Newsletter

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER  2000, VOLUME 27.2    Miroslav Lovric, EDITOR

           in this issue:

1. Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, April 18, 2000

2.  Business Arising

3.  Pension Surplus Sharing Proposal — A. L. Robb

4. Faculty Career Progress/Merit (CP/M) Plan (ballot and proposed revised Plan distributed separately to MUFA members on the CP/M Plan)

5. Rights & Responsibilities of Faculty during Work Stoppages by Other Groups at McMaster University (ballot and proposed policy statement distributed separately to MUFA faculty members)

6.  President’s Report — B. E. Lynn

7.  Other Business

PRESENT:  Approximately 30 members

1.  MINUTES

 Motion
 that the Minutes of the General Meeting held on December 14, 1999 be approved as circulated.

     K. Ball/M. Dooley
     Carried

2.  BUSINESS ARISING
There was no business arising.

3.  COMMITTEE REPORTS

 a.  Association Standing Committees.  There were no questions from the floor regarding the reports from these committees.

 b.  University Committees and Boards.  There were no questions from the floor regarding the reports from these committees.

 c.  Ad Hoc Committees.

 
Report from the Ad Hoc Committee to Consider the Role of the Remuneration Committee.

Bernadette Lynn reminded members that at last year’s AGM there was a motion to strike a committee to study how the Remuneration Chair was chosen and the Remuneration Committee was formed.  In September 1999, the MUFA Executive chose Dr. Lynn to Chair the ad hoc committee on which Les King and Wayne Lewchuk were also members.  The Committee consulted with previous Remuneration Chairs and others who had served on the Joint Committee during a negotiation year.  Dr. Lynn summarized the information which was distributed with the AGM agenda material.  The floor was open for discussion.

Les Robb suggested and it was agreed that the proposed Remuneration Committee Policy was an important enough issue to send to the membership for ballot.

Dr. Lynn confirmed Lorraine Allen’s understanding that according to the proposed policy it is conceivable that the Remuneration Committee could refuse to endorse the agreement signed in the Joint Committee and that the membership would be so informed before they were balloted.

Tom Davison noticed that #3 of the Terms of Reference was not clear as it now reads.  It was agreed that it should be revised to read: “The MUFA members of the Joint Committee shall maintain close liaison with the Remuneration Committee throughout Phases 1 and 2 of the negotiation process.  The Remuneration Committee shall be ready to assist the MUFA members of the Joint Committee in the negotiations.”

Mark Sproule-Jones suggested that the policy should explicitly state that the Remuneration Chair will consult with others while preparing the Remuneration Brief.  It was agreed that the first sentence of #2 of the Terms of Reference should be revised to read: “The Remuneration Chair, after consultation with the MUFA Executive and the Remuneration Committee, shall prepare....”

Les Robb was concerned that the policy gave the responsibility for preparing the Final Offer Selection brief to the Remuneration Committee.  He felt that that responsibility belonged to the Remuneration Chair.  It was agreed that #7 of the Terms of Reference should be revised to read: “The Committee shall be responsible for aiding the Remuneration Chair in preparing the written statement....”

Motion
that the report from the Ad Hoc Committee to Consider the Role of the Remuneration Committee, as amended, be sent to the membership for ballot and that the other committee reports be accepted as submitted.

 B. Lynn/M. Dooley
 Carried

4.  TREASURER'S REPORT - B. Lynn

 a.  Mill Rate.  Dr. Lynn reported that the Association was in good shape financially and should be able to meet its commitments even with a reduction in the mill rate.  She reminded members that in the last few years the Association has been giving mini dues holidays during February and/or March because it has been able to meet its obligations without collecting full fees.

 Motion
 that the mill rate be lowered, effective July 1, 2000, from 5.3 to 5.2.

 B. Lynn/A. L. Robb
 Carried with one abstention

 
  b. Preliminary Budget for 2000/2001 and Annual Statement of Income and Expenditure

 Motion
 that the preliminary budget for 2000/2001 be adopted.

 B. Lynn/G. Bone
 Carried

  c.  Appointment of Auditor for 2000/2001

 Motion
 that Hoecht Galvin Chartered Accountants be appointed as the auditor for the Faculty Association for 2000/2001.

                                                    B. Lynn/M. Dooley
                                                    Carried

 
5 .  RETURNING OFFICER'S REPORT — G. K. Smith
As Returning Officer for the election of an Executive Committee for 2000/2001, I hereby report that, as there were no further nominations by the March 27, 2000 deadline, the Nominating Committee’s slate, which was distributed to the membership on March 13, 2000, is declared elected.

The 2000/2001 Executive is as follows:

 

  President  Bernadette Lynn
  Past President John Platt
  Vice-President Tom Davison

Members at Large  Stephen Birch, Gary Bone, Carolyn Byrne, Ken Cruikshank, Susan Elliott, Bernice Kaczynski, Miroslav Lovric, Stefania Miller, Khalid Nainar, Carl Spadoni.

6.  PRESIDENT’S REPORT — J. Platt
Colleagues, we have successfully completed another academic year and I am about to pass the reins of the Association into the able hands of Bernadette Lynn.  In this, my last report to you as President, I would like to briefly update you on a few matters concluded since my last report or still pending, and then to make some observations about the relationship between MUFA and its members..

Pension Surplus
I am sure that most of you are anxious to hear what progress has been made by the President’s Committee on Retirement Provisions for Salaried Employees in respect to arriving at a scheme to share the very large surplus that has accumulated in the McMaster Pension Plan.  As you probably remember, an agreement was at hand near the end of last term, only to find from expert consultants that its structure made it unlikely to obtain the necessary approvals.  Since then the Committee and the various consultants have been working on a much simpler cash arrangement.  Modelling of the parameters of such an arrangement in terms of distributions of payments across various Member groups  has been completed.  In the meantime, interactions on this matter seem to have moved from direct negotiation in the Committee to exchanges between lawyers representing the University on one hand and Plan members on the other.  I wish I could tell you when this matter will be completed so that an agreement can be placed before you for ratification, but this new mode of interaction makes it very difficult to assess what progress, if any, is being made.  It would appear that the next step is for the University to make a concrete proposal for consideration by the representatives of the various groups of Plan members.
 

Enrollment Increases
Another matter of considerable concern to many MUFA members is the state of planning for enrollment increases resulting from the double cohort and various demographic factors.  Since I last reported, you have undoubtedly seen in the press or elsewhere that results of the provincial SuperBuild competition have been announced.  McMaster received $22 million to renovate space for new classrooms, laboratories and examination facilities in several areas of the University.  This result provided most of what McMaster requested, except for a second life sciences building.  Together with the recent announcement of plans for an additional student residence, these developments go a long way toward providing the physical facilities for dealing with increased enrollment.  Other issues, such as parking, remain to be resolved.

A second consideration in planning for enrollment increases, one of particular concern to MUFA members, is the need for additional faculty and staff to deal with additional students.  In this regard, the recent announcement of the 21st Century Chairs by the federal government is most welcome.  McMaster’s administration informally estimates that McMaster should obtain approximately forty of these chairs.  Some of these will be directed toward junior faculty positions and some to more senior ones.  Most of the recruiting for these chairs will presumably be directed to Canadian and other scholars abroad, since extensive use of these chairs by Canadian universities to cannibalize each others faculties would accomplish very little.  While celebrating the creation of these chairs, it is important to recognize that their numbers are not sufficient to completely service projected increases in enrollment.  Some additional assistance will come from chairs to be funded by the Changing Tomorrow Today Campaign, but more traditional replacement and recruitment of new faculty will be required.  I believe we are beginning to see the latter happening, at least in some areas.  Of course, none of this addresses issues of support staff.

A third consideration in planning for enrollment increases is the need for increased operating funds to hire additional staff and faculty, to operate additional classrooms and laboratories and to otherwise service additional students.  To date these additional operating funds remain the missing piece of the puzzle.  This is a particularly acute problem for McMaster because about 9% of its current enrollment is above the “corridor” for which the provincial government provides operating funds.  Hope that the provincial government would begin to address the need for additional operating funds in recent announcements has not been borne out.  As a result, McMaster’s administration appears to have revised downward its original targets for increased enrollment.  I suspect that these numbers may undergo further adjustments over the next couple of years depending on the response of both the provincial government and the universities to rising societal pressures as arrival of the double cohort approaches.  In any case, I take some comfort from the considerable sensitivity McMaster’s administration has thus far shown in keeping projected enrollment increases tied to increases in the resources needed to maintain the quality of education provided to those students.
 

Joint Committee
Turning to matters somewhat more directly in the hands of MUFA, there are several developments to report to you from the Joint Committee.  As indicated in my last report, an accounting of recent usage of the negotiated pool of money for tuition bursaries for dependents of MUFA members revealed that the pool was not being fully utilized.  This allowed us to negotiate an increase in individual bursaries that greatly reduced the increasing gap between tuition fees and the amount of the bursary.  We were subsequently able to make this increase retroactive to last September and to arrive at a memorandum of agreement with the administration to carry any surplus or deficit in this pool over from year to year and to have the Joint Committee set the amount of the tuition bursary for the subsequent year at its last meeting of each academic year.  This arrangement is similar to the way in which the modem pool is managed by the Joint Committee and allows for a maximum size bursary based on current usage of the pool.  Of course the size of the pool continues to be eligible for renegotiation whenever the Joint Committee negotiates remuneration.

The subcommittee charged with reviewing the CP/M model is now having regular meetings and beginning to make some progress.  It appears to me that this committee has decided against any major revision of the model, and is instead working to remove ambiguities and to correct some problems which have arisen in administration of the model.  I have some hope that the work of this subcommittee will be completed before the Joint Committee adjourns for the summer.

The benefits performance analysis mentioned in my last report has been agreed to in the Joint Committee and is currently awaiting the arrival of necessary data from Human Resources.  I also mentioned in my last report that the Joint Committee had agreed to develop a policy on rights and obligations of MUFA members during work stoppages by other groups.   That work has begun and several drafts have been exchanged between MUFA and administration representatives.  Although some differences clearly remain to be resolved, I hope that a mutually acceptable document might be arrived at before the summer recess.  The MUFA representatives to the Joint Committee have indicated that they wish to submit any resulting document to a vote of the membership before final acceptance.
 

News in Brief
I shall briefly mention two other developments which may be of interest to you.  Over the past two years, a joint MUFA-Senate drafting committee worked out a number of proposed changes to the Tenure and Promotion (yellow) document.  These changes required the approval of both the MUFA Executive and the Senate Committee on Appointments before going to the Senate for final approval.  Most of these changes were relatively minor matters of increasing clarity and other “housekeeping” issues.  These changes have recently received the necessary approvals and are now in effect.  However, one set of changes attempted to restrict the powers of appeal tribunals in various ways.  Not surprisingly, the MUFA Executive and the Senate Committee on Appointments were unable to reach agreement on such changes, and no changes will be made to the appeal process for tenure and promotion at this time.  I suspect this issue will be revisited in the near future as some are convinced that too many appeals of tenure and promotion decisions have been upheld by appeal tribunals and that some remedy must be sought by changing the process or otherwise restraining the powers of such tribunals.  Others feel that if there is a problem it is in the selection and training of tribunals, rather than in the nature of the process or the powers assigned to tribunals.

A final development is that the MUFA Executive has submitted to the MUFF Committee a proposal for a free flu shot clinic for faculty and staff.  The fate of this proposal is not yet known, but I hope it will be approved in time for such a clinic next fall.  If it is approved I hope that more individuals will take advantage of it than utilized the self-funding clinic provided last fall.  My personal testimonial is that I received my first flu shot at that clinic, and for the first time that I remember did not suffer a case of flu last winter.  Not statistically significant, but definitely encouraging.
 

Does MUFA Represent Me?
It seems to be traditional for the outgoing MUFA President to take the liberty of commenting on any aspect of the Association or its operation he/she considers important.  I would like to comment on two such matters having to do with the relationship of MUFA to individual faculty members.

More than once during my term of office I have heard a faculty member somewhat angrily pronounce that MUFA does not represent him/her because it has not adopted some position which the faculty member holds.  I am reasonably sure that I have said the same thing sometime in the past.  I believe that it is important to begin by realizing that individual members of MUFA hold about as wide and varied a range of opinions on any topic as one can possibly imagine.  This being so, it is obvious that almost any action MUFA does or does not take will not be in agreement with the views of some members.  Does this mean that MUFA does not represent those members?

Beyond the obvious sense in which MUFA represents all CP/M faculty and professional librarians in remuneration negotiations, I think the first and foremost sense in which it represents its members is by doing everything within its power to preserve their right to hold just such a range of opinion and act on those opinions in legal manners without retribution or discrimination.  After this basic issue of academic freedom on which we can perhaps all agree, the situation is similar to that in any representative democracy.  We elect representatives, not to perform the impossible task of simultaneously forwarding all of our divergent viewpoints, but with the expectation that they will operate with due diligence on behalf of our collective interests.  Such operation involves debate and compromise so that a final outcome may not be ideal even in the mind of the representatives, but simply the best that could be obtained.  If an individual is consistently at variance with the actions of such representatives, clearly one should seek different representatives or consider becoming a representative oneself.  The latter brings me to my second concern.
 

Stewardship of the Association
In the last few years it has become increasingly difficult to persuade faculty members to stand for election to the MUFA Executive, particularly with respect to the offices of Vice-President, President and Past President.  It is not difficult to think of reasons that this might be happening.  Decreases in faculty and staff numbers have meant increased workloads for all of us.  Increasing emphasis on involvement in multiple collaborative research efforts also consumes more of our time.  With the exception of a small amount of teaching release for a few of these Executive positions, the University does little to reward filling these roles and a few of our colleagues will certainly seek to ridicule those who do.

Whatever the reasons for this problem, the alternative to having capable concerned individuals fill these roles is potentially disastrous for each of us as faculty members and for the University as a whole.  Most of the positions on the MUFA Executive are far from onerous.  Even the position of President is certainly not the most time consuming job I have had and proved to be more rewarding than some.  I would thus encourage each of you to think long and hard about declining if approached about filling one of these roles.  Better yet, if you think you might be willing to do one of these jobs, indicate your willingness to the MUFA office.  In my view, each of us owes it to ourselves and to each other to fill one of these roles at least once or twice in our academic careers.
 

Thanks
In closing, I would like to thank the membership of MUFA for giving me the opportunity to serve as President.  I would also like to thank the current  MUFA Executive for their support, assistance and counsel in all matters during the past year.  Most of all, I would like to thank the MUFA staff, Phyllis and Kelly, for their tireless efforts and direction, without which no one in their right mind would attempt to do this job.
 

 

David Hitchcock wondered why employees were going to be asked to vote on a cash disbursement of the pension surplus without there being a supplementary retirement benefit (SRB) in place.  He asked why the Association wasn’t trying to negotiate an SRB at this time.  Dr. Robb, MUFA’s representative on the pension surplus negotiations committee, replied that he believed that the administration is very interested in putting an SRB in place in order to remain competitive in attracting and keeping faculty.  He is hoping that the University’s proposal will have an SRB component to it.

In reply to a question from Dr. Hitchcock regarding the committee reviewing the CP/M Scheme, Dr. Platt said there were no major changes to the scheme being contemplated at this time.

Herb Jenkins was concerned that the SuperBuild funds were mainly for Business, Engineering and Science.  He felt that the University should be fighting this trend.  Dr. Platt agreed, but noted that McMaster did receive some funding to renovate classrooms for the Arts.  He reported that OCUFA was taking a stand on this issue.
 

7.  OTHER BUSINESS

  a.  Mactron

 Martin Dooley explained that earlier this year Paul Rapoport brought to the Executive his concerns regarding the new message board, known as the Mactron, which has been installed on the north end of campus.  Dr. Dooley was assigned the role of liaison in this matter.
 

Motion
The concerns which many members of the McMaster University Faculty Association have expressed with regard to the new video-board or “Mactron” are numerous and include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following: the possible zoning violation, visual pollution, the potential driving hazard, the detriment to relations with our Westdale neighbours, the excessive use of university facilities for private sector advertising, the representation of the Mactron as primarily a scoreboard, and the approval process for the board within McMaster.  The McMaster University Facul-ty Association urges the administration to actively seek alternatives to the current Mactron policy: We urge that, in the process of further deliberations, the administration provide clear, accurate information to all parties concerned, both within McMaster and the broader community, about the alternatives being considered and seek the responses of such parties prior to taking actions which are difficult to reverse.  We further request that the incoming President of the McMaster University Faculty Association convey this motion to President Peter George.

 M. Dooley/P. Rapoport

Mark Sproule-Jones asked if the phrase, “seek alternatives to the current Mactron policy”, meant the administration would be asked for a full disclosure of the contract.  He added that the MSU were unsuccessful in obtaining the terms of the contract.  Dr. Dooley replied that he didn’t know how much the University could reveal about the contract, but that he was interested in obtaining as much information as is available.

Caroline Bayard asked who controlled ownership of the board.  She wondered if the Mactron would be less offensive if it were used in better ways, perhaps to display the works of the University’s arts students.  Dr. Lynn said opposition to the board was not just because of the advertising and messages on it, but also because of the light pollution associated with it.  Dr. Dooley added that if you move the Mactron, the problems associated with it only move to another backyard.  For a better understanding of what that might be like, he suggested they ask the Dean of Business to look at the view from his window.

In response to a question from Lorraine Allan, Dr. Dooley said that the motion would be sent to the President.  Possibly a letter could be sent with the motion to a whole range of people yet to be defined.
Herb Jenkins asked if it were possible to deactivate the board until such time as a policy can be developed and a course of action defined.  Dr. Dooley thought that the contract probably would not allow this.

Peter Macdonald was surprised that the motion was so mild.  He thought that there was a broader issue:  the administration has become insensitive to “quality of life” issues on this campus.  As an example, he cited the instance of a coke machine that was so loud it interfered with the classes in the surrounding area.  It took months to get the machine moved.

 Les Robb suggested and it was agreed that the second sentence of the motion be revised to read “Mactron arrangements” instead of “Mactron policy”.

 The motion as amended was carried

 b.  Words of Appreciation.  On behalf of the MUFA Executive and membership, Bernadette Lynn moved
 

Motion:
The MUFA Executive and the membership thank John Platt for his exceptional service to the Association this year.

 B. Lynn/A. L. Robb
 Carried with a round of applause
 

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 2:30 p.m.

Newsletter Articles
 

        The Corporate Campus
           Commercialization and the Dangers to Canada’s Colleges and Universities
          Book Review

In March 1999 the Expert Panel on the Commercialization of University Research, a federally appointed committee established by the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on Science and Technology, tabled a report which recommended sweeping changes to the way in which research is conducted, funded and regulated in Canada. The Expert Panel stated that in addition to teaching, research and community service, Canadian academics should be concerned with innovation—defined as “the process of bringing new goods and services to market, or the result of that process.” The Expert Panel’s recommendations echoed the position contained in the Science Council of Canada’ s major investigation of university-industry linkages, Winning in a World Economy, chaired by Geraldine Kenney-Wallace and issued in April 1988. In response to the Expert Panel’s report, CAUT sponsored a conference in October 1999 on “Universities and Colleges in the Public Interest.” This anthology of fifteen essays, the second book in the CAUT Series Title, constitutes the proceedings of that conference.

The first book in the CAUT Series Title, Neil Tudiver’s Universities for Sale: Resisting Corporate Control over Canadian Higher Education (1999), served as a locus classicus on the subject of commercialization. Tudiver argued that academic freedom,  independence of inquiry, and integrity of research are currently threatened at Canadian universities due to the pressures of economic expediency and privatization. In his review of Tudiver’s book in the MUFA Newsletter (26, no. 3, Dec. 1999/Jan. 2000), Les King took exception to Tudiver’s point of view, however. In spite of Tudiver’s ample documentation of frequent abuses of commercialization supported by more than thirty pages of bibliographical references, King regarded Tudiver’s  evidence as fragmentary and often anecdotal, apparently biased by Tudiver’s tendency to conceive the academic process as a constant battle between faculty unions defending  traditional values and administrators and boards bent on commercialization and cost-cutting. Tudiver’s portrait of the modern Canadian university, King maintained, lacks a resonance of reality since the curriculum at McMaster, and no doubt elsewhere, is shaped and controlled by faculty, not by board members or donors. Notwithstanding his fundamental disagreement with Tudiver’s perspective, King conceded that Tudiver’s book is a powerful reminder that a university senate must be vigilant about corporate-sponsored ventures.

Edited and introduced by CAUT’s Executive Director, James L. Turk, who provides an overview of the topic (“What Commercialization Means for Education”), the essays in The Corporate Campus are grouped together into five parts: I What is at Stake?; II Privatizing Knowledge; III Teaching as a Commodity; IV Corporate Management and Its Consequences; V In the Public Interest: Reclaiming Our Purpose. The contributors discuss a range of issues such as the imposition of corporate-style management in post-secondary institutions, the commodification of learning, for-profit distance education, performance measures and accountability (PIs), and the implications of free trade agreements on higher education. There is also a delicious satire by Langdon Winner (“Introducing the Automatic Professor Machine”) on how electronic technology can replace teachers in the classroom.

Some of the essays, including Ursula Franklin’s keynote address, are morally exhortative in nature. There must always be an uneasy relationship between  universities and private industry, Franklin points out, because they do not share the same conception of knowledge. Whereas a university must value knowledge for its own sake and for the public good, private industry in contrast views knowledge as a commodity to be possessed and exploited for the purpose of profit.

Several essays focus on specific cases of shameful behaviour on the part of university administrations. The University of Toronto, head and shoulders above all other Canadian academic institutions in attracting external funding, does not fare particularly well. William Graham’s essay, “Academic Freedom or Commercial Licence?,” highlights secret donor agreements with the Rotman Foundation, Peter Munk, and Northern Telecom Ltd. in which the University of Toronto compromised academic freedom in accepting large donations of money. Dr. Nancy Olivieri eloquently describes her well-known controversy with the drug company, Apotex Inc. Not only did Apotex threaten Olivieri with legal action for divulging information about her clinical trials but Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto unscrupulously sought to suppress the scientific evidence and attempted to dismiss, discipline, and discredit her. Both the Hospital and the University were quite willing to sacrifice Olivieri’s career in return for a multi-million dollar donation from Apotex.

The consistent theme in all these essays is that commercialization at universities and colleges is out of control and has to be resisted. At times the tone in The Corporate  Campus  is  almost  utopian,  calling  for a complete ban on commercialization and harking back to the glory days of university expansion in Canada during the 1960s when public funding was seemingly endless. On the whole, however, the contributors realize only too well that commercialization is a complex, thorny issue. The most visual form of commercialization at universities involving marketing sites and selling goods and services ( for example, at McMaster, the Mactron, the monopoly of coca-cola, and advertisements in our washrooms) is but a tip of the iceberg. The question is not whether commercialization should occur on campuses in Canada. It occurs and the encroachment will continue. In our current climate university presidents and administrators are expected to be fund raisers, and grants and donations from private sources are often applauded without critical thinking as to consequences in the academic mission. Given under-funding, governmental pressures toward privatization and emphasis on job training, the question is the extent to which commercialization is warranted and legitimate in the academic enterprise and how it can be monitored and tamed. To administrators who turn a blind eye toward commercialization and regard it as a panacea to every  financial problem, let them read the essays in The Corporate Campus. If that has no effect, then perhaps Stephen Leacock’s biting satire, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (1912), should be required reading at all levels.

Carl Spadoni
Research Collections Librarian

James, L. Turk, ed., The Corporate Campus: Commercialization and the Dangers to Canada’s Colleges and Universities, A Caut Series Title, Toronto: James  Lorimer and Company Ltd., 2000, pp. 223. ISBN 1-55028-696-X (pbk).
 
 
 

Announcements

 

The Atheneum Club
Interested in Discussion?  The Atheneum Club is a discussion group for retired faculty.  We meet once a month for about an hour and a half to discuss topics of contemporary and scholarly interest.  Frank Jones will lead a discussion on the topic, “Sociological constants”, on November 20th in the West Room of the University

Club beginning at 2:00 p.m.  You are most welcome to come and participate.  If you want further information, please get in touch with Herb Jenkins: jenkinsh@mcmaster.ca or 648-6123.
 

Know Your Benefits:  Services of Licensed Practitioners Covered by Major Medical

  services of a dentist for the repair or alleviation of damage to natural teeth injured in an accident which occurs while you are covered under this benefit, provided the services are received within 6 months of the accident.

  services of a physiotherapist, who is not a close relative, to a maximum of $15 per visit and $225 per person per benefit year (a doctor’s prescription is required).

  services of a speech therapist, who is not a close relative, up to a maximum of $200 per person per benefit year.

  services of a psychologist to a maximum of $15 per half hour for the initial visit, and $15 per subsequent visit to $225 per person per benefit year.

  medically necessary services of the following licensed practitioners to a maximum of $15 per visit and $225 per person per benefit year, including one x-ray ordered by each practitioner

   • osteopath • naturopath • podiatrist • chiropractor • christian science practitioner (a doctor’s prescription is not normally required)

   • masseur (a doctor’s prescription is normally required)

Congratulations, Hank Jacek!

     On July 1, 2000 Hank began his term as President of OCUFA.
 

Visiting the UK?  Spending a Sabbatical There?
There may be opportunities for you to take part in Canadian Studies teaching, seminars and conferences in British universities in relevant subject areas such as:

Aboriginal Studies, Architecture, Business/Economic Studies, Communications, Education, French Canadian Studies, Gender Studies, Geography and Environmental Studies, History, Law, Linguistics, Literature, Politics and International Relations, Social Policy and Sociology

If you would like to know more about Canadian Studies in the UK, please email or fax to:

Vivien Hughes
Canadian Studies Projects Officer
Academic Relations Unit, Canadian High Commission  EMAIL: vivien.hughes@dfait-maeci.gc.ca
Canada House, Trafalgar Square, London SW1Y 5BJ  FAX: 011-33-20-7258-6476
 

Web Site Plays Real Estate Agent for Travelling Scholars
Nadeqe M. Conger considers herself something of an international matchmaker.  In June, she launched Sabbatical Homes, a website that lets nomadic scholars search for apartments and house-sitting opportunities.  The site’s users can place ads for available apartments, home-exchange arrangements, or they can place ads seeking accommodations away from home.  Sabbatical Homes’s current listings include ads from 16 countries in four continents, including Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Japan, Romania, and South Africa.  For now, the service is free.  You can go directly by clicking here or via the MUFA webpage.
 
 

November 21, 2000
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