This will be a short issue today, but there is definitely more to talk about. Stay tuned.
1. As always, let’s start with the money. According to the university’s Investments Services website, the combined value of the institution’s short-term and Pooled Investment Funds (PIF) surpassed one billion dollars for the first time. This is an increase of $99 million from their combined value at the end of the last fiscal year. As a reminder, these are funds that the university holds outside of the endowment (itself currently worth $1.7 billion). While we can’t know at this point how much of that increase is from investment income, it’s worth remembering that only $5.2 million of investment income from the Pooled Investment Fund supports the operating budget. Any investment income above $5.2 million is placed in capital reserves; these already hold $111 million in unallocated funds. Last year, for instance, $65 million of investment income from the PIF was transferred to capital reserves.
Yet, in the Faculty of Arts and Science, departments are no longer permitted to pay for refreshments for student, staff and faculty events. Certainly not the most pressing issue facing the fine arts, humanities, and social sciences at Queen’s, but a good sign of institutional disdain.
2. In the last issue we included an item about restrictions on participation in Faculty Board meetings in the Faculty of Arts and Science. Staff cuts have led to a lack of technical support for hybrid meetings. So, now, to be able to vote at Faculty Board, members must attend in person. The changes are likely to be felt most strongly by staff whose time is less flexible than that of students and faculty.
More recently, university Senators were informed that meetings of the Senate will no longer be held in person but will move entirely online. In this case the changed format is not about accessibility but is a heavy-handed response to student protest. At the September meeting of Senate, according to the Queen’s Journal, “Six protestors, dressed in keffiyehs and masks, walked into the meeting and began speaking about issues of colonization, investments in weapons manufacturers, Palestinian human rights concerns, and Master’s funding cuts.” The students called for the Principal and Provost to resign. As the group was leaving the meeting, one of the students threw some glitter on the Provost’s suit jacket and tie.
Protests at Senate or other university governing bodies are nothing new. In recent years protests at Senate have focused on: suspension of admission to the Fine Art program (2011); systemic racism at Queen’s (2016); the university’s lack of accountability and action on racism and the need to enforce recommendations from the Principal’s Implementation Committee on Racism, Diversity and Inclusion (PICRDI) (2017); and, what student demonstrators identified as “divestment from death” (March 2024).
The official announcement about Senate moving online argues that the change was made for security reasons: “As a result of the specific disruption of Senate, and with a need to protect the personal safety of all those involved, Principal and Vice-Chancellor Patrick Deane has made the decision to move all Senate meetings to an online-only format for the balance of the calendar year.”
Given the recent tendency toward top-down decision-making, intensified constraints on academic and political expression (see examples of that here and here), superficial engagement exercises, and obfuscation of important information, one might say the bigger concern is not safety but collegial governance and the democratic culture of our campus.
3. Finally, the administrative arm stretched a little further this week when FAS Associate Dean Jenn Stephenson wrote a letter to department heads and undergraduate chairs telling them how to vote on a controversial proposal to radically change the way degrees are organized. A group of QCAA members wrote a response to her email here.
We strongly encourage members of FAS Faculty Board to attend the meeting on Friday, November 22 at 2:30 pm in Dupuis 217. You can find the agenda here.
Thanks to the colleagues who have been contributing to the QCAA blog and who helped with this newsletter.
Queen's Coalition Against Austerity 