. This, for me, is a perfect metaphor for those dreadful moments in war when you do not quite do what you previously thought you would do.”*

Such is the choice, drowning cats or universal solidarity against despotism–and the perversion of academic life.

*The Vietnam Reader, edited by Walter Capps, Routledge, New York (1990)  

#UBC time to lay down the mace in graduation and governance #ubc100 #ubcnews #ubc #bced #highered #caut_acppu

As we count down to May 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.

Times have changed, business as usual has been called into question and the Board of Governors is currently operating under the pall of a No Confidence vote cast by faculty members.

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 has been an emotional year for UBC. 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. As no accountability was forthcoming, a No Confidence vote was cast. As the BoG continued with business as usual, staff and students expressed serious concerns to triangulate those of faculty members.

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 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?

Patronage at #UBC and the dangers of gated management #ubc100 #ubcnews #bced #highered

If there is anything learned at the University of British Columbia since the announcement of President Gupta’s resignation on 7 August 2015, it is that patronage is the institution’s greatest threat to reversing its spiraling downfall.

Of course we hear a lot these days about the gated communities in Vancouver and Kelowna where the 1% enjoy their luxuries without annoying distractions and questions from the 99%. Chip Wilson’s gated and walled $64m waterfront home makes the old Casa Mia on Marine Drive look like a quaint tiny house. And if trends have their way at UBC, Chip, valued at $2.2b, will soon run the Board of Governors (i.e., Lululemon U), following Stuart Belkin, valued at a comparatively mere $900m with a modest hobby farm in Southlands.

In the midst of its administrative and legitimacy crises, on 25 November Belkin was appointed Chair of UBC’s BoG. In 1938, Stuart’s father, Morris, led students on a protest against the BoG’s proposal to increase fees by $25. At his first meeting as Chair on 15 February 2016, Stuart presided over the approval of huge tuition increases across the University, no questions asked. Morris, the consummate contributor to student media, saved The Ubyssey by buying the printing house, which eventually became College Printers and core to Belkin’s packaging corporation. Stuart has an aversion to the media.

Following Morris’s death in 1987, the family donated to UBC $1m+ and by 1992 established itself as an art patron with a $1.5m endowment as ground was broken for the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery on campus (opened 17 June 1995). Stuart commands UBC’s BoG in the midst of sieges on privilege and patronage.

Philanthropic patronage is common at UBC but it’s the managerial form that is perhaps much more entrenched and dangerous at this point.

In Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers, Jackall explains that patronage reduces to “alliances that give one ‘clout’”

by the systematic collection of information damaging to others and particularly about deals struck and favors won in order to argue more effectively the propriety and legitimacy of one’s own claims; and, on the part of those in power, by pervasive secrecy, called confidentiality, that attempts to cordon off the knowledge of deals already made lest the demands on the system escalate unduly. (pp. 197-198)

Drawn from frontier tactics of circling the wagons, the practice of protecting managers at all cost for favours and perks, or patronage, has generated a crisis at UBC. Indicative of this crisis of patronage was the deans’ endorsement of the BoG and Central senior managers on 9 February 2016.

Rarely at UBC is administrative patronage, characterized by this process of encircling and turning inward, exposed in such a raw, visible form, as if under siege by faculty, staff, and students.

The deans, along with vice, assistant, and associate appointees, owe their capital, in large, to a system of patronage that keeps gates and walls to protect privilege. Gated management, suppressing and distrusting shared governance, relies extensively on patronage.

Acting as if through Gupta’s resignation ‘to the victors go the spoils’, the deans are gambling that circling the wagons around the BoG and Central, however much it exposes patronage, delivers payoffs come reappointment time and invariable sieges on gates and gatekeepers within their own Faculties.

Patronage delivers payoffs at UBC, as Central looks the other way when accountability is due. For example, Central has been unwilling to find either fact or fault with administrators perennially running up deficits, suppressing academic freedom, mismanaging academic portfolios, playing favouritism, breaching privacy, biasing student votes, bloating admin ranks and offices, etc.

The fact that no one—not a single administrator– has been held accountable, canned, denied reappointment, or moved back to faculty ranks, etc. in the midst of the University’s most serious administrative crisis in fifty years is increasingly suspicious.

Yet this nagging suspicion of the BoG and Central, “perceptions of pervasive mediocrity” (Jackall, p. 197), and faculty members’ current No Confidence vote call the entire system of gated management and patronage at UBC into question.

Public university board’s secrecy disrespects faculty, public

The University of British Columbia’s problems with board secrecy, corporate mentalities, and presidential searches conducted under a shroud are not isolated occurrences, as you’ll see from the following account of what’s happening at Washington State University.

WSU regents’ secrecy disrespects faculty, public

April 5, 2016
Moscow-Pullman Daily News

By Terence L. Day

There would appear to be no cause to doubt Kirk Schulz’s qualifications to become the 11th president of Washington State University, but there is every reason to question the process by which he was appointed.

Let attorneys argue whether regents violated the state’s open meeting law. We don’t need lawyers to tell us what should be obvious to all: WSU regents disrespected the faculty and the public by conducting a secret search and faculty and citizens who support the university are rightly offended.

If what the regents did doesn’t violate Washington’s open meeting law, the law should be fixed.

In the good old days presidential finalists would be brought to campus and “run through the mill.” Finalists were expected to come to campus, conduct a public seminar, meet faculty and administrators and perhaps university constituents.

Unfortunately, today is a different time.

Sadly, secrecy in searches for new university presidents is becoming standard operating procedure throughout the nation. Secrecy is rationalized on the assertion that the best candidates for the job will refuse to participate in an open process, and that may well be true in some instances.

Private universities are entitled to conduct secret searches if they believe that best suits their ends; but public universities are public. What don’t WSU regents understand about the word “public”?

The very concept of public business requires openness, and speaking in code is an offense to reason.

Certainly all public business cannot be conducted in a fish bowl and appropriately isn’t, but selection of a public university president isn’t one of those things.

Regent Mike Worthy’s lame excuse that WSU’s attorney approved the secrecy with which Schulz was chosen is reminiscent of Mark Twain’s advice that youth should get up early with the lark, “… and if you get the right kind of lark, and work at him right, you can easily train him to get up at half past nine, every time.”

I asked WSU officials how long they have been conducting secret presidential searches. They haven’t been forthcoming, but I remember a day when they were very public.

WSU regents aren’t alone in using secret searches. My sources advise that many top-notch potential university presidents refuse to be candidates if their candidacy isn’t kept secret.

This dynamic is corrupting the search process from beginning to end. It encourages universities to turn the process over to “head hunters,” who work more for candidates than for the hiring university and claim a significant percentage of the successful candidate’s first year’s salary.

Regents are politically appointed and WSU’s regents, at least, are poorly equipped to understand the dynamic and culture of collegiality in higher education. Judging from their biographical sketches posted on the regents’ Web page, five and a half of nine members are in the business world, one is a politician and public administrator, one is an attorney, one a farmer and one is a WSU undergraduate student. I give Regent Lura Powell half credit for her experience as an administrator in the public technology sector and half credit for her experience as a manager in the private technology sector.

None of these backgrounds offer much understanding, sympathy or fealty to openly conducting the public’s business. Secrecy is the leadership style of the business world, not of academia.

Fortunately, faculty and students from sea to sea and from the heartland to the mountains are beginning to protest hiding searches from faculty and the public. It’s time the WSU community joined the protest.

Terence L. Day has been a Pullman resident for 43 years and retired in 2004 from the WSU faculty after 32 years. He has been a professional journalist for 54 years. terence@moscow.com

#UBC time to change motto (beyond tuum est) #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #highered

mace1477

Whereas things at UBC are too messed rather than Tuum Est, and whereas symbolic speech plays a significant role in governance, we propose that the Board of Governors change the University’s coveted motto to Potentia ad Populum, “Power to the People.”

This change would do justice to UBC President Wesbrook’s anticipation in 1916 that UBC would be the “people’s University,” which could hardly be translated into a condescending corporate brand or real estate agency. Or could it?

Each time Admin chants Tuum Est, an entire history of bad Latin is recalled in mistranslation. In context of its initial translation from Greek to the Latin Lord’s Prayer (i.e., Pater Noster) and later in Jerome’s translation of the Book of Jeremiah, tuum est refers to deference and reverence to the power, right, and glory of God’s Kingdom. In Horace’s Melpomene, it is rendered as reverent debt and duty to the muse.

A decade or so after UBC’s first President uttered Tuum Est in the 1916 Invocation, the motto was secularized with relative hubris: “It is Up to You.” Or alternatively and eventually, as in the classic Seinfeld episode, to “Master of my domain.” By the 1930s and 40s, this was perfect for advertising Felix Dry Ginger Ale. As the ad went, Tuum Est “can well be carried into business.” Nowadays, we notice that the Board and Admin are giving lip service– labellum officium or otherwise hypocrisis in Latin– to the meaning of the motto.

For the next century, how about a new UBC motto? Potentia ad Populum

#UBC faculty vote no confidence in Board of Governors #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #highered

Faculty members at the University of British Columbia overwhelmingly approved a motion of no confidence in the Board of Governors. This is unprecedented at the University and demonstrates the ineffectiveness of this governing body.

For seven months, the University and its Board have been entirely unaccountable to faulty, staff, and students. On 7 August, the University announced the resignation of President Arvind Gupta and immediately began a process of sweeping evidence under the rug by shielding records in non-disclosure agreements.

On 27 January, through records embedded in a FoI release, UBC disclosed that members of the Board of Governors were colluding in shadow systems of governance.

For faculty members, the unaccountability and disclosure of shadow governance combined to a no confidence vote.

The Faculty Association will now take next steps in acting on the vote.

#UBC faculty voting on no confidence in Board #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #bcpoli

Since University of British Columbia executives scrambled on 7 August 2015 to announce the sudden resignation of President Gupta and seal records related to the resignation, confidence in the Board of Governors has progressively waned. The Board has been entirely unaccountable to its actions and unresponsive to consistent calls from faculty, students, and staff to come clean.

On 22 March, faculty members assembled to move and debate the no confidence motion. UBC faculty members are now voting on the following:

“Be it resolved that the Faculty Association of the University of British Columbia has no confidence in the University of British Columbia Board of Governors.”

#UBC admin again dodges accountability in report on privacy breach @ubcnews #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #highered

Yet another “investigation” into administrative mismanagement at the University of British Columbia has failed to find any facts related to leadership. Today’s report on the investigation into the “privacy breach” or leak of records related to President Gupta’s resignation fails to find accountability at the top of the Office of the University Counsel. From within this Office was an inadvertent leak of records supplementing UBC’s official disclosure.

Made aware of the “privacy breach,” on 27 January VP External Relations Philip Steencamp and University Counsel Hubert Lai announced that they would “immediately launch an independent investigation into how the material became public.”

Well, here is how, kind of, not really, not at all, nothing

Already on 28 January, Steencamp and Lai were back-pedalling: “UBC deeply regrets the error that led to this privacy breach…. To that end, UBC has retained an external expert to review its disclosure practices and provide recommendations.”

So, was there an investigation or just a review?

The Smith Report on breaches of academic freedom UBC following the announcement of Gupta’s resignation cost the University about $78k.

Now, UBC likely paid about $25k for a legal consultant to give instructions to University Counsel on embedding files in a PDF and on how to protect and redact a record.

So taking the Review of UBC’s Processing of Freedom of Information Requests as an investigation report, UBC is now 0/3 in finding facts of accountability in its recent reports.

The first was the Fact Finding Report: Commerce Undergraduate Society (CUS) FROSH CHANTS. The second was the Summary of the fact-finding process and conclusions regarding alleged breaches of academic freedom and other university policies at the University of British Columbia.

The only fact is that UBC has been increasingly reluctant to find any form of accountability with its senior and middle managers.

Since August and the announcement of President Gupta’s resignation, avoidance of accountability has grown progressively worse.

Avoidance of accountability is now UBC’s greatest liability.

At the same time, faculty members’ access to information regarding the budget and governance on campus is increasingly blocked and ridden with obstacles. Denied access to basic files and information, including budgets, faculty members are now forced to submit Freedom of Information requests.

And with that said, Information and Privacy within the Office of the University Counsel is swamped and overburdened, understaffed and unable to provide timely access to records.

Wary of corruption and cronyism, on 22 October, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC released a scathing report of the practice of withdrawing decision-making to shadow systems. In Access Denied, Denham begins:

Democracy depends on accountable government. Citizens have the right to know how their government works and how decisions are made.

This holds for UBC, by the University Act a corporation bound to accountability to its members: faculty, staff, students.

#UBC faculty moving to ‘no confidence’ in Board of Governors #ubcnews #ubcbog #ubc100 #bced

Building from the power of petition, faculty members at the University of British Columbia are moving toward a vote of no confidence in the Board of Governors.

A “no confidence” vote will set a new precedent at UBC wherein accountability in shared governance takes on meaning.

Since University executives scrambled on 7 August 2015 to announce the sudden resignation of President Gupta and seal records related to the resignation, confidence in the Board of Governors has progressively eroded.

The Faculty Association of UBC has scheduled a Special General Meeting to discuss the motion on Tuesday, March 22 from 2 pm to 3:30 pm.

Members should have received a notice regarding the presentation of a petition to the UBC Faculty Association signed by over 450 faculty seeking to have a membership vote on a no confidence motion. The motion, sponsored by Jonathan Ichikawa (Philosophy), Juliet O’Brien (FHIS), and Alan Richardson (Philosophy) is as follows:

“Be it resolved that the Faculty Association of the University of British Columbia has no confidence in the University of British Columbia Board of Governors.”

#UBC vague on budget, opaque on process #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #bcpoli

Lo and behold, the University of British Columbia finally made an announcement about the budget leading into a new fiscal year (1 April 2016). Trouble is, the budget news is vague and the process opaque.

Compared to other Canadian universities, UBC faculty, staff, and students are in the dark on the budget, whether it be at the University or local unit levels.

Today’s news that “UBC continues to operate in a constrained funding environment” is clear as mud. How “constrained”?

The Provost continues to hold a freeze on faculty hiring and a balance of Faculties are running up deficits. Come September, the University will most certainly face another $100m deficit with expenses increasing.

UBC announced that “many central administrative units absorbed significant budget reductions in the last year, and most of these flow into 2016/17” but admin bloat continues unchecked.

For various reasons, the Deans have been pampered by a central administration looking the other way when it comes to the bloat and deficits.

Since the 7 August announcement of the sudden resignation of President Gupta, UBC has been silent about the budget. Actually, save for a very partial disclosure of records given a volume of FoI requests, UBC has been silent about most issues of accountability.

In the meantime. the Council of Senates’ Budget Committee has been left to tinker with Student Information Systems instead of holding UBC’s executives to account.

#UBC deans in hot-seat for mere assertion of excellence #ubcclean #ubc100 #ubcnews #bced

In an era not too long ago, deans were able to assert their authority on most matters of governance, finance, management, and planning. Now, with credibility and legitimacy eroding, with shadow systems opening to scrutiny, can mere assertion of authority and excellence continue to pass for reality or truth at UBC?

So what part of the “Deans support UBC leadership” Op-Ed is believable or persuasive? Can the Deans support their “strongest” assertion?

We want to make clear in the strongest possible terms that we are absolutely committed to the pursuit of academic excellence and have consistently supported initiatives to promote such excellence.

Let’s test this assertion of commitment “to the pursuit of academic excellence” with a graduate program on campus:

  1. A graduate diploma mill, which in 13.5 years graduated 680 masters students but did not hire a single FT faculty member. Yes, 680 masters students and 0 FT faculty hired in 13.5 years.
  2. Instead is an exploitation Sessional labour—85% of all the courses—to teach at a piecemeal per student wage while their benefits start and stop at the term’s beginning and end. Staff members are hired to teach, who then double-up on their M&P jobs and displace the Sessionals from additional course assignments. The Sessionals are denied office space or worse:
    1. Per the policy and requirements of space usage in [the academic building] for Sessional instructors, the [123] temporary office space, must be cleared of all personal belongings, borrowed library items and additional furniture installed.
    2. If, by Dec 1, 2015, the space is not restored to its original condition, items will be disposed of, and you shall be invoiced for the cost of clearing and removal.
    3. As requested, I attach the photos of the room in its original condition, taken prior to it being temporarily assigned to you in February 2015.”
  3. It took 8 years of agitation across two Faculties to complete a single Self-Study and Program Review. There are 7 administrators overseeing this Program but not a one could initiate a Review. Effectively, when it finally did happen, well, let’s just say that an expectation of arm’s length Reviewers was mocked.
  4. Did I mention that this was a revenue generating program and maybe there is something to shield from scrutiny? When in April 2015 the Associate-Provost reviewed the Office (yes, Office) that runs and manages the Program, he reported:
    1. “Shadow systems are used more than University systems which is concerning because the data in the shadow systems are not verifiable, and because of the opportunity for misuse of funds.”
  5. In the last four years, this program generated about $5.4m in total revenue but we cannot account for expenses or overhead “because the data in the shadow systems are not verifiable.”
  6. Where does the money go then?
  7. Is it just thrown at the deficit that’s run up elsewhere year after year?
  8. But still, where does the money go? Is it just paying for administrative bloat?
  9. Did I mention 680 masters student graduates and 0 FT faculty in 13.5 years?

If this is “academic excellence” we’d hate to see academic mediocrity or compromise…

We want to make clear in the strongest possible terms that we are absolutely committed to the pursuit of academic excellence and have consistently supported initiatives to promote such excellence.

Lowering the bar of excellence? No, just inflating the envelope of greatness.