Not a lot has changed since last week. The provincial funding situation remains the same. There is still no coherent plan for how the work of the Faculty of Arts and Science will get done as we lose staff, adjuncts, and regular faculty. The Nous project is still wasting staff time. Students, staff, and faculty are still working together to push for transparency and to challenge the narrative that the University does not have the financial wherewithal to manage the budget situation differently. But the crocuses are up, it’s a short week, and there is just one more week of term!
1. The Ontario provincial budget, released on Tuesday 26 March, included no new funding for universities. The response from the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) is here. A less measured response from the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is here. Last week the Council of Ontario Universities collaborated with the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance to release a pre-budget open letter to Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy to call for multi-year investment in Ontario universities. Alex Usher (of Higher Education Strategy Associates) posted his take on the budget here.
3. On Tuesday, March 26th the Faculty of Arts and Science announced a pilot program to offer staff “the opportunity to apply for a Voluntary Exit Incentive (VEI).” The incentive is a lump-sum payment based on years of service. But, depending on a person’s years of service, the amount on offer through the VEI may not be as much as they would get under the provisions of their collective agreement were they to be laid off. To get the lump-sum payment, a person would have to apply, be accepted into the program, and then resign their position before the end of May, that is, in just two months. Applications must be submitted between now and the end of April, that is, just one month from now. However, an application to the program does not guarantee acceptance. Applications will be assessed in accordance with the “operational needs” of FAS. People who resign and receive the lump-sum payment will not be able to work at the University for three years. To my knowledge, the webpage describing this program is the first public acknowledgement by the faculty office that restructuring in FAS will “ultimately impact our staff complement.”
Who will make the decisions about who will be accepted into the program? Will frontline staff have input into decisions about “operational needs”? How will the work of the Faculty (staff members do actually do work that needs to get done) get done if there is significant uptake of the program? Will decisions about restructuring be held back until the financial and logistical impacts of the incentive program are known? What is the plan for dealing with fewer staff and the same number of students? What do the Dean and Associate Deans and the members of the Budget Advisory Committee think FAS will look like when the dust settles?
Like many recent announcements, this one seems to have taken department heads, department managers and staff, in general, by surprise. The lack of contextual information on the program webpage – how many jobs are going to be lost over the next few months? What is the overall restructuring plan for FAS? – means that people are being asked to make a very difficult and irrevocable decision without all the information they need. One hopes that more information will soon be made available to staff, that FAS has been consulting on this plan with USW, and that FAS and USW will be organizing town hall meetings or other events to work through people’s questions and concerns. The FAQ page for this pilot project says that the VEI program may be extended to staff in other faculties if it proves effective at saving costs and “reducing impacts on people” in the Faculty of Arts and Science, which, as we have discussed before, has been assigned the burden of carrying the responsibility for almost all of the University’s deficit mitigation.
4. On Friday March 22nd, members of the Faculty of Arts and Science Faculty Board voted overwhelmingly in favour of a motion from the floor that called for greater transparency, meaningful consultation with staff, faculty, and students, and a longer timeline for the development and implementation of plans for restructuring. The motion also called for any restructuring plans that could affect the academic mission of FAS to be brought before Faculty Board for approval. Because this motion was introduced from the floor, Members will need to vote on it a second time to confirm the outcome. A second vote will take place at the Faculty Board meeting on Friday April 19th.
When the motion was introduced at the meeting, the Chair informed Members that in the opinion of the University Secretariat and Legal Counsel the motion does not fall within the jurisdiction of Faculty Board. Members voted in favour of entertaining the motion, nevertheless. QUFA, QCAA, and a number of concerned faculty will be following up on the question of jurisdiction. Whatever the resolution of that particular issue, support for the motion at Friday’s meeting represented the deep frustration of students, staff, and faculty in FAS and their desire for a more transparent and collegial process. Full text of the motion is here.
5. Over the past few weeks, as we have mentioned previously, department managers and other staff have been forced to deal with the data gathering exercise that will allow Queen’s to become part of the NousCubane benchmarking product. This extra work is placing a huge burden on staff. Recently QCAA received this video, which was shared to give those of us not directly involved in the Nous project a better idea of what it has been like. As staff have reported and the video makes clear, the data gathered in this process can be nothing but inaccurate.
6. Unity Council, a group that involves representatives from each of the eight union locals at Queen’s, is holding an unprecedented Joint Special Membership Assembly for members of all campus unions, on Thursday, April 4th at noon, in the main gym of the ARC. The fact that almost all Queen’s employees will be involved in bargaining for new contracts later this year means that Unity Council is going to play an important role as negotiations rollout, as the recent message about the membership assembly suggests: “The more we all see and learn about how Queen’s decides to present its financial situation and prioritize its spending for the coming years, the more we doubt the administration’s claims and motivation. Their responses to the budget deficit threaten to cause immediate and long-lasting economic damage, not only to our members and their families, but to the broader Kingston community – our community – by way of layoffs, a hiring freeze, non-renewals, and loss of real-wages in a continuing, and very real, cost of living crisis. Queen’s University is the largest employer in Kingston. United, the members of our unions represent almost 5,000 workers in this community. We will not let Queen’s address its deficit crisis on our backs: an injury to our members is an injury to the entire Kingston community. As the majority of our members prepare to enter bargaining, we stand together to declare that as workers and community members we cannot and will not be the ones to finance the budget shortfall by continuing to sacrifice our purchasing power and our jobs. Queen’s has to engage with the unions to ensure our members, their workers, can afford a reasonable standard of living and can continue to contribute to a vibrant Kingston community.”
7. A recording of last week’s Adjuncts Against Austerity event, organized by QUFA, is now available. Speaking about local and broader provincial and national issues affecting adjucts were OCUFA President, Dr. Nigmendra Narain, and the Chair of QUFA’s Adjunct Advisory Advocacy Committee, Dr. Melissa Houghtaling.
8. As reported in the Queen’s Journal, the Provost announced at the recent Board of Trustees meeting that “91 enrolment seats from the Faculty of Arts and Science (FAS) are being reallocated to faculties in higher tuition brackets. Smith Engineering and the Faculty of Health Sciences are expected to take on more students to mitigate financial pressures.” The new plan was approved by the Senate Committee on Academic Development and Procedures this week, so the plan can be presented at the Senate meeting on April 18.” It is unclear how the transfer of these enrolment seats will impact the budget deficit in FAS or whether the increased funds will be used centrally or within the Faculties of Engineering and Health Sciences. QUFA President, Mary (Cella) Olmstead discusses the 91 seat transfer in her recent QUFA Voices article on the general and problematic issue of cross-faculty subsidies.
Queen's Coalition Against Austerity 