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FQPPU Newsletter - June 2007

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ITC

“INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THE PRODUCTION AND DISSEMINATION OF KNOWLEDGE: CHALLENGES FACING UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS” – AN OVERVIEW OF THE CONFERENCE

This Conference was held at the Annual Congress of the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS) at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, on May 10. Some twenty participants were able to better appreciate the challenges and promises that information and communication technologies (ITC) can offer in the pursuit to democratize higher education. Different viewpoints were expressed, but all subscribed to the principle that knowledge is a basic resource that must be made accessible to all. University professors and researchers, the key actors in the preservation, development and transmission of knowledge, appear all too unaware of the huge potential that ITC can provide. Too often, universities, not to mention society at large, equate this potential with market opportunity, rather than linking it to the fundamental issue of free access to knowledge.

It soon became apparent to those attending that professors who invest in the development and use of technologies do so at great expense of time and energy to obtain the desired educational benefits both in terms of knowledge production and transmission. The added workload is sometimes overwhelming. Many undertake the venture without fully measuring the technical, political and educational constraints and consequences of such an enterprise. Few are aware of the choices to be made, and fewer still can make the right decisions in terms of efficiency and time-management. Too often, the choices of the administration with regard to teaching technologies, educational tools and operating systems are made with little or no consultation with frontline professors and researchers.

For those less informed (or “technologically challenged”), the Conference was a wake-up call both to the fact that choices made either by institutions or individuals are not “value free” nor without long-lasting practical consequences, as well as to the urgency for governments to intervene in order to ensure, through legislative and prescriptive measures, that full access to knowledge and free choice remain the cornerstone of future development of ITC. Speakers at the Conference also expressed their concern, and alarm, regarding the attitude of laissez-faire of many professors and unions who do not take seriously the widespread consequence that the uninformed choices of technology hardware and software will have on a professor’s workload and university budgets.

Attention was given to practical matters such as the intellectual property of electronically supported scientific texts, web sharing of educational material (course outlines) and the particular needs and requirements of the humanities and social sciences. Through it all, there was wide agreement that technology must fit the particular needs of both professors and researchers in terms of information access and knowledge production. Those assembled insisted that the Federation should follow through on some of the main points of agreement such as raising its members’ awareness of the impact of technology on academic freedom and university budgets; encouraging colleagues to consider adopting open source technology (such as Linux) as a viable alternative to licensed products; and including in collective agreements clauses to ensure that proper administrative support is given to those wishing to use appropriate technology to improve their teaching and research activities.

The small attendance was by no means a reflection of the quality of the presentations and debates. This issue of information and communication technologies will be among the Federation’s priorities in the coming year.

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UNIVERSITY FUNDING

FEDERATION CALLS FOR TASK FORCE AND PUBLIC DEBATE

Reacting to the budget of Quebec Finance Minister Monique Jérôme-Forget, the Federation could do no less than condemn, once again, the liberal government’s failure to address the chronic problem of university underfunding.

This failure is all the more outstanding since Quebec, exceptionally, had received a financial windfall due to greater profits from Hydro-Québec and the recent reform of equalization. Part of this money could have been used to ease the burden of university underfunding. Instead, the Charest government chose to return $950M to taxpayers and to transfer $500M to the Fonds des générations, the equivalent of Alberta’s Heritage Fund.

In its press release (French only), the Federation urges the government to set up a task force with the mandate to review the 90 or so studies and briefs tabled before the 2004 Parliamentary Commission on higher education, and also to write a series of proposals aimed at ensuring the funding and proper organization of universal access to higher education. These proposals could then be the object of an indispensable public debate.

During the past weeks, the Federation voiced publicly its call for such a public debate.

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COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT NEGOTIATIONS

2007-2008: A BUSY YEAR

Ten of the fifteen unions affiliated with the Federation have entered into negotiations for their new collective agreements.

Sherbrooke University – On June 6, after 17 months of negotiations and just a few hours before a lockout, the 400 or so members of the professors' union voted to accept, at 68 %, the University of Sherbrooke's offer for a new collective agreement. They also protested the way the university conducted these negotiations by threatening to impose a lockout if the offer was rejected. This offer had been narrowly rejected the day before by union representatives. This new collective agreement will be in effect until the year 2010. For more information about this negociation, see: Le lock-out «évité» à l'Université de Sherbrooke: un coup de force inacceptable (French only), Vice-President Pierre Hébert letter's published by Le Devoir, June 14.

Bishop’s University – The professors’ Association, which also represents librarians and, for the first time this year, support staff members, has been without a collective agreement for the past year. A strike vote was taken and received an overwhelming 97.4 %. Negotiations are particularly arduous because the administration wants union members to share responsibility for any and all deficits in their pension fund.

Collective agreements expired on May 31, 2007 in seven universities across Quebec: the École Polytechnique, the École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP), Concordia University, the Institut national de recherche scientifique (INRS) and the universités du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), in Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) and in Outaouais (UQO). On September 30, the collective agreement at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) will also expire.

These negotiations, in the current context of hiring new professors, will focus mainly on such issues as parental leave, professor evaluation and promotion guidelines, assistance to research activities, the status and workload of professors, pay equity, and pre-retirement and retirement conditions. One can only assume that the present crisis at UQAM might have repercussions on the current rounds of negotiations. The Federation has assured its members of its full support throughout these negociations.

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NEWS FROM THE FEDERAL COUNCIL

EXECUTIVE REPORT 2005-2007

At the last Federal Council, May 3 and 4, the President of the Executive Committee presented an assessment of the past two years – a crucial transition period for the Federation.

Following major changes to the Federation’s statutes and with the resolute determination to better articulate political action and visibility, the elected Executive laid out an overall strategy and priorities, and remained steadfast despite the challenges that appeared.

The Executive Committee made considerable efforts so that public statements were in tune with the positions adopted by the Federal Council, and seized all opportunities to make these positions known and to heighten the political visibility of the Federation, through press releases, public conferences and inter-organizational meetings.

At the heart of the Federation’s communication policy, the website is being completely redesigned and should be online in early autumn. The site is expected to be more user-friendly and should allow visitors more autonomy in their search for information.

Structural downsizing, the review of internal management practices and the advantageous renegotiation of the rental lease helped to improve the Federation’s finances, thus allowing sufficient room to fund research, publications and information dissemination on matters of general concern to its members. Over the coming months, the Federation will continue to focus, among other issues, on: university financing, the new generation of university professors, university governance, labour-management relations, psychological harassment, women’s place and role in universities, as well as the impact of technology on the professors’ workload.

NEW EXECUTIVE 2007-2009

Three members of the outgoing Executive were re-elected for a new two-year mandate:

Cécile Sabourin (Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue), President;

Pierre Hébert (Université de Sherbrooke), Vice-President of Internal Affairs;

Sylvain Beaudry (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières), Treasurer.

The executive Committee will also count on the collaboration of:

Françoise Naudillon (Concordia University), Secretary.

The position of Vice-President of External Affairs remains to be filled.

The last Federal Council passed a vote of thanks, and appreciation, to outgoing Vice-President of External Affairs Pierre Lebuis (Université du Québec à Montréal) and to Vice-President of Internal Affairs Colette Ansseau (Université de Sherbrooke).

GOVERNANCE AND DIRECTION OF THE UNIVERSITY. LECTURE BY PIERRE LUCIER

On May 3, Pierre Lucier, head of the Chaire Fernand-Dumont sur la culture (INRS), spoke to the members of the Federal Council on the subject of governance and direction of the university. His long experience and keen interest in education served him well as he set out, from a historical and philosophical perspective, to explain the sudden infatuation with “university governance” and to suggest guidelines for any related discussion. Any decision, in his view, regarding the organization and management of universities must be guided by a clear definition of what constitutes the very essence of a university.

A first and primary guideline to proper governance is to recognize that universities fall under the realm of public service and that they contribute to the common good and the welfare of all citizens. A second guideline refers to the specific mandates of universities, which they cannot fulfill without academic freedom to ensure the sharing of ideas, free of any direct links to economic and commercial interests. And lastly, Mr. Lucier believes that a third guideline to proper governance is the strong presence of collegiality, without which academic freedom would flounder. Collegiality, bar none, remains the best safeguard to academic excellence.

Mr. Lucier concluded his conference by sharing his personal thoughts on the strong tendency among university administrations to rethink university governance along the model of governance predominant in other, more production-oriented sectors. A past member of the task force on university governance set up by the Institut sur la gouvernance d’organisations privées et publiques (a joint research and training centre created by the Hautes Études Commerciales and Concordia University), — from which he recently resigned —, he spoke in great detail on the serious risks to the traditional, public service-oriented university that such a “paradigmatic” shift represents. He graciously made his conference (French only) available.

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GLOBALIZATION AND HIGHER EDUCATION

DIPLOMAS FOR SALE

In a recent document co-written with Claude Vaillancourt of Attac-Québec, the Federation’s president analyzes the risks that international commercial agreements place on higher education.

Despite constant economic growth in recent years, higher education remains underfunded, and governments continue to lend a deaf ear to repeated calls by universities for adequate funding. In perpetual need for additional funds, university administrations reach out to world markets for new student “clienteles”, thus placing themselves under the reach of international commercial agreements, and the risks this may entail.

To understand the workings of these agreements, such as the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and the associated risks, Diplomas for Sale (French only) is a must read. The Federation made its position (French only) clear during a recent public consultation by the Canadian government on the internal workings of the GATS.

SPP: A NEW MENACE

While nothing transpires from the secret discussions within the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding the GATS, other bi- and trilateral negotiations are being held such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). This alliance between economic and political elites from Canada, the United States and Mexico aims to create a North American security zone. What this means is an attempt to align the internal and external policies of Canada and Mexico with those of the United States. Here again, under the cover of protection from a terrorist attack, this is yet another attempt to erode the rights of countries that border the United States to define their own sovereign economic, social and cultural policies. It goes without saying that this SPP might have a direct effect on education.

On this subject, the Réseau québécois sur l’intégration continentale (RQIC), which brings together some 20 social organizations from across Quebec, has prepared informative and well documented pamphlet (French only) and text (French only) on that SPP which has so far escaped public attention.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

RECENT ARTICLES BY PIERRE HÉBERT AND GUY BOURGEAULT

The special May issue on censorships of the magazine L’Autre Forum (French only), published by University of Montreal professors, features an article by the Federation’s Vice-President of Internal Affairs, Pierre Hébert, on the dogma of competitiveness and what he calls “censorship by obligation”. The article is entitled “Les pressions censoriales et l’effet glaucome : un diagnostic sur l’université actuelle”. In the same issue, Guy Bourgeault has published his article entitled “L’éthique de la recherche, censure bureaucratique?”, in which he pleads for a reappropriation of science’s ethics by researchers.

A WORKSHOP ON THE PLACE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR WITHIN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

At the first Forum social québécois (French only), to be held in Montreal on August 23-27, the Table des partenaires (TPU), will organize a workshop on the future of higher education. In view of the fact that the private sector is making its presence increasingly felt in teaching and research, and that international organizations are pressuring the universities to adopt more production-oriented management practices, the time has come to ask what the current situation in Quebec’s universities is and what can and should be changed.

* Joins together the federations of trade unions of professors, part-time lecturers, professionals, other university staff and the federations of university students.

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SUGGESTED READING

Society and the University

CORNELLIER Louis (2006) Lettre à mes collègues sur l’enseignement de la littérature et de la philosophie au collégial, Éditions Nota bene, Québec

PITTE Jean-Robert (2006) Jeunes, on vous ment !: Reconstruire l’Université, Fayard, Paris

Gouvernance

BARLOW Maude (2006 ), Dormir avec l’éléphant, Boréal, Montréal

HAMEL Pierre, Un modèle québécois. Gouvernance et participation dans la gestion publique, Presses de l’Université de Montréal

SIROTA Régine (2001), Autour du comparatisme en éducation, PUF, Paris

Women and the University

BRESLAUER Helen (2007) “Academic restructuring and equalilty”Academic Matters, April

CAUVY C. et al. (2007) “ Femmes et syndicalisme : quelle histoire ? quel avenir ? Dossier”, L’Université syndicaliste, février, N°648

Special Report (2007) “Women’s rights are human rights”, Worlds of Education, N°22, April-May

Faculty Appointments

KINKELSTEIN Martin (2007) “Negotiating the new academy”, Academic Matters, April

Financing Research

ATKINSON-GROSJEAN Janet (2007), “Big science, boundary organizations”, Academic Matters, April

BENNET Paul (2005), Higher Education and Research Staff in the 21st Century, 5th higher Education and research Conference, Education International

MORIN Edgar et Alfredo Pena-Vega (2003), Université, quel avenir ? Propositions pour penser une réforme, ORUS-INT, Éditions Charles Leopold Mayer

THERRIEN Aline (2005), Valorisation de la recherche biomédicale et création d’entreprises dérivées à l’Université Laval. Les dilemmes et les tensions suscités par l’émergence d’un modèle entrepreneurial en milieu universitaire, mémoire de maîtrise en relations industrielles, Université Laval (Prix du meilleur mémoire, Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine)

Freedom of Expression

BRUNEAU William et James Turk (2004) Disciplining Dissent. The Curbing of Free Expression in Academia and the Media, James Lorimer and Associates Ltd. Toronto

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Administration