Special organizing opposition toill 38

October 2009

Special organizing opposition to bill on university governance

FQPPU Bulletin – vol. 4 no 4

OPPOSITION TO BILL 38 – UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY MOBILIZES!

• Briefs to the Commission de la culture et de l’éducation
• Demonstration in Montréal on October 1
• Sign the petition now !
• Local activities
• Suggestions for further reading

2d QUEBEC SOCIAL FORUM : FQPPU PARTICIPATES IN TWO SESSIONS

 

GOVERNANCE : THEME OF THE 6TH JOURNÉE SCIENTIFIQUE OF ADERAE

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OPPOSITION TO BILL 38 - UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY MOBILIZES !

Each and every Quebec university is busy organizing to show our united opposition to Bill 38 on university governance. The Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d’université and its member associations, along with the Table des partenaires universitaires (TPU), are demanding that Minister Michelle Courchesne withdraw this Bill and convene an Estates General on universities in Québec.

Briefs to the Commission de la culture et de l’éducation

Associations representing professors, lecturers, other professional university staff, and students have all made presentations to the National Assembly’s Commission de la culture et de l’éducation, to underline the serious damage that this Bill would inflict on the university community. Faculty associations and TPU members were heard on these dates :

September 15	FNEEQ (Fédération nationale des enseignants et enseignants du Québec)
September 22	CQSU (Conseil québécois des syndicats universitaires de l’Alliance de la Fonction publique du Canada au Québec)
September 24	SPUQ (Syndicat des professeurs et professeures de l’UQAM
	SCFP (dont le CPSU – Conseil provincial du secteur universitaire)
September 29	APBM-MAUT et MUNASA (Association des professeurs et bibliothécaires et  Association du personnel non enseignant de McGill)
	SGPUM (Syndicat général des professeurs et professeures de l’Université de Montréal)
	FPPU (Fédération du personnel professionnel des universités et de la recherche)
September 30	FQPPU (Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d’université)
October 1	FEUQ (Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec)
	SPPUS  (Syndicat des professeures et professeurs de l’Université de Sherbrooke)

Complete list of hearings recorded access to presentations and discussions at the Commission de la culture et de l’éducation.

Demonstration in Montréal October 1

The TPU (Table des partenaires universitaires), of which FQPPU is a member, supports the student associations who have organized this demonstration against Bill 38 and Bill 44 (on CEGEP governance). We urge you to take 90 minutes out of your busy schedule to join us at the rally which will start at 12:30 pm, Thursday, October 1, at Parc Émilie-Gamelin in downtown Montréal (métro Berri-UQAM). Demonstrators will then march to the headquarters of Minister Courchesne.

Sign the petition now !

All FQPPU associations and TPU members are currently circulating a printed petition which must have handwritten signatures in order to be submitted to the National Assembly. We sincerely hope that you will add your name as soon as possible, if you haven’t already done so, and encourage your colleagues to add theirs. Only strength through numbers of names will make an impact ! We also invite you to register your opposition to Bill 38 by wearing the button Non à la loi Courchesne, available through your faculty association or union.

Local activities

Professors at Université de Sherbrooke and Bishop’s University have combined forces : a joint brief submitted to the Commission de la culture et de l’éducation (CCE) and a demonstration on Friday, September 25, in front of the office of their MNA, Jean Charest. See the special issue of Info-SPPUS.

At the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, the Intersyndicale des personnels and the students’ Association générale have produced, after an awareness session held with their regional deputies who sit on the CCE, an opinion paper which was distributed to all Commission members.

At Université du Québec à Rimouski, the academic community will meet in early October to raise awareness about various aspects of Bill 38. We should mention that an article by a UQAR professor, Frédéric Deschenaux, who is also President of FQPPU’s Comité sur le corps professoral, leads off the September-October issue of Mouton noir under the title « Le projet de loi 38 sur la gouvernance universitaire – Une entorse grave à la collégialité ».

The latest issue of SPUQ-Info, the journal put out by the Syndicat des professeurs et professeurs de l’UQAM, concentrates on the topic of university governance, including a declaration by UQAM’s Intersyndicale rejecting Bill 38. Also in issue no. 274, note Michèle Nevert’s article « 40 ans - Parcours d’une mémoire ordinaire », a lively homage to the pioneers of UQAM, held on September 10, 2009.

At Université du Québec dans l’Outaouais, all unions invited their members to a pizza session on Wednesday, September 30, to discuss the impact of Bill 38 on the university community’s representation on university decision-making bodies. Afterwards, the five unions representing professors, lecturers, professional staff, support staff and students held a press conference.

Other activities will take place in the next few weeks, a crucial period for the defense of university autonomy and collegiality. We must prevent the adoption of Bill 38 which, by placing the future of the university in the hands of a majority of « external » administrators, will only intensify privatization of universities and, regardless of their public service nature and practices, impose on them a commercial, for-profit style of operation. Far from preventing the fiscal and real-estate mismanagement it claims to correct, this remedy will only worsen the disease !

Still on university governance and the impact of privatization on universities, some suggestions for reading
A reminder about two articles from the special governance issue of the bulletin presented to association members during the Conseil fédéral in the spring of 2009 :

• from Alain Dupuis, professor of management at Téluq-Uqam, co-director of Cergo (Centre de recherche conjoint Enap-Téluq sur la gouvernance des entreprises publiques) and author of Managérialisme ou collégialisme dans la gouvernance des universités ? Le cas des projets immobiliers de l’UQAM.
• from Hélène Machinal, assistant professor at Université de Brest, on the impact in France of the Loi relative aux libertés et responsabilités des universités.

and this recommendation from our colleague, Roger de la Garde, Democracy’s Nemesis The Rise of the Corporate University, by Professor Henry A. Giroux, from McMaster University.

2d QUEBEC SOCIAL FORUM: FQPPU PARTICIPATES IN TWO SESSIONS :

Technociences: from myth to reality

In conjunction with the Comité québécois Sciences et démocratie, the Québec/Canada regional committee for a Charter of Human Responsibilities, and the magazine Relations, the Fédération invites you to a workshop Technoscience : from myth to reality; I care because it concerns me which will be held on Friday afternoon, October 9. Led by our former President, Cécile Sabourin, this workshop will examine the impact of the technosciences and the commercialization of their products on policies for research funding and product control, too frequently without respect for the « safety-first principle » and without concern for human, animal and environmental health.

Make education a Québec priority

Eleven labour organizations, including FQPPU, all signatories of the manifesto Make Education a Québec Priority, are sounding the alarm : the coming « knowledge society » will exclude a large number of people, unless Québec makes education one of its top priorities. There are solutions. You are invited to learn more in a workshop on Sunday, October 11, with Réjean Parent (CSQ), Pierre Saint-Germain (FAE), Jean Grégoire (FEUQ), Denise Boucher (CSN) and a representative from FQPPU, our former Vice-president, Pierre Hébert.

GOVERNANCE: THEME OF ADERAE’S 6^e JOURNÉE SCIENTIFIQUE

The background to Bill 38 and Bill 44 and their impact on academic freedom and administrative autonomy in CEGEPs and universities will be addressed by the ADERAE (Association pour le développement de l’enseignement et de la recherche en administration de l’éducation) which has taken governance in higher education as the theme for their meeting in Quebec on November 13. This 6th « journée scientifique» will begin with a roundtable discussion led by André Brassard, professor at both Université de Montréal and Sherbrooke, Gaétan Boucher, President and CEO of the Fédération des cégeps, Sylvain Dubé, student representative from Université de Montréal and Max Roy, President of the Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d’université.