Protocol for the Closure of Graduate Programs. The Executive proposed revisions to a draft prepared by the Provost and Vice President, Harvey Weingarten, and the Dean of Graduate Studies, John Weaver. These were incorporated into the version that was approved by Senate. Our primary objective was to require that closure proposals, as soon as they are formulated, be revealed to the faculty who could be affected, and that faculty be given ample opportunity to contribute their views throughout the process. We should closely monitor the implementation of the policy to determine whether the provisions for faculty involvement are adequate.
Policy and Procedures on Employment Accommodation. A draft document on employment accommodation was prepared by Human Resources several years ago. It served as a basis for the version prepared by Les King in consultation with the Executive and Cathy Bristo, Employment Equity Coordinator. The draft document has been approved by the Executive and the Joint Committee and it will go forward to Senate in the near future.
New Intellectual Property Policy. Suggestions have been submitted by MUFA on the draft policy that accompanied Dr. Gerber's memo of February 16. Once revisions have been made the document is to come back to the Executive; subsequently it will go to the Joint Committee.
Tenure and Promotion Policy. Probably the most significant policy revisions of the year are those proposed for the Tenure and Promotion (T & P) document. (For details, see the annual reports of MUFA's T&P Committee and the Joint Committee on Suspension for details.) This year's proposals, along with others dating back several years, were explained by Les King and Lorraine Allan at Senate's meeting of April 8; the entire package will be voted on at the Senate meeting of May 11.
Closures: Programme and Department. No faculty member has lost a job as a result of the closure of the MA(T)-MSc(T) Programme. In the case of the Biomedical Sciences Department closure, negotiations are ongoing to reallocate faculty in a way that is acceptable to both them and the departments involved.
Faculty Complement: New Appointments and Departures. In the report of the Provost last year, 27 departures of full time faculty for June 30, 1997 were announced and only four new appointments became effective July 1, 1997. Although this year's final figures are not yet ready, I can report that there are 12 retirements expected at the end of June and 40 positions advertised and likely to be filled by July 1. So the faculty complement picture has brightened.
Implementation of National Policies.
Federal Contractor's Program: In accordance with requirements of the Federal Government, McMaster submitted an "Equity Achievement Report" in November. A government officer made an on-site visit in January; two members of the Executive, Rhoda Howard and Elise Hayton, attended a meeting with this person as MUFA's representatives. In April we received a copy of the officer's report. (Both reports can be consulted in the MUFA office.) A matter of concern to Rhoda Howard and some other Executive members was the inclusion in McMaster's report of data about courses that are said to promote "equity". My inquiries indicate that, in 1994, five deans decided that they would include such information. They, our Employment Equity Coordinator, Cathy Bristo, and current members of the administration, consider it to be relevant in describing the cultural context of the employment equity practices which are the government's concern. Your Executive was unanimous in asserting that our involvement with reporting should not begin, as it did this time, with the delivery of a completed report for the Government. Rather, we believe, MUFA should be consulted at the outset of the process, that is, when preparation of the report is initiated. There has been agreement on this at the Joint Committee. However, this agreement has not entirely allayed the fears of some members. They believe that by including information on courses, the University is in effect proposing that academic practices are relevant in assessing compliance with federal equity legislation. They have taken the view that what is now a discretionary inclusion could become an obligatory one. It might appear to be a short step from that to dictating course content, some believe. My personal view is that we must be ever vigilant in protecting academic freedom. Thus when the next review is done (in the year 2000) I think we should either exclude information on courses or as an absolute minimum make explicit the limited purpose of its inclusion.
Tri-Council Code of Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans: This was discussed at some length in the Executive. Misgivings were expressed about the possibility that the "code," which is now officially described as a "guideline," could in fact result in the imposition of new restrictions on academic research. The Vice-President of Research, Dr. Gerber, will advise MUFA on the status of the document and also plans for its implementation here.
McMaster University Future Fund (MUFF) Committee. Phyllis DeRosa Koetting is serving as MUFA's representative on the committee that is planning one of this year's MUFF projects, the "Campus Event".
Wayne Lewchuk agreed to serve as MUFA's representative on the MUFF Committee for a second year. Please submit to him your suggestions on projects worthy of support from next year's funds.
Marketing at McMaster. A number of faculty members expressed dissatisfaction with the way marketing deals affected the physical environment in which they work. In one instance a change was made promptly following a complaint: a TV monitor was moved so that it would no longer impinge upon a wall mural in a cafeteria. It seems that some Coke machines have also been relocated away from main passageways. The general issue of how the University should respond to marketing opportunities and what guidelines should be followed in doing so may be worthy of debate. However, a recent OPIRG sponsored forum on the subject which featured Janice Newson, author of The University Means Business, drew only a small number of faculty. Should any member wish to organize an event on the topic they can of course request Executive support.
The University Centre. A site was added to the list of options from which the Planning and Building Committee is to choose. Called Site D2, it is adjacent to Mills Library and Gilmour Hall and includes part of the parking lot in the immediate vicinity of those buildings. The options now appear to be: Site C excluding the space on which Alumni Memorial Hall stands; Site A/C; Site D2. It is worth noting that designation of the Historic Core under the Ontario Heritage Act was approved in March by the City of Hamilton's Planning and Development Committee and subsequently by the City Council. It is expected that the Board of Governors will vote on a site recommendation from the Planning and Building Committee at its meeting of June 11.
Tuition Bursary Benefit. Our three person committee (Bill Anderson, Dave Butterfield and Anne Pottier) presented its report at the Executive meeting of December 17; the recommendations were accepted. Subsequently, the Joint Committee endorsed them. You have had a mailing on the issue and an opportunity to raise questions at the outset of this meeting. If the majority of members vote "yes" on the recommendation we will have a tuition benefit essentially the same as the existing one in all but one respect. The change is in the academic requirement. Under the proposed plan the standard becomes simply admission to or eligibility to continue at McMaster; this broadens access to the bursary so as to include those who would formerly have qualified for the now eliminated waiver option. In my view the committee was exemplary in collecting relevant data, soliciting members' views, and fashioning proposals that responded to the results of their inquiries. [See p. 7 for ballot results.]
Pension Plan. A Pension Text dated July 1, 1997, which incorporates amendments agreed to since the end of the court case, has been sent to members. They have been asked to vote on whether to accept this text as well as a Memorandum of Understanding on the administrative expenses associated with the pension plan. [See p. 7 for ballot results.]
The Financial Picture: Tuition increases and the Capital Campaign. Since the Board of Governors approved the Financial Plans for 1997-98 on December 11, new financial information has become available. The most significant is the level of tuition fee increases, which the Board of Governors will be asked to approve at their next meeting. An increase of 6% for most undergraduates (about 73%) is proposed for 1998-99, and of 9% for 1999-2000. There will be no increase in fees for full-time graduate students for 1998-99. So overall the increase will presumably be less than the 10% maximum per year that the Harris government has allowed and apparently some other universities will impose. Operating grants from the provincial government for 1998-99 are frozen at the 1997-98 level. The material circulated for the Board members will be public tomorrow. It's too early to make any confident predictions about ramifications for the salary negotiations that will begin next fall.
The Capital Campaign is apparently in its "quiet" phase, although some proportion of the $100 million target has been amassed already. The specific items for which funds are being raised include academic chairs. The proposals for allocation of funds raised is on the agenda for the Board of Governors meeting of April 23.
Lobbying. One of our former presidents, Hank Jacek, is now Vice-President of OCUFA and in this role has initiated a lobbying campaign. Each member association has been asked to visit local MPPs to make a case for "reinvestment" in Ontario's universities. So far I have visited four, in the company of another Executive member. The five issues we have been asked to raise are: government funding, government funding of research, performance indicators and accountability, student loans, and tuition fees. Since three of the four visited to date belong to the party now in power, I did not expect a very sympathetic response to our depiction of the problems we face at McMaster as a result of the policies currently being followed. So it was a pleasant surprise that at least in two cases there seemed to be a recognition that the call for reinvestment is broadly based, and an expectation that if the general financial picture improves over the next year the universities might well see some funding improvements.
Under an arrangement introduced last year, I attended all Senate and Board of Governors meetings as an observer. At first the task of reading all the material was onerous. However I soon realized that, since the same issues appear in several fora, time needed for essential reading declines. Again, I reported back to the Executive so that they would have my perceptions of the important issues being considered. The time devoted to these meetings was justified, I believe; there is no substitute for attending, if you want to identify and assess the players who have a lot of influence on policy development and implementation.
Unlike our colleagues at the University of Western Ontario who recently decided they must unionize to protect faculty interests, we have a system for negotiating with the administration that is satisfactory to both parties. May it remain so.
There are of course many print sources of information available to the Executive. Most notable are e-mail and the Web. Both OCUFA and CAUT provide a steady diet of articles and messages about policies and practices at provincial and national levels respectively. Locally, g-mufagab has been an invaluable resource for contacting members, assessing member opinion, and discovering some of the ingenious arguments that can be made on any given matter in dispute.
This year's Executive meetings have provided many of the delights of a good seminar: lively debate on important issues by well-informed, articulate, inquiring and highly independent thinkers. Yet we have been able to decide upon collectively acceptable practical actions in good time. For enlightening me on a host of issues, I give special thanks to Les Robb and Les King. To those members who have served on MUFA committees or as MUFA representatives on University committees: your work has been appreciated although perhaps not overtly enough. It is thanks to Phyllis DeRosa Koetting, and to Kelly McCaughey as well, that during my term all of the
important things have been done correctly and nothing, as far as we know, has gone badly wrong.
In his review of the book Petrified Campus (MUFA Newsletter, March 1998, Vol 24.5, pp. 3-5), Provost Weingarten observes that the authors are right in stating that in recent years there has been a loss of collegiality in university governance, but wrong in attributing this solely to the unwillingness of faculty to make the cuts demanded by reduced funding. He suggests that "another reason" for the loss of collegiality is the increased time that faculty must give to teaching. The "typical professor" consequently gives less time to administration. That work "must be shouldered by academic administrators" who perforce devote more of their time to such matters. Is a loss of collegiality inevitable when this happens?
The Provost argues that it is not, that if those administrators "attend to their processes" and "govern in a way that fosters confidence and trust among the ranks" then all may be well. I am not so sanguine. I agree that the processes are important; that is why MUFA keeps a close watch on policy development. But policies must be implemented and in that process many interpretations and judgements must be made. So I believe that if we are to maintain a genuinely collegial system, more of our members must find the time to play a major role in University governance. My exhortation is: do your bit.
Catherine Beattie