{"id":10776,"date":"2016-05-13T11:12:16","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T19:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/?p=10776"},"modified":"2016-05-13T19:31:51","modified_gmt":"2016-05-14T03:31:51","slug":"rip-academic-freedom-in-education-at-ubc-ubcnews-ubc100-ubysseynews-bced-caut_acppu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/2016\/05\/rip-academic-freedom-in-education-at-ubc-ubcnews-ubc100-ubysseynews-bced-caut_acppu\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP academic freedom in Education at #UBC #ubcnews #ubc100 #ubysseynews #bced #caut_acppu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of course, turns out that parallel to all\u00a0the overt puffy announcements\u00a0about a new era of academic freedom at the University of British Columbia<\/a>, covertly behind\u00a0the scenes is a progressive decommissioning of channels and media of communication.<\/p>\n

Symbolic of a\u00a0covert erosion of academic freedom, after about 17 years of UBC’s Faculty of Education<\/a>‘s shared\u00a0listserv\u00a0for Educ-Faculty, the forum was suddenly and sadly\u00a0shut down. Out of the blue beginning last Friday (6 May) through\u00a0today, a series of decisions culminated in this explicit clampdown on academic freedom. As this morning’s\u00a0memo from the Dean and Associate Dean reads:<\/p>\n

our changes respond to\u00a0a 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.<\/p>\n

Ah yes, the “significant number of complaints” about the expression of academic freedom…\u00a0Goodness\u00a0forbid that “faculty members broadcast their own perspective regarding one or more aspects of the work and trajectory” of the University.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Oh\u00a0yes, the memo concludes with the hypocritical\u00a0“Tuum Est<\/i><\/b> <\/i><\/b>\u2013 It is yours.<\/i><\/b><\/a>”<\/p>\n

RIP academic freedom at UBC?<\/p>\n

Was it the petition<\/a>\u00a0we\u00a0forwarded over the Educ-Faculty list that initiated faculty members’\u00a0No Confidence vote in the Board of Governors<\/a>? Was it what we said? Or didn’t say?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*A technical\u00a0aside is the 2014-2015 decommissioning of Majordomo<\/a> 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\u00a0be turned off but most leave\u00a0it open). At UBC, majordomo lists were migrated to L-Soft, a clunky web-based interface<\/a>. The vast majority of\u00a0L-Soft configurations of lists at UBC limit users to two commands: subscribe and unsubscribe. RIP majordomo at UBC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of course, turns out that parallel to all\u00a0the overt puffy announcements\u00a0about a new era of academic freedom at the University of British Columbia, covertly behind\u00a0the scenes is a progressive decommissioning of channels and media of communication. Symbolic of a\u00a0covert erosion … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1527,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[554,2249,287,406501,555,1223,2270,2275,2276],"tags":[1288925,1288923,1288926,1288936,1288963,1288964],"class_list":["post-10776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-freedom","category-accountability","category-administration","category-bc-education","category-free-speech","category-governance","category-solidarity","category-unions","category-working-conditions","tag-academic-freedom","tag-administration","tag-free-speech","tag-governance","tag-unions","tag-working-conditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10776"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10790,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10776\/revisions\/10790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}