THE
ROLE OF SENATE IN UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE
For many years, CAUT has defended the role of
senate as the voice of faculty and the body that sets educational policy and
makes academic decisions. At its fall
meeting, CAUT introduced a discussion paper on university governance, “Where we
have been and where we should go,” which recommends reversal of this position.
CAUT concludes that after 40 years of disappointment, we must accept the
limitations of what senate can achieve and put our faith in collective
bargaining as the best means to ensure collegial governance in Canadian
universities.
In 1966, James Duff and Robert O. Berdahl published a report entitled, University Government in Canada : Report of a Commission sponsored
by the Canadian Association of University Teachers and the Association of
Universities and Colleges of Canada (University of Toronto Press) which
recommended a bicameral model of governance.
According to Duff and Berdahl, institutions of
higher education should operate under the general direction of a board of
governors minimally involved in academic planning. Academics were to play the key role in
educational decisions, in setting educational policy, and in determining the
mission of the university. Duff and Berdahl recommended that university senates become the
central educational forum and that the majority of senate members be elected by
faculty. This model was widely adopted
by many Canadian universities. Dalhousie
University and McMaster University, for instance, gave decision making power to
their senates on matters such as renewal, tenure and promotion. At Acadia, decisions such as these are
covered by our collective agreement and procedures can only be changed through
collective bargaining.
Our collective agreement does, however, give
considerable power to Senate to create rules which have a direct impact on such
important matters as timetables, class schedules and teaching complement. For instance, article 5.31 “Dissemination of
Knowledge” states in clause (i) that Professors are expected: “to inform students of the bases of
evaluation, and methods of instruction indicating the professor’s plans for the
use of information technology in their courses at the beginning of each term
and abide by Senate regulations in these matters.”
Section (j) of article 5.31 further states that
Professors are expected: “to comply with
all procedures and deadlines approved by the Senate concerning the reporting
and reviewing of the grades of their students and such other formally approved
and published procedures and deadlines as may be necessary for the well ordered
operation of the teaching programs of the University which are agreed upon by
the signatories to this Agreement.”
Finally, article 20.00 “Full-time Professor
Complement” sets forth a procedure by which units can appeal decisions “which
have not been made by Senate and which result in a net permanent reduction in
the authorized complement of a unit, or which result in a change in the type of
position within a unit (e.g. tenure to CLT).”
This procedure involves an appeal to a committee independent of Senate,
the Teaching Complement Committee, which consists of three members of faculty
appointed by the Association, three members of the administration who also hold
academic appointments, and the Vice President (Academic) of the SRC. Article 20.06, however,
gives the final decision on the appeal to Senate: “In the event that the Teaching Complement
Committee agrees with the appeal it shall forward its recommendation to Senate
via a member of Senate, for a decision on the matter by Senate. If Senate agrees with the appeal it shall
send the matter forward to the Board for reconsideration giving reasons for
supporting the appeal.”
Under the current administrative regime, academic planning, which is clearly central to Senate's mandate, has become the province of professional consultants and ad hoc arrangements, bypassing Senate almost completely.
The decision to undertake the current strategic
planning initiative was not made by Senate.
Instead, the President announced this initiative as mandated to her by
the Board of Governors. Similar announcements
were made concerning the use of consulting firms and consultants. The committee that is to advise the president
and the vice-president on this process is not a committee of Senate and was not
elected. It does not have a clear
mandate and no one knows when this process is to be completed. The questionnaires that were distributed to
faculty were not designed by Senate but rather developed based on feedback from
comments made by hand-picked individuals who were invited to participate in a
retreat last summer. Other important
decisions which will affect the way in which academic positions are allocated
have also been made with no consultation.
The former Academic Sector Planning Committee no longer meets. Instead, a new Deans’ council has been created
on which there is no faculty representation, and it is this body which will now
consider requests for positions.
Decisions have also been made to radically change the way in which
registration will take place. Department
heads and directors were instructed to prepare timetables by December 1 in
order to allow for new and returning students to register in March. Faculty were not consulted about the
advantages and disadvantages of such a change.
High school students will now be able to “self report” grades. Admissions and scholarships will be offered
on the basis of these self-reported grades. All of these decisions have
significant impact on our academic programs, yet Senate has had little, if any,
involvement in a reasoned discussion of the long term implications of such
changes.
At its fall meeting in 2003, Faculty voted unanimously
in support of a motion calling for greater faculty representation on search
committees for senior administrators. Despite this vote, the Board approved
changes to the composition of these committees that further reduced faculty
representation. Several searches for senior administrative positions have taken
place this fall with no call for elections to the search committees. The university community has received
invitations to attend talks by candidates for these positions sent on behalf of
the members of these search committees, but the names of these members have not
been made public.
These are but a few instances that reflect a
growing trend in Canadian universities.
Increasingly, control of universities has fallen into the hands of small
groups of senior administrators (presidents, vice-presidents, deans) who have
claimed more seats with voting rights on senates, changing the balance of power
between elected and ex-officio senators – including some voting Board members. This trend lead the CAUT to establish in 1990
an Independent Study Group on University Governance (ISGUG),
composed of Guy Bourgeault, Ken McGovern and Ernst
Benjamin. The ISGUG
published a report in 1993 which identified several recurrent problems that
needed to be addressed. In this report,
the ISGUG reaffirmed the basic principle of
university autonomy and shared governance and made nineteen specific
recommendations about how senates could be made to work as they should. The ISGUG also
looked at the relationship between faculty unions and senates. In the over thirty years since the Duff-Berdahl report was written, many faculty associations have
unionized. The ISGUG
concluded that collective bargaining is compatible with collegial governance,
while it recognized the importance of academic judgements in matters concerning
curriculum and academic programs.
Both the Duff-Berdahl
and the ISGUG reports concluded that senates were not
fulfilling their role in allowing academic staff to play a decisive role in
shaping educational policy. These
reports did not, however, question the bicameral model of governance. They both suggested ways in which senates
could be reformed. The ISGUG report recognized the importance of collective
bargaining in giving voice to faculty, but recommended that faculty
associations continue to encourage their members to play an active role on
their senates. The ISGUG
report shaped CAUT policy in the 1990s and lead to the adoption of a “CAUT
policy statement on University Governance” in 1993. CAUT is now recommending that this policy
statement be revised :
The way ahead is to reverse the ISGUG’s
priorities: to see collective bargaining as the principal
way to ensure “collegial governance” – to concentrate efforts on using
collective bargaining as creatively and aggressively as possible to secure the
proper academic staff role in academic decision making. At the same time, but as a secondary
initiative, we must continue to use and expand whatever opportunities senates
and other traditional governing structures provide.
(Caut Policy on Governance: Where we
have been and where we should go, p. 7)
Collective bargaining has given faculty at
Acadia University considerable power to set limits on the unilateral ability of
administrators to shape educational policy in the areas of academic freedom,
intellectual property, promotion and tenure, appointments and workloads. We must continue to work through senate to
defend the principles of collegial governance and protect academic
standards. It is clear, however, that
senate alone cannot achieve true collegial governance. This should become a major goal for our next
round of collective bargaining.
Janice Best