THE
AUFA PRESIDENT COMMUNICATES
Last
year ended with an incredible tragedy as the full force of nature destroyed the
lives of literally hundreds of thousands of people around the Indian Ocean. The
images that we all saw on television, in newspapers and on the internet clearly
demonstrated how fragile life is. I have been impressed by the response of our
community as students, faculty (including AUFA), staff, and administration
raised funds for a variety of non-governmental relief agencies.
By
the time that this issue of the Communicator is released it will be almost a
year to the day since our association went out on strike. Looking back on that
experience and the year since, I am still impressed with the people with whom I
work. Not only was our strike extremely professional in the way in which it was
organized and run, but it also left few lasting scars. Many other campuses have
been literally torn apart in the aftermath of a strike as colleagues who were
once friends now refuse to speak to each other and faculty refuse to cooperate
with the administration. Although some of you may still grumble at the memories
of me (or your picket captains) sending you out to walk in the snow and cold, I
believe that the strike was a great bonding experience for our membership. I
(and my balding head which I blame on the stress of the strike) hope that our
first strike will be our last, but the memories of last year are still in some
ways my fondest of my decade at Acadia. The camaraderie of the picket-lines, not
to mention the food at the strike headquarters, was fantastic. On behalf of
your executive I am calling on people to submit their favourite strike food
recipes to be part of an on-line cookbook celebrating the anniversary of the
end of last year’s strike. Please send your recipes as MS-Word documents to me
(robert.perrins@acadiau.ca)
and they will appear at the end of the year on a link located on AUFA’s
homepage.
Your
executive and the members of several sub-committees have continued to be active
on your behalf over the past few months. In particular, I would like to thank
Jim Sacouman and Sonya Symons for their work on the Joint Committee; Mark
Ramsay and Mary MacLeod for their efforts on the Intellectual Property
Committee (which successfully negotiated our new Article 33 of the Eleventh
Collective Agreement); and Darlene Brodeur and Lance La Rocque
for their continuing efforts on the campus Daycare
Committee. Without the volunteer efforts of individuals like these our faculty
association could not function.
I
would like to thank the AUFA Grievance Officer, Paula Chegwidden, who recently
arranged a very successful workshop hosted by Professor Schrank
of Memorial University. I would like to thank Paula and those AUFA members who
attended the two-day workshop on campus for their participation in this
important training event.
At
the urging of several AUFA members, the association executive recently decided
to start a new and improved version of last year’s AUFA Open. With the
tremendous technical assistance of Darcy Benoit, a new message board has been
designed for our members to discuss issues between general meetings. Recently,
an expanded version of this board was opened to all members of the campus community
so that people could debate the merits of (and problems with) the proposed
Acadia dental plan. After the final vote on this plan is held, the message
board will reopen in a slightly altered form and will be limited to members of
the association. This will allow our members to communicate with each other,
while at the same time allowing those who do not wish to participate to have
their email inboxes left alone (aside from our daily dose of Viagra ads
and the regular claims to super-size various parts of our anatomies). Those of
you who are members of the student-initiated THUNACME
community will recognize the new AUFA message board environment.
I
would also like to thank Richard Sparkman and Ian Hutchinson, AUFA’s
representatives on the committee that negotiated the potential dental plan
package. Although many of us, I am sure, have problems with the way in which
this plan is designed, our representatives had to work within very narrow
constraints, and any faults in the proposal are not their own. What has become
clear to me over the past several months is the fact that, if we want real
improvements in our benefits package, these demands will have to be resolved at
the bargaining table. It no longer makes any sense (in my opinion) to continue
participating in the charade of the Triennial Benefits Review Committee and
hoping that the administration
or Human Resources will do us any favours. If we want a dental plan
(something that faculty at all but two Canadian universities have), as well as
improvements to our Blue Cross coverage, then these will have to be issues that
are resolved during our next contract negotiations.
The
university’s strategic planning initiative continues to move forward, although
both its form and content still appear to be nebulous. While the Vice-President
has repeatedly (and publicly) stated that any curriculum and program changes
will have to be approved by Senate, I am still concerned as to the role that
departments and faculty councils are to play.
We
are people with Ph.D.s in our disciplines.
We routinely write letters of reference for students who are applying to
graduate and professional schools. We are also the ones who are in closest
contact with others in our disciplines and therefore are best situated to know
what our students’ undergraduate programs should entail in order that their
education and degrees continue to be not only respected but held up as among
the best in North America. Now I am not saying that we should not be having
open discussions about Acadia, its overall academic regulations, and even our
departmental programs. However, I am concerned when I hear that ‘staff’ believe
that ‘our curriculum has not stood the test of time,’ and that our
undergraduate programs need to be more flexible and responsive to the students.
Similarly, I wonder why we should take our cues from student desires for
flexibility. I take my academic role on this campus extremely seriously. I take
great pride in the design of my courses, my lectures and discussion groups, and
my work with students as they explore topics that are completely foreign to
them (the histories of China and Japan, as well as the history of medicine). I
also recognize similar high levels of commitment held by my departmental,
faculty and other colleagues across campus. Many of us spent the better part of
a decade or more in post-secondary studies in order to be qualified as experts
in our disciplines. While the fiscal and administrative culture of the past
admittedly restricted the development of interdisciplinary initiatives to some
extent, I believe that our programs also reflect the professionalization
of our disciplines and the difficulty in mastering an ever-growing body of
knowledge. We need to prepare our students for the future, but we must be
careful not to graduate students who are “Jacks/Jills
of all trades, and masters of none!” This, however, is just the raving of one
individual, so I encourage you all to get involved in this critical debate on
our campus.
On
behalf of the executive I would like to wish everyone the best for the
remainder of the winter semester.
Bob Perrins