Newsletter #14 (4/26/2024)

Thanks for reading and sharing these newsletters, with special appreciation to those who have been sharing with staff, faculty and students in your departments.

 If you just found us recently, you can see the 13 previous editions of this newsletter on this website. Here you will also find recordings of the three teach-ins we have organized – on the politics of the university’s budget, on university governance 101, and on benchmarking and Nous. You can also find the Shock Doctrine Report, which reminds us that budgets are political documents that result from decisions made by actual people who could decide differently. Budgets tell us what an organization does and does not value. The report discusses the financial resources available to Queen’s for taking a more balanced approach to addressing budgetary pressures. It reminds us that the 2022-23 deficit was enlarged when the university’s financial administrators decided to transfer millions in investment income out of the operating budget and into capital reserves and that Queen’s has a history of over-estimating budget deficits. It also describes the University’s unwillingness to use more than a pittance of the income on its investments (less than 1%) to protect people’s jobs and the quality of the education we are able to offer our students.

Yes, the foundation of the budget situation lies in longstanding provincial underfunding of postsecondary education. However, Queen’s has financial resources that could be used to mitigate the damage to people’s livelihoods, our degree programs, institutional morale, and reputation.  

1. Information about restructuring in the Faculty of Arts and Science continues to emerge unevenly despite considerable pressure on the Dean’s office to develop a coherent, transparent communication strategy. From what we can gather, most units have now been told some version of the following: the faculty is restructuring; some units will be organized into hubs so that they can continue to function; the extent to which units are being hubbed varies; some staff positions will remain the same and some may be shared; some administrative functions may be centralized; some layoffs will happen soon and some will occur in the future. In this environment, uncertainty, anxiety, and skepticism about the feasibility of the plans is running high, especially as most Department Managers, who are both the experts and among those most affected by the changes, have been excluded from deliberations until this point.

2. Faculty of Arts and Science Faculty Board update: Once again Faculty Board voted overwhelmingly (93:16) to support a motion calling for more transparency and a slower, more collegial process in relation to restructuring. This was the second vote on the motion, brought from the floor at a meeting last month when members voted 97:17 in favour. The full text of the motion, definitely worth reading, is available here. Thanks to those who crafted it.

The motion called for any restructuring plans that would affect the academic mission of FAS to be brought forward to Faculty Board for discussion and approval. One of the primary functions of Faculty Board is “to make such recommendations to the Senate as the Faculty may deem expedient for promoting the efficiency of the University.” The University Secretariat and Legal Counsel has said that the motion is non-binding because ‘restructuring’ is not within the purview of Faculty Board. Be that as it may, the vote demonstrated overwhelming support for the intent behind the motion (laid out in the whereases that you can read at the link above). People are frustrated. The Dean’s office could be doing things differently.

During discussion on the motion, 13 FAS department heads offered the following point of information, which they asked to be read into the minutes: “As the Heads and Directors of Departments and Schools in the Faculty of Arts and Science (FAS), this point of information outlines our concerns about the restructuring process in FAS and its impact on the Faculty and the University’s academic character. We have been informed that most details regarding restructuring plans are confidential, including those recommended in a report from the Budget Advisory Committee to the Dean (submitted April 10 and accepted by her). Our points are thus necessarily general, but we hope they provide context for Faculty Board about the conditions in which Heads are trying to fulfill our responsibilities to our units, as outlined in the Collective Agreement. Although we are eight months into meetings to discuss restructuring, we have yet to be presented with:

i. A full accounting of the academic, human, financial, and institutional costs of the recommendations or the anticipated savings;

ii. An analysis of the viability of the proposed structures and accompanying staffing levels for delivering our academic programs;

iii. Anticipated processes for implementing the proposed changes, including how restructuring will comply with Collective Agreement stipulations and proceed in a manner that ensures that staff are treated fairly and with integrity;

iv. Unambiguous information, consistent across units, that we can provide to staff members seeking to make fully informed decisions about whether or not to take the Voluntary Exit Incentive;

v. An approved comprehensive plan detailing staffing numbers, for our units and centralized services, across all phases of restructuring;

vi. A detailed and realistic timeline for the implementation of restructuring;

vii. Evidence that the impact of the recommendations on the EDIAA commitments of FAS have been given any consideration.”

At the same meeting, members of Faculty Board learned that the planning for restructuring has been taking place without the involvement of department managers – the people who know best how academic units actually work. After months of secrecy and closed-door meetings, last week the Dean’s office finally gave permission (that’s the way we talk now in FAS) for department heads to share some information about restructuring with department managers. The department managers, not surprisingly, have many questions that heads cannot answer. They are concerned about the impact of restructuring on their units’ ability to offer their programs and to support students. They are also concerned about their already excessive workloads and the burden of labour and stress that staffing changes will add to them. Department managers are accountable to the staff they work with, and yet they have not been able to provide any clarity to other staff members about changes being considered that could dramatically alter staff jobs and livelihoods. The Dean was asked when department managers would be brought into discussions between the heads and people from the Dean’s office so that the department managers might contribute their expertise to the development of an appropriate plan and timeline that would minimize risks to academic programs and student and faculty support services.

Speaking on behalf of the Dean, Executive Director of Finance and Operations, Cormac Evans said that department managers would be “socialized” into the process soon. He suggested that department managers would be having monthly meetings soon. It was pointed out to Evans that they already meet monthly with the Dean’s office. What is needed now is collaborative meetings with heads, department managers, and people from the Dean’s office all in the same room, sharing the same information, and with people from the Dean’s office being willing to incorporate changes proposed by those who are going to have to put the plan to work.

Evans also suggested, as we have heard before, that the administration has been consulting with the unions and is limited by collective agreements, implying that it is the unions’ fault or the fault of labour regulations that the Dean’s Office and the Budget Advisory Committee (which is made up of six heads of department) have been neither transparent nor collegial throughout this process. QUFA and USW report that they have had no discussions with representatives of the faculty office, Human Resources, or Faculty Relations on these matters.

3. Friday, April 19th was also the date of the QUFA spring general meeting, which demonstrated QUFA’s continued engagement with and awareness of the implications of the university’s austerity measures and emphasized how the union, and general union solidarity, are important in these times. Members shared concerns around the impact on faculty of a still unknown number of resignations and layoffs. QUFA Executive Director Leslie Jermyn encouraged QUFA members not to increase their work hours because of the cuts to staffing and support that senior administrators have mandated. QUFA members were advised to tell students that any complaints about delayed turnaround times related to staff cuts should be directed to the administration. QUFA members who have secure employment were also asked to remember the additional pressures faced by colleagues in more precarious positions and to work with a solidarity-oriented mindset.

In response to a question about budget cuts, loss of staff (administrative and ASO) and term adjuncts, and the potential for QUFA members’ workloads to increase, QUFA president Cella Olmstead and Executive Director Leslie Jermyn made clear that QUFA members should not do the work of other bargaining units. Olmstead said that the best form of solidarity QUFA members could show to people who are at risk of job loss is to not do their work. Recognizing that some members are more precarious than others – and might find it more difficult to say ‘no’ to a Department Head, for instance – Jermyn encouraged permanent faculty to “stand up for adjuncts in unit meetings and be mindful of not assuming their time is infinitely malleable.”

In a discussion about potentially vulnerable units, members were reminded that there are only two ways to close a program, and both require very specific steps according to the Collective Agreement. Members were encouraged to watch for (and report to QUFA) any signs that the University is attempting to circumvent articles 38 and 39 of the CA.  

In the face of worsening conditions of work, QUFA could not formally call for members to work-to-rule because that would be considered a wildcat action. But, as workers, members could informally and collectively organize not to do the labour of others. All workers also have the right to refuse to work in unsafe  conditions.

Finally, at this meeting, there was discussion about graduate student funding and the possibility that it could constitute “low hanging fruit” as a target for cuts. Graduate funding packages at Queen’s are already widely recognized as non-competitive in contrast with other universities in Ontario, and housing costs in Kingston have risen to outrageous levels without any concomitant funding relief. The impact on current graduate students is already being felt.

4. A couple of weeks ago the faculty association at St Mary’s University in Halifax made a public call for the university’s President and the Chair of the Board of Governors to resign after faculty members voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion of non-confidence. Last week faculty members at York University voted to support a motion of non-confidence and called for the resignation of York’s President, Provost, and Chair of the Board of Governors. In a press release, York University Faculty Association (YUFA) pointed to “the financial and administrative mismanagement at the university, the lack of collegiality, and the recent decisions made by senior administrators that have harmed the institution.” You can read the full text of the motion here. Here is an excerpt from the press release: “Those supporting the non-confidence motion pointed to the December 2023 Value-for-Money Audit of the university by Auditor General of Ontario that revealed major deficiencies in financial oversight, planning and accountability. The report documented that capital projects have been embarked upon without a proper business plan presented to the Board of Governors. The result of these actions is that academic programs have been placed at risk.

“The Auditor General report also found that over the past five years the size of the senior administration and its compensation (salary, benefits, bonuses and stipends) increased by 37% and 47%, respectively. During this time the university experienced stable levels in enrolment. The mismanagement by the university’s administration comes at the expense of strengthening the
university’s academic reputation, attending to deferred infrastructure maintenance, maintaining respectful and productive collegial relations, and supporting established and innovative programs at York University.”