CAUT WOMEN’S CONFERENCE:
MOBILIZING IN AN ERA OF RESTRUCTURING
As the new Federal budget came down, one couldn’t help but reflect on the theme of the CAUT Women’s Conference, held in Ottawa in October. In an era that promises to be one of shrinking resources and “belt tightening”, the message delivered at this conference became even more relevant. In short, our academic world of work is changing in response to our economic environment, and the new landscape has the potential to threaten the very nature of academic work.
Focusing on the theme of the changing nature of academia, conference attendees addressed issues of restructuring, staff complement, new standards of excellence, and strategies for coping with the “new managerialism” inherent in our workplaces.
Professor Rosemary Deem, of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol, delivered a powerful presentation entitled New Managerialism in an Era of Restructuring. Her presentation outlined the UK experience with new managerialism. This ideology is not new to the UK. Since the 1970’s, policing, education, health care, and various other public service institutions have been faced with increased bureaucracy, a fierce new focus on performance standards, and strategies that emphasize cost cutting for short term gain (such as an increase in the use of temporary and contract workers). In essence, the philosophy of new managerialism adopts structures and values consistent with the for-profit private sector.
Although there may be some merit in adopting new strategies to cope with the changing political and economic landscape, Professor Deem urged attendees to look at how these changes are affecting academic life. She stated that we must assess the impact of moving academic and academic managers from “communities of scholars” to “workplaces.” She highlighted the need to preserve traditional characteristics of academia (such as academic freedom), the need for training and support for academic managers expected to adopt and “manage” this new managerialism, and the need to protect those more vulnerable in terms of employment continuity and permanence.
Other presentations and working sessions focussed on funding patterns and institutional responses to economic scarcity, the impact of restructuring on professional and personal lives, and issues of equity and activism on campuses.
Presented with statistics demonstrating the increasing emphasis within academic institutions on contract employees, production-driven research, new standards of excellence, and increasing workloads, attendees were tasked with identifying strategies for this era of restructuring. The conference concluded with a closing plenary that was both cautionary and inspirational – cautionary in terms of the potential negative impact of the philosophy of new managerialism, and inspirational in terms of the commitment of attendees to monitor the impacts and to continue the good fight for equity, fairness, and preservation of the ideals upon which the Academy has been built.
Kelly Dye