Karen Harper
CUPE 3912 member at SMU and MSVU
Former CUPE 3912 President and Communications Officer
A union such as CUPE 3912 helps improve working conditions for its members through collective bargaining and grievances. Another way union members can influence working conditions in the academic environment is through shared university governance. University governance is essential to the operation of the university and includes the Senate and Board of Governors. The Senate is ‘responsible for the educational policy of the University’ and the Board of Governors ‘oversees the conduct of the University’s affairs’.
Full time faculty and sometimes part-time faculty are involved in governance at Canadian universities. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has a campaign on Shared Governance (see their video). ‘Decision-making powers are concentrated in the hands of a few, who act behind closed doors, while the voices of academic staff and other key stakeholders are being weakened or silenced. Collegiality — or shared governance — is at the heart of what a university is and should be.’ CAUT is putting together information on university governance across Canada including the composition of Board of Governors and Senate. An initial glance at their results shows that at least ten universities have a Senate with at least one designated member who is a part-time instructor.
At Saint Mary’s University, full-time faculty and students are part of the Board of Governors and the Senate, but part-time faculty are currently not eligible to vote or serve on Senate, despite teaching a third of the courses.
Efforts to change this started years ago in 2016 when Phil Bennett (CUPE 3912 VP for SMU PT instructors at the time) requested and received a legal opinion from CAUT about whether part-time faculty have the right to vote and stand for election to the Senate and Board. The response was YES – the Senate is not within its rights to exclude us.
One of my goals when I became president of CUPE 3912 in 2019 was to explore options for our members to serve on Senate. I made some progress at SMU before the pandemic and bargaining became too overwhelming. I met with the chair of the SMU Senate bylaws committee and forwarded a letter I requested from CAUT about the importance of part-time faculty being on Senate.
Last fall I resumed my quest by meeting with the SMU Senate bylaws committee. They are very supportive and plan on proposing a bylaws amendment that will enable us to vote and serve on Senate as academic staff (bylaws) . However, this would not establish designated seats for part-time faculty on Senate, which would require the opening of the University Act. Senate currently includes fifteen members selected by the academic staff.
The bylaws committee is gathering information about the wording of eligibility for part-time instructors at other universities and determining the wording of their proposed amendments. Any proposed bylaw changes would need to be approved by the entire Senate. They have asked me to survey SMU part-time instructors to provide information to present to the entire Senate. This is a great opportunity to educate our members and to get your input on whether we should seek designated seats on Senate and to assess how much interest there is for individual members to run for election to serve on Senate.
What you can do:
- Keep informed and please complete the short survey about governance this spring.
- The Senate has recently established a Cross-faculty Committee to review the ICE (student evaluations) including issues related to EDI and would like to include a part-time faculty member. If you are interested in sitting on this committee, please contact smu.cupe3912@gmail.com by March 15, 2024.