It’s the last week of classes! And next week starts with the eclipse!
1. It’s been great to see our dusty, end-of-winter campus covered in posters for the Joint Members Assembly that will be held on Thursday, April 4th at noon in the ARC gym. This event has been organized by Unity Council for members of all union locals at Queen’s – CUPE 1302, CUPE 229, CUPE 254, ONA 067, OPSEU 452, PSAC 901, QUFA, and USW 2010. Together the unions will announce an unprecedented, coordinated bargaining strategy. Pizza will be available after the event. An RSVP at this link would be appreciated to help gauge numbers for pizza. Later on Thursday afternoon, QUFA and its Political Action and Communications Committee invite all workers at Queen’s to a post-assembly Solidarity Social at the University Club at 4:00 pm. Drinks and snacks will be provided.
2. Some brief notes from a Senator who attended last week’s Senate meeting: The Principal told Senate that the Ontario budget, tabled on Tuesday, March 26th, was “disappointing for higher education.” He noted that Queen’s is awaiting news about whether it might receive support for residence construction from the new infrastructure funding commitments announced in the budget, and that we should expect an increase in the number of spaces in our nursing program. The Principal also confirmed that Queen’s will receive approximately the same number of international student visas next year as we did this year. It is unclear whether Queen’s will be permitted to grow those numbers back to 2019 levels. International students currently make up a little more than 7% of the undergraduate population; before the pandemic they made up almost 15%.
The Provost again emphasized that the deficit in FAS is “substantial” and that FAS will be more than $50 million in debt by the end of 2025-26. Whether this projection takes into account the cost-savings from already implemented and planned cuts, and how much of this projection is driven by the proposed transfer of 91 seats out of FAS is unclear. In relation to the burden on FAS, the Provost said, “I want to be clear that when we are addressing the debt [does he mean the deficit?] in FAS, it should not be viewed as an us vs them scenario; we are not pitting one discipline against another. Queen’s is a comprehensive university, and one Faculty and its disciplines are valued just as highly as any other faculty or field of study at the University. As an institution we are trying to manage our situation, some of which [is] because of government funding and the pandemic, and some of [which is] our own making. We need to address the deficit head on. It is important to note that we are one of many. At least 12 of the province’s universities have deficits totalling $300 million. Across the board, we are making decisions to address the budget. Our own deficit is just over $40 million. We are actively working on finalizing the budget for 2025-26. To reduce the debt [deficit?] in FAS, and try to obtain a balanced budget in 2025-26, we will have to increase deficit mitigation in 2024-25 to 4% of revenue.” According to a report on Senate in the Queen’s Journal, this 4% of revenue refers to the tax that all faculties will be required to contribute to the deficit mitigation fund. Previously, the contribution rate for next year had been set at 1.5%.
In response to questions about Nous, the Provost said that 2500 people had been sent the first survey. Respondents had to meet certain criteria (full or part time, mid-tier or senior tier, employed at Queen’s for at least 6 months). The Provost said that the return rate was 40%. The highest response was in the Faculty of Education, the lowest in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Apparently, the response of faculty members to the survey at Queen’s was the “second highest ever globally and highest of any Canadian university.” Of course, after much collegial deliberation, many faculty members at Queen’s explicitly chose to complete the survey to demonstrate support for their staff colleagues and the work they do. It will be interesting to see if the public reports that come out of the Nous project will share the average response rate from faculty at Queen’s and other institutions. In a completely transparent process, we would receive a fair accounting of the qualitative comments provided by respondents and learn the number of people who wrote to decline the survey and for what reasons. We would also learn of the concerns about the survey’s design that have been circulating not just at Queen’s but globally.
When a Senator asked about staff layoffs and the impact these will have on the academic mission of the university, the Principal said we need to take “immediate, practical steps” to address the deficit, and then we will need to look at vision and mission. The implication here is that staff and mission are somehow separate and that layoffs and unfilled positions are not already undermining academic quality.
3. One of the strong features of the current moment at Queen’s, particularly in FAS, is the disconnect of the senior administration from the everyday realities of staff, who are currently trying to do their jobs without any sense of whether they will still be here after the summer or, if they are, what their jobs will look like then. Some staff are already trying to cover the gaps left by unfilled vacancies. It is very hard to imagine that budget cuts will leave any front-line staff free of the pressure to work harder, with fewer resources, and fewer of the intangible rewards that come of doing your job well and feeling respected for it. The stress of not knowing is huge. People need information about the scope and direction of restructuring, about the number of anticipated resignations via the Voluntary Exit Incentive program, about potential strategies for managing increasing workloads and the inevitable reduction in the quality of the services that units can provide. Instead of answers to questions about these issues, the Dean’s office sends out the What’s Up ArtSci newsletter, which last week included just two items: information about the eclipse, and a notice for a “stress relaxation techniques virtual seminar.”
4. Last week this newsletter included a link to a video sent to us by a staff person who wanted to convey the absurdity of the NousCubane Activity Data Collection process. We have heard a lot of feedback on that video. Here is another take on the experience from someone in a different unit:
It’s their world we’re just WORKING in it.
This review coding process has had a ring of familiarity to it. Filling out vague, time-consuming questions that bear little relationship to our actual working realities brought me back a couple of decades. Maybe other Queen’s staff who have cared for young children can relate.
When my child was young – maybe 4 or 5 – it was not unusual to come downstairs on a Saturday morning to find the living room transformed into a complex and precariously constructed blanket fort. At the centre of the chaos is a young child. Brightly coloured underpants pulled up over their pajamas; swim googles on, and something (gel? syrup?) spiking their hair into a style fitting for the hero of an alternate universe. Upon seeing an adult, the child immediately, and in a serious voice, demands that you play a part in this world – “you hold this, and you are the dragon goat with death wings.”
As the kind of parent who wants to encourage imaginative play, and even though you’ve not had your coffee yet, you gamely pick up the corner of the blanket that won’t stay put. You notice that the cat has also been trapped by cushions into a corner of the fort and that various household items have been commandeered. There is a distinctive smell of soggy breakfast cereal, and you’re hoping it hasn’t spilled on the couch. The child is deep into their constructed reality, and while demanding you participate, is unable to articulate the premise of the game, the rules of engagement, or any kind of narrative arc.
“Now you say something!”
“I am the dragon goat with death wings. I’m going to fly…”
“No, not that! And you can’t fly! Say about the dungeon.”
“Oh, um… ”
The child, getting louder now and frustrated that you aren’t playing correctly, is spiraling a bit. You stand calmly holding a corner of the blanket, thinking about how to move on to the coffee part of the morning without triggering a meltdown. You add “rescue cat; clean up blanket-fort and spilled cheerios” to your Saturday to-do list.
5. One can’t help but think of Doug Ford while reading this essay by West Virginia University English professor Rose Casey, in which she argues for the value of imagination and deep learning in the wake of a massive institutional restructuring that led to hundreds of lost jobs and dozens of eliminated programs. WVU provides a cautionary tale about the extent to which a university can be forced to line up with market logics. WVU is an extreme case, but the rhetoric and strategies used to transform it, described by Casey and also here, will not be unfamiliar to people at Queen’s.
6. For people in FAS, this is a reminder to put the April 19th Faculty Board meeting (3:30 pm) on your calendar. The agenda will include the required second vote on a motion, which came from the floor and was passed at the last meeting, regarding transparency and meaningful consultation in relation to restructuring.
7. Thanks to all the people of QCAA who, on top of their normal jobs, have been working to: maintain and invigorate our collegial governance bodies; collaborate and strengthen alliances across campus constituencies and across institutions; and educate communities at Queen’s about governance, restructuring, Nous, and the university budget, which, it bears repeating, still prioritizes capital reserves over jobs and the quality education for which this institution was once known. You can find out more about QCAA on this website, which has just had some upgrades and can now be searched!
Queen's Coalition Against Austerity 
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