Left to right: Wendy L. Fletcher, Renison President and Vice Chancellor, Ven. Megan Collings-Moore, Archdeacon and former Renison Chaplain, Melanie McKellar, Director of HR and Infrastructure.
Since 2014, Dr. Wendy L. Fletcher has held the position of President and Vice-Chancellor at Renison University College. She has provided steadfast leadership including guiding Renison through the globalpandemic and one of the most difficult, complex, and challenging periods in our history. After a well-deserved sabbatical, Wendy will return to her teaching responsibilities at Renison and will oversee the newly created Centre for Spirituality and Wisdom Practices. Before she steps away, Cort Egan (Director of External Relations and Communications) asked about her time at the helm of Renison University College.
CE: You’ve been president and vice-chancellor of Renison for over a decade and led Renison through some of its most challenging periods, including the recent global pandemic. Looking back, what will stand out for you as your most important achievements?
WF: For me, creating a more inclusive and equitable community is number one. I don’t mean to suggest that Renison was not inclusive and equitable, but it lacked structure, policy and frameworks around these values. Introducing some structure unfolded in several ways:
Ten years ago, there was no faculty association. Faculty salaries lacked consistency and transparency in how they were administered. Within my first year, we had University of Waterloo conduct a salary analysis of all of our faculty. We introduced the same salary scale as the Faculty of Arts; this meant that most faculty salaries increased in order to align with that scale. This introduced transparency, fairness and equity into faculty compensation. Through this process, we discovered that many of our English for Multilingual Speakers (EMLS) instructors were not recognized as faculty and therefore were not being fairly compensated. We first conducted an external review of their credentials and teaching qualifications, and then we brought those faculty members on as continuing lecturers and ensured that their salaries were consistent with their counterparts at main campus.
Staff salaries were also lacking structure and fell into three main areas:
The English Language Institute (ELI): This part of the college housed a lot of precarious employment. There was very little job security; most of the instructors were hired as sessionals and had no benefits, job security, or pension plan. We were unable to approach this group in the same way we did with faculty, but we were able to regularize them as ongoing contracts.
Kitchen, Housekeeping and Facilities Staff: Much of our kitchen and housekeeping staff had worked and lived in our community for many years but were not employees of Renison; most were employees of outside companies. Through our salary and benefits auditing program, we soon discovered that this group was not earning a living wage, they had no access to benefits or paid sick leave. When it came time to renew our contract with the external companies, we arranged to take on these staff as Renison employees. They now had access to paid sick leave, a pension plan and benefits including tuition assistance for themselves and their family members. This was life-changing for many of these people.
I was nearing the end of my first term as president by the time all these changes were introduced. Now that we had the kitchen, housekeeping and facilities staff on payroll, we wanted to introduce the same consistency, equity and transparency in staff salaries as we had introduced with our faculty salaries. We hired an external consultancy firm to conduct a salary review and audit to introduce the same level of equity, fairness and transparency in staff salaries that we had introduced in faculty salaries. This work included conducting a marketplace study to ensure that our compensation was not only fair internally, but that it was competitive in the labour market. This work took almost another two full years to complete.
Culture and Language Studies Staff: An additional source of inequity resided in the area that is now known as Culture and Language Studies. We had a variety of programs including East Asian Studies, Religious Studies, English, Studies in Islam and a few others that had no departmental home and therefore no dedicated leadership. We grouped them all under the general heading of Culture and Language Studies, introduced a Chair, and created an academic unit that had the same standing within the college as Social Development Studies and the School of Social Work; this gave the group a voice at the table.
All of these projects served to bring us closer together as a College, but we lacked a unifying vision. The Latin term, sed coelum solum, had long been connected to the college, but the term was translated a variety of ways including, above us only sky. My approach to the Latin phrase was to open it up to an expression that would maintain the spirit of the original meaning while, at the same time, embrace the spirit that the college had come to represent. One Sky Over All was born. This interpretation of the Latin phrase more aptly captures the inclusive beliefs, attitudes and principles that we had worked so hard to introduce. This phrase has become our way of expressing ourselves to the world in terms of our core values.
CE: How did you help bring all of these elements, and stakeholders, together?
WF: So much of what we do at Renison is building bridges of understanding; to my mind, that spirit is most epitomized in the work we do with our East Asian partners. Our work brings us in close partnership with diplomats, consuls general and ambassadors from mainland China, Japan and Korea. Despite the geopolitical differences and tensions that exist between these nations, we are able to work together in harmony and even celebrate music, culture, cuisine and dance through such events as our One Sky Festival, which will be celebrating 30 years in November. It is under our sky that representatives of these three flags come together to celebrate not only their similarities, but their differences. I've also had occasion to travel to the countries that represent our core programmatic interests and to see firsthand what's possible in terms of bridging across geopolitical difference. I am proud of the partnerships that we have solidified and the bridges of understanding and cooperation that we have helped to build.
CE: It would be difficult to reflect on the past ten years without discussing COVID. What did the pandemic mean for Renison?
WF: We responded quickly to COVID. We took immediate measures, such as incorporating the Work-Sharing program, that were not popular, but were necessary for the financial health of the institution. Unlike some of the larger universities and colleges, we were operating with very limited margins and a small reserve. We survived the pandemic without dipping into our limited reserve and for that I am proud.
Renison has new challenges to face as we move into 2024. Like all publicly funded institutions, we must contend with the modifications that have been introduced with respect to Bill 124; more importantly, we must continue to work through the chronic underfunding of post-secondary education by the Ontario government. But these are 2024 challenges and we are here to face them because of the action we took to survive the pandemic.
The Colours of Renison Left - Renison Resilience: Created using employee-submitted colours that represented what Renison was experiencing during the early COVID-19 pandemic. Right Triptych) - Renison Recovery: Created in 2022 using employee-submitted colours to represent Renison, with a unifying gold bar at the top of each section.
CE: What’s next for you, Wendy?
WF: After twenty-five years of administration, it’s time to return to the work of my heart. I am a teacher, a spiritual leader and an artist. As I lean into my sabbatical, I hope to be invited to engage in some artistic projects and some research projects that really capture my imagination. I’m going to think deeply into the meaning of this work, not as an administrator, but to live it as a human being in a new way. When I return after my sabbatical, I will oversee our new Centre for Spirituality and Wisdom Practices. This centre will be the reflection of everything I have learned through this life journey. I still have a lot to learn, but the lessons I want life to teach me now are not in relation to administrating, but in relation to understanding and expressing.
CE: During the pandemic you created an art project in which you created paintings based on colours that employees of Renison chose to represent different periods of the pandemic. Can you comment on that?
WF: The art project was a way for me to be connected to the members of the Renison family, for them to be connected with each other, and to give us all a common thread to hold onto. The paintings, in a way, became a shared heart in which we could all find ourselves, and all find each other. We have a common heart at Renison; we all care about the work of education and supporting our students in realizing their potential, fulfilling their promise, reaching their goals. We all care deeply about that. I was attempting to find that place where our hearts meet; finding a place that we share in terms of this work of education. On those canvasses, our hearts and our goals became one.
This is part of the 2024 Renison Reports publication. Return to the Renison Reports page for other articles.