About this file. There are four main sections: a table of contents, Notices, Articles, and Upcoming Events. Each of these sections is separated by two asterisks. Articles are numbered in the table of contents. In the body of the document, article titles are preceded by a pound sign and their corresponding number. FAUW Forum Issue 147. February, 2012. David Porreca, Copy Editor. Table of Contents Notices Articles 1. President’s Message. 2. Scheduling Committee Formed with Faculty Representation. 3. Rights and Responsibilities of Faculty Members Under the Occupational Health & Safety Act. 4. Tenure & Promotion Workshops For Faculty. 5. Post-Secondary Education: It’s worth the investment. 6. Your Liason Librarians. Upcoming Events Women & Administration: A conversation for women about women in administrative roles at Waterloo. Linda Duxbury on Work/Life Balance. Navigating the Academy: Lessons and Strategies for More Equitable Universities. ** Notices Mark Your Calendar: March 5: Panel on Women & Administration. April 3: Spring General Meeting. April 3-5: Tenure & Promotion Workshops. April 10: Linda Duxbury on Work/Life Balance. FAUW Spring General Meeting: Tuesday, April 3 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm in room MC 4020. Refreshments provided. The FAUW Forum: The FAUW Forum is a service for UW faculty sponsored by the Association. It seeks to inform members about current Association matters, to promote the exchange of ideas and to foster open debate on issues with a wide and balanced spectrum of views. Opinions expressed in the Forum are those of the authors, and ought not to be perceived as representing the views of the Association or its Board of Directors unless so specified. Members are invited to submit letters, news items and brief articles. If you do not wish to receive the Forum, please contact the Faculty Association at fauw@uwaterloo.ca and your name will be removed from the mailing list. PDF versions of this and previous issues are available on our website. A text-only version of this issue is also provided. How to contact FAUW: Pat Moore, Administrative Officer Office: MC 4002. Phone extension: 33787. Email: pmmoore@uwaterloo.ca. Laura McDonald, Administrative Assistant/Communications Coordinator Office: MC 4001. Phone extension: 35158. Email: laura.mcdonald@uwaterloo.ca. Website: http://fauw.uwaterloo.ca/ Are you a FAUW member? You need to be a registered member in order to run or vote in FAUW elections. You can register online using the membership form at fauw.uwaterloo.ca. Not sure if you’re a member? Call or email us to find out! Tax Tip: Your dues are deductible! Human Resources will mail your information to you in early March. If you have any questions or need a reprint, please contact Human Resources main reception at extension 32524.   **Articles #1. President’s Message. by George Freeman, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Autonomy. When I cast about for what is at the heart of things occupying FAUW at the moment, that is the word which comes to mind. A concept central to academic freedom and collegial self-governance. To the social good embodied in universities. That which tenure protects.The trouble with autonomy is that it’s all wrapped up with trust and trust seems to be out of fashion these days, more and more displaced by systemic distrust, often called transparency, and an autocratic gun to the head, often called accountability. Like quality, autonomy doesn’t get along well with metrics. “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts,” according to Albert Einstein. He was speaking during a more optimistic time in my opinion. Today’s metrics seem not so much about measurement as control. Regarding metrics, I think the following quote says it well. It is from the transcript of an interview with Professor Mark Dodgson from the University of Queensland Business School which aired recently on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National show called Ockham’s Razor: [begin quote]The great management guru Peter Drucker wrote: “What gets measured gets managed” and this has become a mantra of management consulting companies worldwide. Three unfortunate corollaries result. First, what is measured is prioritized. Second, organizational efforts move towards those that are most easily quantified. Third, what can’t be measured is believed to be unimportant. Another all too evident consequence is that despite caveats and provisos often put on measures by their creators, they cannot control their inappropriate use. The measurement fetish causes all sorts of problems for companies when they try and apply the techniques for measuring the stocks and flows of goods and finance to the intangible issues of knowledge and initiative. Many companies, for example, continually struggle to establish appropriate budgets and performance metrics for research and development. As a major input to R&D performance is creativity and its outputs are learning and improved organizational skills and responsiveness, no wonder they have difficulty measuring them because these are fundamentally intangible. Most activities in firms need to be measured so they can be controlled, but not all of them. Sometimes the most important things cannot be measured. [End quote. Source available at: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/ockham27s-razor-22-january-2012/3732754] Prof. Dodgson goes on to explain how metrics drive out leadership which I suppose answers one complaint I raised at the January meeting of Senate. Christopher Scott, a United Way Campaign Associate from Modesto California, summarized three rules for good leadership, posted at helium.com in September 2007. Part of his third rule resonates with discussions I have had with colleagues. It reads “A good leader looks after those he wants to lead. He does this by always doing what he can to protect them from harm, criticism, or blame from other people.” Lately, as a faculty member, I’m not feeling the protection from places like AUCC, COU, or Needles Hall. Well, maybe a little bit on the copyright front. FAUW remains optimistic in outlook and committed to engaging the Waterloo administration in constructive discussions towards resolving some of the issues at hand. As I write this, I believe the conflict over the form for absence from campus has been resolved. Governance of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the sublimely ridiculous expense-reimbursement processes sit near the threshold of conflict. Unfortunately, this is slowing down our regular policy work at Faculty Relations Committee. On the other hand, it is causing FAUW to begin rethinking its communications methodology, both with members and also with politicians and the public. I believe universities must be autonomous collegially self-governing organizations, not vaguely part of some ‘broader public sector’ beholden to the political whims of the day passed down as directives. Inside universities, I believe professors must be autonomous professionals, and treated as such. That’s assuming Ontarians want free-thinking, creative, and critically analytical graduates. Surveys year after year show that professors have an incredible amount of public trust and support. We may need to call on that more directly. In his report of September 27, 2010 regarding the dismissal of Professor Ramesh Thakur as Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Dr. Len Findlay described “an atmosphere of intimidation and fear such as I have rarely encountered in my more than thirty years on faculty in the Canadian academy” [p. 3]. Echoes of this came back to me when talking with people about the scheduling project which blew up into a major issue recently. I too encountered faculty who appeared intimidated and fearful, which I did not understand. Then I happened to read an article entitled “Vaclav Havel 1936-2011: Living in truth” in The Economist [vol. 401, no. 8765, Dec. 31, 2011, pp. 32–34]. I quote one paragraph:Few had the stomach to struggle on against communism after such a comprehensive defeat. Many Czechs and Slovaks glumly resolved to make the best of a bad situation. Not Mr Havel: words were his weapons, and he intended to use them. In early 1975 he wrote a caustic letter to the communist leader Gustav Husak, saying that the “calm” which the authorities regarded as their great achievement was in fact a “musty inertia…like the morgue or a grave.” Under the coffin-lid of communism, the country was rotting: “It is the worst in us which is being systematically activated and enlarged—egotism, hypocrisy, indifference, cowardice, fear, resignation, and the desire to escape every personal responsibility…” What scares me is that I can’t get the last sentence out of my head. The Ontario government interfered in our last faculty salary negotiations. The Ontario government has singled out university pension plans for some as-yet-unannounced interference. The Ontario government generates ever more arcane and costly rules reaching deep inside university operations. Transparency (mistrust). Accountability (gun to the head). Metrics (quotas). The coffin-lid of something for sure. It certainly isn’t authentic autonomy. #2. Scheduling Committee Formed with Faculty Representation by David DeVidi, with input from David Porreca One of several issues that provoked considerable consternation among faculty before Christmas was news of a new scheduling system and its possible implications. In December, the campus was full of different rumours about what was proposed and its implications for faculty: both for our ability to do all aspects of our jobs (including scholarship, graduate supervision, and service to the university) and about the implications for our already fragmented home lives. In mid-December, several members of FAUW met with the Registrar and several other members of the team that had, until then, been driving the implementation process for the new scheduling system. There was, as they say, a full and frank discussion of faculty concerns, and we received explicit denials of the more alarming rumours we had heard. We were assured that the intention was never to slight faculty concerns in the development of the new scheduling process. We were clear, among other things, that if their intentions were not to arouse suspicions among faculty, the list of “goals” should have included other mentions of faculty besides that we were expected to be available to teach any time between 8:30 and 5:30 Monday to Friday and in the evenings. We were assured that this was merely a communications failure, and not a reflection of the importance of our concerns. In any case, we came away from the meeting with more than assurances. A committee has been struck to advise on how the new scheduling system will be implemented. It includes a member of the FAUW Board, treasurer Steve Furino of the Faculty of Mathematics Dean’s Office. It also includes several other faculty members, one from each Faculty. We would like to note that at the meeting we got a constructive response from Registrar Ken Lavigne and others involved in the process, along with assurances that the key decisions have not yet been made. If you have ongoing concerns, FAUW will be happy to hear them. Also, watch for the membership of the Provost’s Advisory Committee on University Timetabling (PACUT) to be announced, since the faculty on that committee will have a key role in ensuring that whatever rolls out eventually will give due consideration to the need for faculty to be able to do all aspects of their jobs if the university is to be successful, and to the work/life implications for faculty who are already putting in an average of between 55 and 60 hours a week on their jobs. Moreover, Ken Lavigne delivered an analogous message when questioned during the last Senate meeting regarding the new scheduling system. Senators received assurances that the process was still in its early stages and that considerations essential to faculty members’ concerns would be worked into the new scheme, including research days during teaching terms, work-life balance issues and university service.   #3. Rights and Responsibilities of Faculty Members Under the Occupational Health & Safety Act by Richard Wells, in consultation with the Safety Office  Every faculty member has both rights and responsibilities under Ontario’s Occupational Health & Safety Act (http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/hs/laws/). Depending on the capacity you are serving in, however, your responsibilities may change when you act in a supervisory capacity. As a worker, you have three basic rights: 1) the right to know about workplace hazards, 2) the right to participate in health and safety programs, and 3) the right to refuse unsafe work. Your responsibilities are to report health and safety hazards, follow safety legislation, standards, rules and procedures in your work and report accidents or injuries. When you work in a supervisory capacity, for example when supervising a graduate student in a research lab, you also have responsibilities as a supervisor under the Act. These responsibilities are of the utmost importance. Work should only be performed by competent workers. Due diligence in safety requires that you take every reasonable precaution to protect the health and safety of workers or students under your direction. These precautions include performing a risk assessment of the hazards of the work, ensuring that students are trained and advised of safety hazards, wearing and ensuring that others wear adequate personal protective equipment and using safety controls appropriately. Your students must be trained in how to safely perform their work, so it is important that you work closely with them to develop safe lab or work procedures where required, and to check and document that safety training is complete. Students must also be aware of emergency procedures and what to do in case of an injury, a spill, or a fire. Work should be monitored to ensure that it is being done in a safe way. Regular inspections of areas where your students work is a good way to ensure that all equipment is working properly, safe work procedures are being followed, and that no hazards are left uncontrolled. All uWaterloo employees, including graduate students, have mandatory minimum safety training requirements; however, it is up to you to confirm that mandatory training is complete, and to ensure that any work-specific training is arranged before work starts. For further information on safety requirements for supervisors or to request training, contact the Safety Office at ext. 33587. Richard Wells (Kinesiology) is a faculty representative on the Main Campus Joint Health and Safety Committee.   #4. Tenure & Promotion Workshops For Faculty The FAUW Academic Freedom & Tenure Committee is presenting four workshops to help faculty through key transitions in their academic career. FOR TENURE-TRACK FACULTY: The probationary contract period and applying for tenure can be intimidating! The biggest risks you face are those stemming from uncertainty on your part about the expectations of your peers and of university policy. These workshops are designed to provide critical information on how to succeed and to ensure you know where and how to get your questions answered. The workshops complement the Documenting Your Teaching for Tenure & Promotion workshop presented by the Centre for Teaching Excellence. Faculty recently hired to their first probationary term: Tuesday, April 3, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. Faculty applying for contract renewal in 2012: Wednesday, April 4, 9:00 to 11:00 am. Faculty applying for tenure in 2012: Wednesday, April 4, 1:00 to 4:00 pm. FOR TENURED FACULTY: Applying for promotion to full professor: Thursday, April 5, 9:00 to 11:00 am. Tenured faculty who are considering applying for promotion in 2012 or the near future should attend this workshop for advice on Policy 77 and clarification of what is expected from peers and from the university in the promotion process. This workshop will walk you through the process step by step and will provide explanations of formal policy as well as practical tips to help you succeed. IMPORTANT INFORMATION: * All workshops will be held in MC 4020. * Pre-tenure faculty may register for more than one workshop. * Please contact Laura McDonald at laura.mcdonald@uwaterloo.ca to register. * The registration deadline is Monday, March 26, 2012. * Questions about the workshops should be sent to Sally Gunz, AF&T Committee Chair, at sgunz@uwaterloo.ca.    The AF&T Committee comprises tenured faculty members from across the university who are trained in key elements of university policy and the Memorandum of Agreement. The committee assists faculty members who have difficulties involving the application of these documents or who have other concerns that impact their conditions of employment.   #5. Post-Secondary Education: It’s worth the investment. by Cindy Oliver, President of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia. JANUARY 25, 2012 – fpse.ca President’s Comment Post-secondary education is a key to prosperity, not just for the society that is prepared to provide that education, but also for the students who are prepared to take on the opportunity for learning. For post-secondary educators that statement is more than just common sense; it is a fact that we see play out every day in our classrooms, our lecture halls, our research labs and our trades training centres. We see the transformation that happens to our students as they acquire new skills and expand the boundaries of their current knowledge and insights. But for the larger community, especially that part of it represented by the current provincial government, the concept of post-secondary education as a benefit that should be open to more students because it means greater prosperity for all of us is, at best, not warmly embraced. Certainly for the current provincial government, post-secondary education is seen as something for which today’s students should pay ever higher tuition fees to access. Unfortunately, embedded in that approach is the view that post-secondary education is more of a privilege than a basic right.We need to set the record straight. We need to re-assert the facts about just how much today’s students pay for their education and how efforts to make post-secondary education more accessible and affordable are beneficial to the broader community as well as individual students. That’s one of the reasons why FPSE, in partnership with the Canadian Federation of Students, sponsored the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) to study the economic and fiscal underpinnings that finance our public post-secondary education system. The research paper that CCPA produced, Paid in Full: Who Pays for University Education in BC (available at http://www.policyalternatives.ca/paidinfull/), was released this week and challenges the conventional wisdom that the public heavily subsidizes post-secondary education. The study compared students’ total payments for their degrees to the cost of providing undergraduate education in BC and finds that, as a group, university students fully pay for the costs of their education (and more): · Women with an undergraduate degree contribute, on average, $106,000 more to the public treasury over their working careers than do women with only a high school diploma; · Similarly, university-educated men contribute $159,000 more to the public treasury than do men with only a high school diploma; · In contrast, their four-year degrees cost the public treasury $50,630. The study also reviewed recent Canadian research and data from the 2005 Census to confirm that the economic returns to higher education in increased job skills and earning potential for graduates remain high for both men and women in virtually all fields of study. The data showed that graduates’ increased lifetime earnings result in higher income tax revenues for the public treasury. These higher income tax revenues are, in effect, a form of payment students make for their education and should be recognized as such. The study calls on the BC government to acknowledge that graduates contribute considerably more to the public treasury over their working lives than their education costs, and to rethink the current approach to financing higher education, which puts increasing pressure on individual students and their families to pay upfront through high tuition fees. We know that the future will increasingly depend on BC’s success in adapting to the challenges of a knowledge-based economy. We know as well from the provincial government’s own reports that post-secondary education will be a requirement for 77% of all new jobs in our province. If we don’t make the commitment now to improve access and affordability in post-secondary education, our future as a province will be undermined. The CCPA report builds the case for making that commitment. What we need now is action from the provincial government that achieves those much needed outcomes. - Reprinted with permission from the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia.   #6. Your Liason Librarians This article was not provided in a text format. Please visit http://lib.uwaterloo.ca/tour/librarians for more information. ** Upcoming Events Women & Administration: A conversation for women about women in administrative roles at Waterloo. Monday, March 5. Panel from 3:00-5:00 pm in LHI 1621. Reception from 5:00-6:00 pm. Featuring Susan Elliott, Carolyn Hansson, Susan Horton, Daniela O’Neill, and Pearl Sullivan. Visit fauw.uwaterloo.ca to register. Linda Duxbury on Work/Life Balance. Tuesday, April 10. Dr. Linda Duxbury will deliver a public talk on work/life balance at Laurier and a related research talk at Waterloo. Watch fauw.uwaterloo.ca for more information coming soon! This is a joint initiative of the FAUW Status of Women & Equity Committee and the Laurier Faculty Women’s Colleague. Navigating the Academy: Lessons and Strategies for More Equitable Universities. A practical all-day session, grounded in real experiences, sponsored by the OCUFA Status of Women Committee. Friday, May 4, 2012 at the OBA Conference Centre, 20 Toronto Street, Toronto from 8:45 am to 4:00 pm. The keynote address will be given by University of Waterloo Professor Carla Fehr in the keynote address. Professor Fehr is the Wolfe Chair in Science and Technology Studies and is co-Principal Investigator for a $3.3 million US National Science Foundation grant testing strategies for the promotion and retention of women and minority academics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Professor Fehr has provided leadership to many academic and research communities to promote hiring and retention strategies that build diversity in those communities. She has a research background in both biology and the philosophy of science and works in the philosophy of biology, feminist philosophy, and feminist science studies, among other research interests. Workshop topics will cover tenure, promotion, race, class and gender; how academic excellence is defined and what it takes to excel; and workplace bullying and how to deal with it. Waterloo’s Professor Shannon Dea will also discuss saying yes to the right things as you build your academic career. The workshop is for members of OCUFA’s member faculty associations. Please specify any accommodations needed at registration. Space is limited so register early at www.ocufa.on.ca. The registration fee is $75. Agenda: 8:45 am Registration & Coffee. 9:30 am Welcome: Professor Helene Cummins, SWC Chair. 9:45 am Keynote: Professor Carla Fehr, Wolfe Chair in Science and Technology Studies and Chair in Science and Technology Literacy, University of Waterloo. 10:45 am Break. 11:00 am Tenure and Promotion: Intersections of Gender, Race and Class. Professor Michelle Webber, Brock University and Professor Gerald deMontigny, Carleton University. 12:00 pm Lunch (provided). 1:00 pm How Academic Excellence is Defined and What It Takes to Excel. Professor Helene Cummins, Brescia University College and TBC. 2:00 pm Workplace Bullying and How to Deal With It. Professor Patrizia Gentile, Carleton University and TBC. 3:00 pm Break. 3:15 Saying Yes to the Right Things: Managing Your Academic Career. Professor Shannon Dea, University of Waterloo .