Tag Archives: Working conditions

Higher Racism: The Case of the University of British Columbia

Posted on March 15, 2021 by | Comments Off on Higher Racism: The Case of the University of British Columbia

Higher Racism: The Case of the University of British Columbia— On the Wrong Side of History but Right Side of Optics

Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross

Here’s a summary of the article: UBC faculty, staff, and students commonly question senior managers’ assertions that “diversity is our strength.” If, counter to the cliche, diversity is not our strength, then what is it? This type of assertion may play well for a political audience but with insider knowledge, the reality is quite different. Insider knowledge is an effective antidote to confusions of audience and duplicitous speech. With this in mind, we analyzed UBC managers’ messaging and optics in matters of anti-Black racism. In conclusion, we don’t buy it and provide dozens of examples of where the rhetoric falls short of reality. We suggest that without action and real results, the optics seem insincere. Hence, senior managers are complicit in anti-Black racism at UBC.

Here’s the argument: What Robyn Maynard (2017) infers from history education practices in Canada sums up the case of UBC: “a discernable lack of awareness surrounding the widespread anti-Blackness that continues to hide in plain sight, obscured behind a nominal commitment to liberalism, multiculturalism and equality” (p. 30). Hence, in this case of UBC, we provide various examples of how the institution functions through racial bias and prejudice but argue that leaving the explanation to structural or systemic racism makes it too easy to deny elite individual and everyday racism, especially racist attitudes and decisions of the managers and their means of employment discrimination (i.e., blocking and undermining racial minorities’ access to career advancement and opportunities).

Here’s the conclusion: Anti-Black racism in higher education requires specific attention to history and action, whether affirmative or equitable. We argued that elite racism and everyday racism experienced by African ethnic and diasporic faculty, staff, and students and made visible through demographic data can no longer be dismissed or overlooked. Through the case of UBC, we demonstrated various ways in which the higher racism of managers works to maintain individual and systemic discrimination. Preferences of managers for image and optics over action— surface over substance— is especially shallow in this era of Black Lives Matter. We also raised questions of the logic of popular shortcuts to intersectionality (e.g., IBPOC) and stand with scholars explaining that therein, equity claims of African ethnic and diasporic faculty, staff, and students are readily deprioritized or marginalized. Code-switching has its limits. At UBC is an established record of defending middle and senior managers’ inequitable, and often enough for concern, racist, practices. Cases introduced by racial equity seeking individuals are routinely deferred, dismissed, or misdirected to external agencies, where again senior managers agitate to request dismissal of the complaints. Finally, we articulated concerns that managers are preferring to isolate and shield themselves from critical conversation and critique. Critics of problematic and racist practices risk disciplinary measures as managers grow increasingly intolerant of commentaries on mismanagement and whistleblowing.

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Posted in Academic freedom, Administration, Advocacy, BC Education, Critical University Studies, Diversity, Equity, Ethics, Governance, Race, Working conditions

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

Posted on November 26, 2020 by | Comments Off on 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

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Posted in Academic freedom, Academics, Administration, Advocacy, BC Education, Black Lives Matter, Critical University Studies, Diversity, Faculty, Governance, Organizing, Race, Shared governance, Solidarity, Student Movement, Working conditions

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

Posted on September 11, 2019 by | Comments Off on 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.

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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, Academics, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Bullying & Mobbing, Censorship, Corporate University, Corruption, Employment rights, Equity, Ethics, Faculty, Free speech, Governance, Legal issues, Scandals, Unions, Working conditions

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

Posted on November 19, 2017 by | Comments Off on #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?

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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, Accountability, BC Education, Budgets, Commentary, Critical University Studies, Faculty, Governance, Maces, Shared governance, Students, Working conditions

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Meum est or tuum est #UBC? Which is it? #ubcnews #bced #highered

Posted on May 5, 2017 by | Comments Off on Meum est or tuum est #UBC? Which is it? #ubcnews #bced #highered

The pomp of graduation, a time of calm reflection as students’ rite of passage is conferred under the mesmerizing pronouncements of the convocation speaker. And at UBC, a time to hear administrators chant tuum est, it is yours!

Reality check.

Increasingly, UBC administrators are confidently asserting meum est, it is mine!

The latest sign of meum est is the quickening process to reappoint UBC’s Chancellor Lindsay Gordon despite serious problems and reservations, such as those articulated in the 24 April Open Letter to the UBC Chancellor Reappointment Committee (signed by 110 faculty members).

The phenomenon of meum est across a variety of campuses was detailed in The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters.

I manage UBC, therefore, meum est, it is mine.

*See UBC time to change motto for a conceptual history of tuum est.

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

Posted on May 5, 2017 by | Comments Off on #UBC time to lay down the mace in graduation and governance #ubcnews #ubc #bced #highered

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

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, the Board of Governors is still operating under the pall of a No Confidence vote cast by faculty members last year, and this year on 24 April an Open Letter signed by 110 faculty members was submitted to the UBC Chancellor Reappointment Committee.

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

Last year was 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?

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Free speech, Governance, Government, Maces, Patronage, Regalia, Shared governance, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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Peter Wylie: Case study of #UBC, Okanagan campus #ubconews #ubcnews #ubceduc #bced #bcpoli

Posted on November 26, 2016 by | Comments Off on Peter Wylie: Case study of #UBC, Okanagan campus #ubconews #ubcnews #ubceduc #bced #bcpoli

Peter Wylie
Associate Professor, Economics
University of British Columbia

A New University in an Underrepresented Region: A Case Study of University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, Canada

Paper Presented at The 8th International Seminar for Local Public Economics,
University Of Guanajuato, Mexico, Nov 10-11, 2016

This paper analyzes the establishment in 2005 and subsequent evolution of a new university campus in the interior region of British Columbia, Canada, until then under-serviced with regard to university provision and with one of the lowest rates of participation of its population in post-secondary education in the province of British Columbia (BC). The paper considers the founding vision of the campus, situated in the city of Kelowna, represented by the original Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Government of BC in relation to its subsequent evolution to today.

To anticipate the results, we find that almost none of the original vision for the campus has been realized, and it has evolved in a way fundamentally opposed to the Government’s expressed intention. This is largely due to the fact that universities are autonomous institutions in Canada largely free of political influence and hence need only follow their own goals rather than those of the Government and/or electorate. It might also be that the Government’s stated vision was political posturing and it fully intended to leave the evolution of the campus entirely to the University and not hold it to account to the MoU. That the campus was left to UBC, one of the world’s top 40 universities in international ranking, and top 20 public universities, to develop as a second, smaller campus in Kelowna than its much larger main campus in Vancouver, a 4-hour drive away, has had important implications for its subsequent development away from the original expressed goals. The paper discusses issues of academic planning, accountability and oversight in the provision of this local public good by the Government funders/taxpayers.

Read Paper: Peter Wylie, Case study of UBCO

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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Critical University Studies, Governance, Government, Politics, Shared governance, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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

Posted on November 26, 2016 by | Comments Off on 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.

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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Faculty, Governance, Students, Working conditions

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Dignity at work and #mismanagement at #UBC #ubcnews #bced #ubysseynews

Posted on October 8, 2016 by | Comments Off on Dignity at work and #mismanagement at #UBC #ubcnews #bced #ubysseynews

There have been questions about what we mean by “mismanagement” at the University of British Columbia? What is meant by claims that at key moments in the past two years, there was evident mismanagement by the Board of Governors? Some faculty members juxtaposed the BoG’s failures against the University Act and best practices or Nolan Principles.

What do we mean by suggesting that UBC’s Committee of Deans establishes a bad model for the campus (i.e., mismanagement, e.g., no agendas, minutes, etc.)? What is meant by mismanagement by omission of a policy to regulate the appointment of Associate Deans?

Or, what is meant by charges that specific programs, such as UBC’s Master of Educational Technology program, a proverbial digital diploma mill, are mismanaged? What is meant by the mismanagement of a Career Advancement Plan?

So here’s a clarification and why good management matters:

Workers tend to have a keen sense of mismanagement when they experience it and academic workers are no different. Academics have a keen sense of academic mismanagement when they see it.

The sense used here is not the common legal definition of gross mismanagement, e.g., “a continuous pattern of managerial abuses, wrongful or arbitrary and capricious actions…” Nor is it used in the sense of financial mismanagement (e.g., p. 274).

Rather, mismanagement in most UBC cases refers to simply a failure to adhere to best practices (of accountability, equity, governance, hiring, etc.). The concern is with omissions. Of course, omissions may be intentional and this does not preclude arbitrariness, deception, or a destitution of integrity, etc.

In Dignity at Work, the key text on the topic, Hodson (2004) articulates in detail the short and long-term effects of mismanagement. The basic thesis is this: “Working with dignity is a fundamental part of achieving a life well-lived, yet the workplace often poses challenging obstacles because of mismanagement or managerial abuse” (frontispiece).

In the first paragraph then, Hodson prefaces: “Even where abuse is commonplace and chaos and mismanagement make pride in accomplishment difficult, workers still find ways to create meaning in work and to work with dignity” (p. 3). We see this in the most exploited workers at UBC: Sessional Lecturers.

“The first hurdle in the quest for dignity at work, Hodson says, “is thus the possibility of mismanagement and abuse” (p. 83). Indeed, “mismanagement and abuse have a central role in generating resistance and undermining citizenship in the workplace.” And he emphasizes, the buck stops at the top:

Chaotic and mismanaged workplaces undercut workers’ pride and erect barriers to quality work. The consequences of poorly organized workplaces can also spill over to coworker relations, further undermining organizational effectiveness. (p. 109)

Hodson concludes: “significant denials of dignity remain in the workplace. Chief among these are mismanagement and abuse” (p. 273).

Helps explain the state of working conditions in various programs and units at UBC, doesn’t it?

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Administration, Budgets & Funding, Corporate University, Corruption, Critical University Studies, Governance, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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

Posted on October 8, 2016 by | Comments Off on #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…

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New issue of Workplace: Marx, Engels and the Critique of Academic Labor #highered #criticaled #criticaleducation

Posted on October 4, 2016 by | Comments Off on New issue of Workplace: Marx, Engels and the Critique of Academic Labor #highered #criticaled #criticaleducation

Marx, Engels and the Critique of Academic Labor

Special Issue of Workplace
Edited by
Karen Lynn Gregory & Joss Winn

Articles in Workplace have repeatedly called for increased collective organisation in opposition to a disturbing trajectory in the contemporary university… we suggest that there is one response to the transformation of the university that has yet to be adequately explored: A thoroughgoing and reflexive critique of academic labor.

 

Table of Contents

  • Marx, Engels and the Critique of Academic Labor
    Karen Lynn Gregory, Joss Winn
  • Towards an Orthodox Marxian Reading of Subsumption(s) of Academic Labour under Capital
    Krystian Szadkowski
  • Re-engineering Higher Education: The Subsumption of Academic Labour and the Exploitation of Anxiety
    Richard Hall, Kate Bowles
  • Taxi Professors: Academic Labour in Chile, a Critical-Practical Response to the Politics of Worker Identity
    Elisabeth Simbürger, Mike Neary
  • Marxism and Open Access in the Humanities: Turning Academic Labor against Itself
    David Golumbia
  • Labour in the Academic Borderlands: Unveiling the Tyranny of Neoliberal Policies
    Antonia Darder, Tom G. Griffiths
  • Jobless Higher Ed: Revisited, An Interview with Stanley Aronowitz
    Stanley Aronowitz, Karen Lynn Gregory
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Posted in Academic freedom, Academic Labor, Accountability, Adjuncts & Sessionals, Administration, Contingent labor, Critical University Studies, Equity, Ethics, Governance, Institute for Critical Education Studies, Solidarity, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Technology, Unions, Working conditions

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

Posted on September 24, 2016 by | 1 comment

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

Eve Seguin, University Affairs, September 19, 2016, —

Academic mobbing, or how to become campus tormentors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Academic freedom, Academics, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Bullying & Mobbing, Environment, Governance, Legal issues, Working conditions

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

Posted on June 16, 2016 by | Comments Off on #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.

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Jennifer Chan :: Out of Asia: Topologies of #racism in Canada (#UBC David Lam Chair) #ubcnews #ubceduc #ubysseynews #bced

Posted on May 27, 2016 by | Comments Off on Jennifer Chan :: Out of Asia: Topologies of #racism in Canada (#UBC David Lam Chair) #ubcnews #ubceduc #ubysseynews #bced

Out of Asia: Topologies of Racism in Canada

Jennifer Chan

ABSTRACT: This case study recounts my harrowing experience through a great Canadian equity swindle—involving two internal university equity investigations, BC Human Rights Tribunal, and the BC Supreme Court—to bring to account a deeply flawed and allegedly discriminatory academic hiring process. I situate my human rights complaint in the larger socio-political context of Canada becoming “too Asian.” Download the article from Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor.

For the background, chronology, and case records, see our coverage in the Workplace blog. Briefly:

BCHRT’s decision on 24 January 2012 to hear the Chan v UBC and others [Beth Haverkamp, David Farrar, Jon Shapiro, Rob Tierney] case (21 December 2010 HRT decision; 24 January 2012 HRT decision) was moved to the Supreme Court for a judicial review (see The Ubyssey’s [UBC student newspaper] feature article for the backstory to the case). The Supreme Court then ordered the BCHRT to review its initial decision (29 May 2013 BC Supreme Court judgment). The BCHRT turned and dismissed the case on 19 December 2013.

*Note: Exactly what was “recalibrated” through the “Review” is unclear. Comparatively, when advertised in 2005 and 2009, the Name of the Chair was the “David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education.” The April 2016 Ad or CFA still indicates the same. So the Chair title was not recalibrated. In 2005 and 2009, the search sought scholars who contributed to multicultural education and now in 2016 the search seeks scholars who contributed to multicultural education and “social justice studies” so that was not recalibrated. One could readily argue that multicultural justice and social justice are interchangeable. In 2005 and 2009 multicultural education was not defined but in 2016 a definition of multicultural education is given: “commitment to anti-oppression, anti-racism, intersectionality, and decolonization.” But that does not appear to be a recalibration inasmuch as it just gives a definition.

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Chan Case, Diversity, Employment rights, Equity, Ethics, Governance, Legal issues, Race, Working conditions

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#UBC budget retreat records FoI (12 Faculties) #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #caut_acppu

Posted on May 26, 2016 by | Comments Off on #UBC budget retreat records FoI (12 Faculties) #ubcnews #ubc100 #bced #caut_acppu

The Faculty Association of UBC raised some key concerns this week over the University’s budget. Key concerns include UBC’s:

  • overuse of discretionary revenue on capital expenditures: “diversion of operating surpluses to capital”
  • “massive administrative bloat in its complement of management and professional staff”
  • 2:1 staff-to-faculty ratio
  • deprioritizing of academic funding
  • polemic “from senior management that salary increases from the recent arbitration were ‘unanticipated'”
  • refusal to provide a general wage increase above 0-2%

We need to be measured with any sympathy for Faculties or units running up deficits for admin bloat, non-union labour, etc. and turning around to ask for more.

UBC’s unit budgets are notoriously opaque at the Faculty, School, Department, Office, and Centre levels. Faculty, staff, and students are perennially left begging for details or forced to resort to Freedom of Information requests. For instance, on 11-12 January, UBC’s VP Finance hosted a Budget Retreat for the Deans to present their status and plans. The rest of us were not given access.

So here are the UBC Vancouver Budget Retreat January 11/12 2016 records, accessed through a FoI request.

Table of Contents

  1. Retreat Agenda 1
  2. University Budget 5
  3. Law 12
  4. Applied Science 42
  5. Arts 105
  6. Dentistry 135
  7. Education 167
  8. Forestry 180
  9. Land & Food 193
  10. Medicine 208
  11. Pharmaceutical Sciences 228
  12. Sauder 257
  13. Science 274
  14. Graduate & Postdoc Studies 289

Download full UBC Budget Retreat records

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Clampdown on academic freedom at #UBC blamed on spam law #ubc100 #ubcnews #ubysseynews #bced #caut_acppu

Posted on May 13, 2016 by | Comments Off on Clampdown on academic freedom at #UBC blamed on spam law #ubc100 #ubcnews #ubysseynews #bced #caut_acppu

Administrators in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia clamped down on academic freedom today by shutting down its shared listserv after 17+ years in what looks like a knee-jerk reaction.

In addition to blaming the clampdown on faculty members for sharing “their own perspective regarding one or more aspects of the work and trajectory of the Faculty,” the reasoning given was Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), effective 1 July 2014.

The Dean and Associate Dean explained:

In response to changes to the requirements for the organizational use of email at UBC following the implementation of the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL http://universitycounsel.ubc.ca/files/2014/06/CASL-FAQs-2014-05.pdf) we have made some changes to how we are using Faculty-generated broadcast email lists. These changes only apply to those email lists created and moderated by the Faculty. The major implication of CASL resides in the definition of “consent” to email exchange.  Following the implementation of CASL, we need to be attentive to email recipients’ implied or actual consent to receive emails.

While CASL specifically addresses the intent of a “commercial electronic message” (CEM) and spam, UBC administrators have decided to stretch this to all messages and email, warning that email to a colleague, and one might infer student, who has not given “consent” to be a recipient can be grounds for legal or punitive action.

The CAUT’s initial analysis leaves faculty members wanting:

CAUT will monitor the enforcement of the CASL, and will provide members with any relevant updates as these decisions may provide further clarity about what the law means for academic staff associations.

The implications here are scary but more frightening is UBC managers’ inability to distinguish between academic and commercial messages or distinguish between the legalism of spam and academic freedom.

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RIP academic freedom in Education at #UBC #ubcnews #ubc100 #ubysseynews #bced #caut_acppu

Posted on May 13, 2016 by | Comments Off on RIP academic freedom in Education at #UBC #ubcnews #ubc100 #ubysseynews #bced #caut_acppu

Of course, turns out that parallel to all the overt puffy announcements about a new era of academic freedom at the University of British Columbia, covertly behind the scenes is a progressive decommissioning of channels and media of communication.

Symbolic of a covert erosion of academic freedom, after about 17 years of UBC’s Faculty of Education‘s shared listserv for Educ-Faculty, the forum was suddenly and sadly shut down. Out of the blue beginning last Friday (6 May) through today, a series of decisions culminated in this explicit clampdown on academic freedom. As this morning’s memo from the Dean and Associate Dean reads:

our changes respond to a significant number of complaints we have received about the utilization of EDUC-Faculty in particular, as a medium wherein individual faculty members broadcast their own perspective regarding one or more aspects of the work and trajectory of the Faculty of Education.

Ah yes, the “significant number of complaints” about the expression of academic freedom… Goodness forbid that “faculty members broadcast their own perspective regarding one or more aspects of the work and trajectory” of the University.

One might think that if indeed there was a problem with unmoderated communication, and there was not, the reasonable response would be to move to moderation of the listserv, not shut it down.

Oh yes, the memo concludes with the hypocritical “Tuum Est – It is yours.”

RIP academic freedom at UBC?

Was it the petition we forwarded over the Educ-Faculty list that initiated faculty members’ No Confidence vote in the Board of Governors? Was it what we said? Or didn’t say?

 

*A technical aside is the 2014-2015 decommissioning of Majordomo at UBC. Beginning 1992, majordomo provided a user-friendly platform for listserv communication channels or media. Clean and low-tech code, majordomo hosted a range of user commands that, among other simple things, allows one to generate a list of recipients or the audience of communication (yes, this config can be turned off but most leave it open). At UBC, majordomo lists were migrated to L-Soft, a clunky web-based interface. The vast majority of L-Soft configurations of lists at UBC limit users to two commands: subscribe and unsubscribe. RIP majordomo at UBC.

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

Posted on May 8, 2016 by | Comments Off on #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?

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Free speech, Governance, Maces, Shared governance, Students, Unions, Violence

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

Posted on May 7, 2016 by | Comments Off on 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.

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Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Administration, BC Education, Critical University Studies, Ethics, Governance, Patronage, Philanthropy, Scandals, Shared governance, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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

Posted on April 1, 2016 by | Comments Off on #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

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