In the spirit of this 75th anniversary edition of the Bulletin, I offer a few archival moments from presidents’ messages and editorials. This is not an exhaustive review, but snapshots of three issues with enduring resonance.
Governance, always on our minds?
Between administrators’ (ab)use of governance bodies to push academic program cuts and suspensions, and academic staff efforts to counter these collegially, governance is a hot topic. But it’s not a new one.
Many know the 1966 Duff-Berdahl report, “University Government in Canada.” That followed pressure that had been building for years. Indeed, October 1960’s Bulletin includes a 25-page statement on governance reform.
To add two earlier examples: Alongside CAUT’s “constant vigilance” and “an adequate code of tenure,” President Clarence Barber’s October 1959 analysis of the Harry Crowe case called for “re-examination of the whole structure of University government in Canada with a view to increasing the extent of faculty participation and control.”
An editorial from Spring 1958 observed that academics in Canada had little say in policies they were expected to administer, making them less like “citizens” than “civil servants” of academic institutions that embodied a hierarchy of control akin to “a private corporation or government department.” The upshot “is that universities have everything to gain from a wider participation in their government by those who know them most intimately.”
That observation holds, even as the context has changed significantly, not only because of post-1966 modernization, but also as academic staff unionization has become an essential buttress to collegiality.
Labour for equity
The current backlash against equity, diversity and inclusion ranges from legislative incursions in some provinces to claims that equity undermines merit. It can help to recall the vital historical role of unions in advancing core rights — through bargaining, internal organization, and wider political action.
Even before member associations began certifying, the December 1959 Bulletin carried a report on the “Salaries and Qualifications of Women Teaching in Canadian Universities and Colleges.” After considering such possible explanations as lower degree attainment, the piece concluded that, for every level of qualification and rank, “median salaries for men were higher than for women.”
In December 1961, CAUT’s Executive Secretary J.H. Stewart Reid reported that 23 of 35 member associations had endorsed in writing a policy of “ensuring equal opportunity to women faculty members,” following a resolution passed at a June Council meeting.
The work continued. Certification gave it added teeth.
The April 1986 Bulletin reported that a CAUT Status of Women workshop earlier in the winter addressed the importance of bargaining equity into collective agreements to make the provisions enforceable. Tellingly, one association recounted administrative resistance on the basis that equity gains for academics would quickly spread to other staff.
A quarter century later, in her February 2011 president’s column, Penni Stewart urged members to lobby for federal legislation extending human rights protections to cover gender identity and expression. She didn’t stop there. Because “our collective agreements are the front line for defense,” she advocated bargaining language that exceeded existing legal standards and requirements, backed up by union involvement in organized action.
Stand together or fall apart
This brings me full circle and back to the very first Bulletin, a six-page mimeograph published in January 1953, wherein CAUT President F.S. Howes relates that his own association had ventured to present their administration with “quite specific recommendations” on salaries. “I don’t think we quite realized what we have done… respectable middle-class intellectuals that we are.”
Howes addressed CAUT’s national role too, and a new determination to press for positive change: “As individuals, we always have the choice of selling our souls or keeping them.... As a member of a group, however, the more we maintain our integrity, the stronger the group becomes and the greater the probability that its just demands will be met.”
The context for solidarity has changed. In 1953, CAUT’s membership encompassed 13 voluntary associations representing some 1,200 academics, all in universities. Now, we are much bigger, mostly unionized, encompass a diverse sectoral membership, and increasingly count ourselves among the wider labour movement.
But as we face down major sectoral threats — also not for the first time — Howes’ point stands: our true strength lies in our determination to stand together for our just demands.
