MOVING BEYOND ANIMAL FARM:

FROM MEDIOCRITY TO EXCELLENCE

“If you attempt to negotiate a raise with the Administration, AUFA will grieve it.”

Statement by a 90K (approx.) per annum AUFA President to a 52K (approx.) per annum Acadia faculty member pondering an external employment offer. (circa. 1996 – 2002).

Recently, Vernon Provencal, on behalf of AUFA, asked me to write an article for the AUFA Communicator to pass on my vision of AUFA and what it should strive to accomplish over the next little while. In response, I have listed a few points that address issues such as the role of AUFA, how its governance might be improved, how faculty might be attracted and retained, and how the campus work environment might be altered in a beneficial manner. This article is brief and the arguments are not fully developed. Further, the suggestions are not exhaustive. However, more detail is forthcoming. The article is also not polished. It is written in a tone that suggests both what should happen and what I hope will occur. Many of the ideas are clear-cut. Others are proposed as means to improve the culture of the campus.

I have agreed to write this article for a number of reasons. First, I am tired of the decision-making paralysis that characterizes this campus. While other Canadian universities deal head on with issues of faculty attraction and retention, Acadia seems overwhelmed by a climate of distrust that has led to an absence of new ideas and innovative activity to deal with the new realities of the academic market place. Second, I am tired of seeing the most talented of my colleagues leave Acadia on a regular basis for greener pastures. I am also underwhelmed by my colleagues’ efforts to do anything about it. Finally, I am tired of listening to the same group of Acadia academics, administrators, and union activists tell me and others why we can’t be paid at the same level as they are. My ideas follow:

1, The Role of AUFA: What would its role be if my thoughts were taken seriously? How about, “to improve the work environment of Acadia University and acquire financial and non-financial resources for its members.” AUFA would no longer actively strive to solve the ills of society.

2, Improving the Governance of AUFA: No organization is without flaws. Perhaps it is time that a few checks and balances were institutionalized within AUFA’s structure. In this regard, AUFA would actively strive to improve its image by policing itself as follows:

AUFA transforms itself into an entity that represents the interests of all of its members. All members are offered the opportunity to vote on important Notices of Motion whether they attend meetings or not. For each Notice of Motion that is voted on, AUFA publicizes the total number of votes cast, the number of votes cast in support of a motion, the number of votes cast countering a motion, and the total number of potential votes.

AUFA requests, and the Office of the Nova Scotia Minister of Labour approves, provisions for the appointment of an external mediator in the event that any AUFA Executive (plural) is accused of questionable or inappropriate conduct. This would ensure that future Executives (plural) do not simply ignore recommendations made to it by AUFA members legitimately representing the views of an entire Department, School, or Faculty.

AUFA approves provision in its constitution to allow groups of faculty members organized by Department, School, or Faculty to withhold monthly dues in the event of questionable or inappropriate conduct of an Executive. These funds would be held in trust until the concerns were resolved.

3, Improving the Careers of AUFA Members: AUFA and its Executive actively strive to attract and retain exceptional scholars while recognizing that the skills of faculty members are not all equal. It opens the Iron Cage that is the 10^th Collective Agreement. By doing so, it changes its policy and encourages younger faculty members to stay at Acadia and give a damn as follows:

An appeal from the AUFA Executive requesting that the Board of Governors raise the salary envelope is successful.

AUFA’s lens to the outside world is cleaned. The term “National Salary Average” is understood to refer to national averages as they apply to specific disciplines. Salaries for academic psychologists are compared to salaries of other academic psychologists. Academic sociologists are compared to other academic sociologists and so on.

AUFA recognizes the disparate views of its members. The next collective agreement breaks with the past. Aspects of the agreement are customized to meet the different needs and expectations of each of the three faculties. These aspects include tenure and promotion criteria and procedures and reward structures among other points.

The Collective Agreement is transformed into a flexible document that promotes the pursuit of excellence among faculty members. It no longer limits good salaries for a large percentage of AUFA members. Once again, younger faculty members are finally given a reason to stay.

AUFA negotiates for, and the Board of Governors approves, separate pools of funds to address academic salary anomalies (salary inversion) and merit pay for deserving faculty members. (Colleagues like Craig Bennett, Rob Morrison, and Christoph Both come to mind here). Committees comprised of AUFA members and Administrators are formed to make these decisions. Clear, attainable criteria are spelled out so as to level the playing field for application. Criteria are customized to meet the needs of the three faculties. Initial merit decisions are made on a retroactive basis to reward sustained successes achieved since the advent of the AA initiative in 1996.

In order to maintain the breadth of academic disciplines on campus and preserve academic positions in low-enrollment programs, AUFA approves market supplements for qualified faculty members in high-enrollment programs where the external demand for professors far outstrips supply.

AUFA approves a request from the Board of Governors (BOG) to provide the President with a limited pool of funds to make counter offers to faculty members who are being pursued by competing organizations.

AUFA negotiates for, and the BOG approves, the creation of more than one career path stream for faculty members. Tenured or tenure track faculty members are offered the choice of a research or teaching stream. Different pay structures, tenure and promotion criteria, and teaching loads characterize each stream.

AUFA negotiates for, and the BOG approves, a case-by-case review of nine-month contracts for lecturers with an aim to transforming them back into 12 month contracts. In cases where lecturers cannot demonstrate sustained research or teaching preparation activity throughout the course of a summer, provision is provided in a limited set cases for administrative activity on behalf of a faculty, school or department. Administrative activity would include proposal writing.

AUFA negotiates for, and the BOG approves, language in the collective agreement supportive of spousal employment within the university community.

AUFA undertakes research to understand the demographics of its membership. It examines characteristics such as the average age of faculty members, the number of faculty with school age children, the need for spousal employment opportunities, etc.

4, Improving the Workplace: AUFA actively strives to make the workplace a less frustrating environment as follows:

The role of the office of the Dean of each faculty changes. Each office is now held accountable for meeting revenue generation targets. Revenue generation is undertaken to meet the needs of faculty members. Deans actively pursue funding for faculty fellowships, chairs, research initiatives and teaching endeavours. Each office is also restructured to incorporate an Associate Dean whose role is internal management. Job descriptions of Directors are also altered to include fundraising activities in support of the office of the Dean.

The role of the Acadia Department of Human Resources changes. It now deals with issues related to the management of human resources as opposed to just the payroll process. Ideas aimed at improving the work environment and career paths of faculty members are forthcoming on a regular basis. Best practices of other academic institutions are pursued and proposed to Acadia stakeholders.

Service as a member of the Acadia University administration is accepted as a worthy career goal. After all, many of us may end up in such positions in the not too distant future. Financial stipends for AUFA members willing to serve as Heads, Directors, Deans or Associate Deans are increased to make these posts financially attractive as career options, thus increasing the pool of solid internal applicants for each position. The result for all of us is increasing administrative effectiveness and increasing levels of trust.

The Acadia University Development Office is offered the respect it truly deserves. Realizing that this office has raised over thirty eight million dollars since 1996, aside from the Irving donation, successive AUFA executive teams strive to build closer ties with this extremely competent group. AUFA is successful in altering the mandate of the Development Office to include the pursuit of externally funded Chairs and Fellowships for faculty members. It proactively aids the development office as it pursues these important targets.

Successive AUFA executive teams encourage the use of modern management practices by the Acadia University Administration to address concerns of administrative shortcoming. Recognizing that the skills of some individuals are a poor fit for their positions, AUFA suggests to the Acadia Administration the incorporation of internal lateral job transfers to improve workplace morale and functioning. This initiative removes a “same job for life” mentality from much of the campus, rejuvenates a number of stalled or stale careers, and liberates entire departments.

Non-academics are welcomed in roles of leadership in academic units. AUFA promotes this idea in selected situations. As government funding continues to decrease in relation to the overall university budget, a growing awareness develops that academics, by training, are not necessarily good managers. Indeed there is almost nothing in any of our training that prepares us to manage people. By design, the process that we follow to obtain a Ph.D. ensures that we are capable of undertaking independent research. Further, this mostly solitary process rarely involves working with large numbers of people. Yet, time and time again, we insist on hiring one of our own to lead either as Department Heads, Directors, or Deans. As Universities increasingly become dependent upon external funds for their success, it may be time to look outside of academia when seeking to fill positions that involve chasing dollars.

AUFA and the BOG come to an agreement on the restructuring of the BOG. Both sides agree that twelve is an appropriate number of governors. Both sides also agree that the primary qualification for membership on the board is “personal skill and experience.” In other words, these individuals bring to the table abilities that can help the University. AUFA and the BOG agree to the formation of a College of Electors composed of elected representatives of existing Acadia University stakeholders. This college of electors selects 12 members with each member requiring a vote of 2/3rds of the majority of the electors. This ensures that neither side is able to stack the deck of the BOG. The government of Nova Scotia appoints a mediator to oversee the formation process and the make- up of the College of Electors.

Given the likely departure of more younger faculty members in the spring of 2002 and the success of the Faculty of Professional Studies online voting system used initially in January of 2002, AUFA and the BOG open discussions to develop financial solutions to the Faculty Retention crisis. Building on the example of the January 2002 Memorandum of Agreement signed by the Presidents of AUFA and Acadia University regarding salary supplements for Canada Research Chair recipients, AUFA and the BOG come up with, and implement, a solution by September 2002.

Conor Vibert

Table of Contents