AUFA LOSES ITS MOTHER—MEMORIES OF LOIS VALLELY-FISCHER

The first time I saw Lois Vallely-Fischer she was presiding over a fractious meeting of the Acadia University Faculty Association in the fall of 1974. The Association was then a house divided. The McCarthy case had provoked a hunger strike by some students and professors in the previous academic year. Many did not yet know what to think about the case, and many also did not know what to think about the looming prospect of unionization.

Lois was a figure of strength and good sense as professors argued among themselves about the future of the association and the wisdom of becoming one of the early faculty unions in Canada -- and taking on a very authoritarian administration.

Gradually it became clear that the McCarthy case – that of a young professor who was non-renewed with no formal reasons being offered --was symptomatic of a draconian management style to which everyone was potentially vulnerable. Lois led the drive to unionize and her strength and strategy were essential to its success.

Our Historical Memory

With the union in place, we went to the bargaining table. It took two-and-a-half years to achieve a first collective agreement. People came and went from the union negotiating team – with at least one person bowing out on doctor's orders because of the stress involved. Lois was one of three people who were members of the team from the first session to the last (the late Tom Regan and I were the other two).

Most negotiators on the union team were relatively new to the campus --Tom and I were untenured assistant professors who had come to Acadia just two years before unionization. We counted on Lois, who had arrived in 1968, to be our historical memory (a fitting role for the historian among us). Many times we drew on that memory to make our points.

The Board, for example, fought against our proposed clause that no anonymous material could be used in administrative decision-making about professors. The Board's negotiators claimed the proposal was offensive, since management would never use anonymous material. "But that's the McCarthy case!" Lois thundered – referring to a deliberate decision to use anonymous material to justify the administration's action. After some investigation, the Board team moved from saying it would never use anonymous material to saying it wouldn't do so any more. A clause banning such material was enshrined in the first and all subsequent agreements (Art. 22.).

When the first Collective Agreement was finally achieved, the McCarthy case remained unsettled. Lois and others continued the fight in other venues – eventually achieving an arbitrated settlement that put Prof. McCarthy back into his job – a rare achievement in job-loss arbitrations.

Advocate for the Arts

Lois got her B.A. from the University of Toronto and her M.A. and Ph.D. from McGill. She spent a couple of years at Marianopolis College in Montreal, then came to Acadia in 1968 -- retiring in 1996. For the last dozen years of her service, she was Dean of Arts.

The Deanship is necessarily a Janus-faced job. The Dean represents the Faculty to the Administration and the Administration to the Faculty. Every Dean must negotiate that terrain, with constant pressure from above to consider herself as a member of management enforcing its vision on the lower ranks.

Occasionally Deans withstand that pressure and define themselves primarily as champions of their Faculties. They insist on speaking truth to power, representing the views of their professors and advancing the needs of their Schools and Departments. Lois was such a Dean. The Arts has always needed a strong advocate at Acadia with its seldom-broken stream of scientist presidents. Dean Lois prepared her positions well and argued them forcefully to keep the Arts in the game.

Lois had other causes. She was a tireless advocate for women's rights at Acadia. Through her work on Atlantis she helped provide a regional venue for woman's scholarship. She was interested in students; as Dean she was in a position to work to see they were treated fairly. She was politically active, and had a strong interest in the problems of the underprivileged in society as well as on the campus and in the community.

With Lois's death from cancer on September 24, AUFA lost its mother, and human rights lost a steadfast champion. We honour her memory.

Pat O’Neill

Table of Contents