Aiden Farrant

Occupation of Dalhousie’s historic Chemistry Building by diligent and industrious teaching assistants, course markers, and part-time academics dates back to its conception as the Science Building in 1915. In the century and change following its completion, the revisions and additions (such as the 1964-1965 connection to the MacDonald building dubbed “new chemistry” and the 1985 podium or “new new chemistry”, where most wet lab instruction takes place) have not always been as interconnected as hoped. The space is plagued by flooding, power surges, potentially inhospitable air, accessibility constraints, and a plethora of hostile design choices. The following article details testimonials from CUPE 3912 members who have delivered course content in this treacherous space and have escaped out the back door (unfortunately leading to the Dunn parking lot, what a view!).

The first experience of a new fall term for teaching assistants in the first-year chemistry program is a primer on what to do if a student under their purview is to faint. The blistering heat on the brutalist concrete ceiling and rain-stained windows of the Chemistry Podium is barely compensated for by the sometimes operational climate control system. Chemistry TAs, being lucky that they get any job-specific orientation at all (most departments adopt the “run before you can walk” mentality when it comes to instruction), are told to watch for the characteristic signs of a new student, still acclimatizing to the university experience, succumbing to the soupy atmosphere amid shattering glassware, pristine white lab coats adorned with Dalhousie bookstore price tags, and the general uncertainty about where to be in an active lab space. In the author’s experience, catching a fainting student before they hit the floor (or worse conk their heads on a lab bench) is a must, lest a panic-induced chain reaction occur. This unfortunate circumstance has led to mass evacuations and independent air quality assessments, as a building as decrepit as this can never truly be trusted.

Once the sun turns to rain and hurricane season rolls around, delivering lab content can become a swimming lesson. The charismatic lab coordinator, equipped with an armada of “safety ducks” manages the herculean task of wrangling repairs as flood water pours in from all sides. It is not uncommon to have to manage roof and window leaks, flood water ingress from safety exits, and water pushing up floor tiles, all while trying to instill safe lab practices into tomorrow’s scientists and medical experts. Wet floor signs are not a transient presence, rather a permanent fixture and the persistent leaks are now considered a value-adding “water feature” (think Frank Lloyd Wright!). The organic chemistry team even once included their mop and bucket on their “meet the TAs” website owing to its frequent use. 

Finally, when the water outside starts to freeze and seal up all the nooks and crannies, the accessibility failings of the space become apparent. The fire exits, of which there are not enough, are rarely shoveled free of snow. When they are, students would still be expected to climb frozen concrete stairs or tread across uneven ground. Thankfully, when the winter ice storms hit, power outages and snow days inhibit lab operation enough that cancellations limit the actual number of delivered sessions. Unfortunately, the surge in students from a canceled session are then smeared across all the other (usually full) delivery dates, leading a TA to wonder if they truly count toward the fire marshall’s occupancy limit. After all, we are TAs first, not people. 

I could drone on about the anecdotal experience I’ve collected from my peers, like the ceiling and wall cracks in the analytical space so large you could stick your hand through, or students in organic asking for an accessible fume hood and being given a stool in front of a fuming waste container, or the countless bottles of fuming violent red nitric oxide thrust into many a TA’s face, but the picture is already clear. The space, designed at the latest for 1980s needs, is hostile to anyone attempting to deliver a comprehensive and complete pedagogical experience in chemistry. The community, both within CUPE 3912 and with other campus unions and associations is incredibly heartwarming (adding to the already sweaty space), and there is much experience and satisfaction to be gained in the positions available, but applicants beware when requesting a posting within. This building makes safe and resourceful chemists, but out of necessity rather than offering potential.

Aiden Farrant is a PhD Candidate in Chemistry at Dalhousie University. He is a Teaching Assistant for introductory chemistry labs at Dalhousie, and the Recording Secretary for CUPE 3912. According to the Communications Officer who wrote this bio, Aiden is very intelligent and highly competent, has a fantastic personality, is feared by University Legal Counsel, and is also extremely handsome. 

Photos are original content, or used with permission from anonymous sources.

Claire Drummond
CUPE 3912 VP, NSCAD

Part-time academic workers at NSCAD University are some of the lowest paid in the country, living in the second most expensive city in the nation. Teaching Assistants at NSCAD haven’t gotten a raise in over 40 years, and course instructors struggle to pay for groceries and rent with their low wages. Needless to say, the situation for precarious Instructors, Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants at NSCAD is dire, and we had never had the protection and bargaining power of a union until we joined CUPE 3912 in the spring of 2023. Unsurprisingly,100% of members voted in favour of unionizing, and it was about time that we demanded more than the scraps that we’re given by our employer.

Artists are precarious workers to begin with — so many of us have grown accustomed to being paid little or not at all for our labour. This is the danger of a labour of love — aren’t we so lucky to spend our time making images, sculpting, weaving and performing? In many ways, we are, yet the stereotype of the starving artist exists for a reason: art, though essential to the wellbeing of our communities, does not pay the bills (in fact, as many of my colleagues can attest, we spend more on our art practices than we make). 

How, then, as the cost of living soars to unfathomable and fundamentally unliveable heights, are artists meant to live? This is the question that haunts myself and my colleagues at NSCAD. The answer is often to teach. For artists, a 9 to 5 job makes sustaining your own art practice very difficult. The flexible schedule of teaching art combined with the general expectation that as an art teacher, you yourself are a practicing artist, means that you don’t need to sacrifice your art practice for a paycheque. Many artists who pursue teaching do so at the post-secondary level — a Master of Fine Arts allows you to teach at University, for example, and working as a Teaching Assistant or Research Assistant is meant to give you the work experience you need to get a job post-graduation. There was a time when getting an MFA and a tenure-track position seemed like a foolproof way to make it work as an artist. However, this idea is quickly becoming a dream that feels like it will never be realized for many of us. 

Universities like NSCAD are increasingly run like for-profit corporations that rely on the underpaid labour of contract instructors such as those now represented by CUPE 3912 to teach the breadth of their courses. Rather than hiring full-time faculty and paying for benefits, they opt for the cheap labour of contract instructors. Over half of the courses at NSCAD University are taught by contract instructors. Students pay the same amount of tuition as they would for a course taught by tenured faculty, yet contract instructors are paid a pitiful fraction of their salary. It’s a win-win for the university — they get more bang for their buck, as it were — the same quality of courses taught by highly specialized instructors for next to nothing. But at what cost? The cost is a human one, as it always is in instances of corporate greed. Unfortunately, many of us are so desperate for a job that we settle for the poverty wages that NSCAD pays us in the often unrealized hope that it will lead to something better and more permanent. We love our students and we love teaching, but this cannot mean that we have to pay the price of NSCAD’s greed, the price of which is the suffering of Instructors, Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants.

Contract instructors are profoundly struggling to pay their increasingly absurd grocery bills and the cost of rent in Nova Scotia, costs that only continue to rise. To add insult to injury, contract instructors are only hired on a per-semester basis with absolutely no job security and no benefits. Many of us would never even dream of going on vacation, let alone eating at a restaurant. How does our employer expect us to live? What is the university doing with all of the money that they’re making from exploiting part-time academic workers? All we know for certain is that Instructors, Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants aren’t seeing a cent of it. Through the process of joining CUPE, we will change that.

The NSCAD Bargaining Committee has nearly finished the first draft of our collective agreement, and we plan to send NSCAD the notice that we will begin bargaining in the beginning of July. We are demanding a liveable wage, benefits, more job security, and equitable working conditions. Through collective action, we will hold our employer accountable and demand fair wages and working conditions. We will have our labour justice cake and eat it too — a labour of love, and a livable wage (and actual cake because lord knows NSCAD workers deserve a little treat)!

Claire Drummond is an artist, educator and labour organizer from Tio’tia:ke Montreal. Her creative and pedagogical practices work at the intersection of care, visual art and social justice, engaging with the inextricable relationship between activism and art. She recently completed an MFA in Painting and Drawing at NSCAD University. Before studying at NSCAD, she was almost entirely self-taught, though her mother taught her to paint when she was little. She previously completed an MA in Cultural Studies at McGill University, focusing on gender and performance in postwar film. She finished her MA longing to pursue painting full time, which led her to embark on an MFA as well as a lifelong career in creative practice. Her expertise in gender studies nevertheless informs her current practice, as well as her focus on the ways in which representations of the human figure can promote awareness of social issues. She is currently the CUPE 3912 NSCAD Vice President and is excited about mobilizing for systemic change at NSCAD University and beyond.

Robert Henman

Introduction

Question: Does economics affect every citizen of every country in the Global society? Yes, would seem to be the appropriate answer. A further question might be: How or what form of affect does it have? There are lots of statistical data available that provide more than sufficient evidence that wealth distribution is hardly an efficient component of economic activity. One statistic presently available is that less than 1% of the human population control 50% of the world’s wealth. The other 50% of wealth is shared out amongst the other 99% of the population. What follows is a few comments on problems in economic theory and Bernard Lonergan’s solution to those problems.

What is the origin of such disparity? 

One is that the current objective of economic theory is maximization of profit. Yet, some economists hold that the objective of economic activity is to provide a standard of living for the human population. Can you have profit maximization as the goal of economic activity and provide a standard of living for all at the same time. It would seem not. It contributes to the disparity both locally and globally. 

Locally we witness an increase in homelessness and a rise in rents that more and more people cannot afford. Globally and historically, we witness the drive for profit over the past 500 years of colonialization in Australia, Africa, Far East and the Americas. These invasions exploited the earth’s resources and the indigenous people’s culture and heritage all for wealth. In doing so they have arrested the development of the people and today we experience efforts of renewal of indigenous cultures, languages, religions and spirituality. Due to these centuries of exploitation, many of these cultures lived in both spiritual and economic poverty making equity a huge challenge in these times. Transnational corporations have elevated exploitation to a level beyond that of colonization which is now further complicated by the ecological crisis and the rise of populism. 

Now, what is the failure in economic theory? Current establishment economic theory work with models that do not analyze the actual data of economic activity. In other words, it is not concrete or empirical. Models are imagined and applied to circumstances from which central bankers and governments develop policies that affect our lives. Currently central banks have increased the basic bank rate causing people’s debt load to increase. 

News programs offer stock market reports and Gross National Product (GNP) numbers daily. These do not provide an actual view of the economy as a standard of living. Stock markets are a place where gambling occurs and affects only the wealthy for the most. GNP provides an overview of how the wealthy are doing, not how each individual is doing. 

What is the problem with economic theory? Models do not help. That is not science and only scientific understanding is an appropriate basis for developing policy. So, to analyze economic activity is to take any business and notice that there are two types of firms in any economy. A surplus production circuit and a basic production circuit. These circuits operate in relationship to each other. Science would work out the function of each circuit and reveal that the two circuits need to be in balance all the time. When one circuit draws on the other circuit an imbalance occurs which may be inflation. If the imbalance is sustained, it can deepen towards recession and depression. If we understand how the circuits affect each other, policy can be developed to retain the balance.

An Example

You can take any small local business and work out how the two circuits function and relate. Take a local cafe in Malaga, Spain that sells café con leche and bolleria to its customers. This cafe first buys a coffee machine from a coffee machine producing company. The coffee machine does not enter into the standard of living. The coffee machine can be used to make numerous cups of café con leche. So, it is still part of the surplus production circuit. If coffee machines are produced to be sold for domestic use, they are part of the basic production circuit as they enter into the standard of living for use in a domestic household. The producing of coffee beans and their sale to a coffee shop are part of the basic production circuit as they are eventually sold to consumers. When the café con leche is sold to you or me, it is a final sale; the café con leche is consumed and becomes part of our standard of living. If we purchase a quantity of coffee beans from a grocery store for home use, they are still part of the basic production circuit as it is a final sale that enters our standard of living.

One might think of what occurred during the pandemic as an example of the relationship between intelligent science and policy. First, virologists found out how the virus spreads and recommended policies of wearing masks, restrict close gatherings, washing our hands frequently. At the same time virologists worked at developing a vaccine and when they had done so, they recommended dosage amounts and time periods for follow up vaccinations. Intelligence preceded policy. 

Because, economics is not yet a science, by its focus on imagined models, policy tends to be guesswork. Witness what occurred during the 2008 Wall Street crash. The y did not know whether to print more money, let the banks fail or bail them out. They decided to bail them out. And the casino mentality began all over. 

Communicating to economists about this problem is and has been difficult as economists do not study actual economic activity and subsequently, do not have any experience of what is science. I have experienced this in conversations with economists as have my colleagues who have worked in this field much longer than I.

Conclusion:  

Communicating with economists has not been helpful, so I offer this very brief description of the problem and solution and should you wish to converse with economists, journalists or politicians, it would be a most worthwhile effort. Also, discussions with friends within the context of this brief essay might also be worthwhile. This analysis was worked out by a Canadian philosopher, Bernard Lonergan, in the 1930s and 1940s. His works on this topic are published with the University of Toronto Press. I add below Lonergan’s texts as well as a few others that have been published on his economic theory for those who wish to go more in-depth into what would constitute a science of economics that would eventually provide a standard of living for all and ease the disparity of wealth in the global community. Lonergan states in his book that it is not greed that is the root of the problem, but ignorance on the part of current economic theory and theorists. Greed is easily possible when one believes that profit is the goal which is based on a mistaken theory of economics.

Robert Henman has been lecturing in Philosophy, Ethics, Peace Studies and Child Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University since 1984. He taught Medical Ethics at The Dalhousie Medical School from 1990-1994. He has published three academic textbooks, two co-authored text books and one novel. He has published articles in Neuroscience, Philosophy, Ethics, social science methodology and education in various academic journals. Over the past five years he has been performing research in economics and has provided lectures on economics in 2018 and 2023 in Malaga, Spain where he and his wife, Olive, have been spending their winters since 2007. He was born in Amherst NS and is married to Olive Dewan-Henman. They have two grown children and three grandchildren. They have spent their winters in Spain since 2007, where his wife sings with a choir and he carries out his research. 

References 

Primary Sources

Bernard Lonergan, For a New Political Economy, CWL 21, ed. Philip McShane, University of Toronto Press, 1998. 

Bernard Lonergan, Macroeconomic Dynamics: An Essay in Circulation Analysis, CWL 15, University of Toronto Press, 1999. Edited by Frederick Lawrence, Patrick Byrne & Charles Hefling Jr.

Secondary Sources

Robert Henman (2024) Academic.edu (99+) A Brief Introduction to Bernard Lonergan’s Economics as a Science Current Economic Theory | Robert Henman – Academia.edu

Philip McShane, Economics for Everyone: Das Jus Kapital, Axial Publishing, Vancouver, BC, 3rd Edition, 2017.

Philip McShane, Piketty’s Plight and the Global Future: Economics for Dummies, Axial Pub., 2014.

Philip McShane, Sane Economics and Fusionism, Axial Pub., 2010.

Philip McShane, PastKeynes Pastmodern Economics: A Fresh Pragmatism, Axial Pub., 2002.

Philip McShane & Bruce Anderson, Beyond Establishment Economics: No Thank-you Mankiw, Axial Pub., 2002.

Philip McShane, James Duffy, Robert Henman & Terrance Quinn, Seeding the Positive Anthropocene, Edited by James Duffy, Sean McNelis & Terrance Quinn, Axial Pub., 2022.

Terrance Quinn & John Benton, Economics Actually: Today and Tomorrow Sustainable and Inclusive, Second Edition, Island House Press, Toronto, Canada, 2023.