Blog

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.

Neil Balan
CUPE 3912 Member at SMU and MSVU
Member of the SMU PT Faculty Negotiating Team

As a long-time contract faculty member involved collectively with different unions across different universities, I’ve joined and participated in caucuses and working groups (for instance: universities fossil fuel divestment, universities and migrant rights). Though similar to a more formal sub-committee, a caucus or working group is an informal issue-centered way of organizing semi-regularly to talk, engage, and exchange ideas and assessments. They can serve as valuable ways to build unity, tease out internal contradictions and antagonisms, and connect members. While they don’t have any formal remit within the union, and while they aren’t tasked with any kind of policy development, caucus or working group work can generate opportunities to collectively organize and mobilize our membership. They provide methods for clarifying ideas about our labour, the institutions we navigate and negotiate, and the wider social and structural forces that shape how we work.

Beyond your teaching work and your time spent trading your labour for pay, do you have an outlet for some of your social, political, or political economic concerns whether in relation to university spaces or beyond? It could be that you’re able to work, write, and/or produce academic or scholarly work that addresses these concerns. Maybe you’re part of a research or community-based action network. Or maybe you scream (daily) into the social media void, generating bits and pieces of analysis or commentary.

My sense: our common interests as union members and workers allow us an opportunity to share, develop, and discuss whatever we deem to be matters of concern and importance. A caucus or working group need not be onerous. It can work like a reading or study group with decidedly measured expectations. The goal: we can learn about issues collectively and together. It can start in an inchoate way with the core concern “in-solution” and requiring further condensation and consolidation enabled by way of ongoing encounters and meetings. The initial task of most working groups or caucuses is straightforward: agree on a mandate or goal, select a more concrete focus, and decide on a way of structuring engagements. Go from there.

Consider this a call to action by way of doing what many of us do well: reading, thinking, writing, talking, and sharing. For my part, I’d like to propose two working groups: the “Neither Excellence nor Excellent: Austerity and the Barely-Public University” Working Group and a “What’s New in Progressive PSE Policy in Canada” Working Group.

If you’re interested in ether, email me at neil.balan@smu.ca or neilbalan@gmail.com.

If anything, working groups and caucuses are at their best when they are member-driven and ground-up. If neither of these proposed groups aligns with your interests, think about proposing or pitching something else. Doing things together only makes us a stronger unit and stronger union as we head into our next round of bargaining.