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Statement by CUPE 3903 Member, Devin Clancy at Senate Meeting, April 26, 2018 1

by • Strike 2018 • Tags: , , , , ,

April 26, 2018

I’m Devin Clancy and in case anyone in this administration has forgotten, I am a member of this community. After being forced to picket outside for 8 weeks, in the cold, the wind, and freezing rain, you start to wonder if anyone at the top making six figures actually cares about those of us that do the work of this university. So to be clear, I am a student, teaching assistant, and CUPE 3903’s representative in the senate.

Two weeks ago on April 12 the senate passed this motion:

“Senate urges both sides in the labour disruption to immediately return to the bargaining table and take the necessary steps to settle the dispute as soon as possible”

As we all saw when entering the meeting today, CUPE 3903’s democratically elected bargaining team is sitting outside these doors as we speak, waiting for York to come to the table.

Where is Kathryn McPherson?

Where is Rob Lawson? If you know, please let our health and safety committee know, we’ve been waiting for his response to our Vari Hall inspection since December.

Where is Noura Shaw?

Where is Barry Miller?

And where is York’s union busting lawyer Simon Mortimer?

Lyndon Martin, Senator Martin, why are you not outside right now sitting at that table? Why are you not calling everyone on your team to join you?

Senator Martin, you have been directed by the most senior collegial decision making body of this university to “immediately return to the bargaining table” and “settle the dispute as soon as possible.”

What gives you the right to disregard your colleges’ direction? What gives you the right to refuse the direction of the senate? What empowers you to abdicate your responsibility to bargain?

Have you, like 800 graduate assistants, also been “liberated from work obligation” by the Board of Governors and the corrupt executive of the senate?

For two weeks now, York and CUPE have been involved in a process of mediation and inquiry. Our union’s bargaining team met with commissioner Kaplan, revised our proposals, and clearly showed a desire to negotiate a deal to end this strike.

Yet, even before the mediation period ended, York emailed the entire community to brazenly state the university would never negotiate. And it said this despite being expressly directed by the senate to do so. This is, without a doubt, a crisis of collegial governance, but it is also a crisis of the values and principles of York University.

How can anyone in this administration honestly believe that York’s actions in this strike represent a commitment to “social justice”?

What hollow notion of justice do you pretend to hold Rhonda? Is your justice always brought to us by TD bank? Does it rely on investing in arms and occupation? Does your justice depend on investing in TransCanada pipelines?

The only social justice at this university comes from students and workers on the ground who stand up against corporate interests and fight for the generations of students and workers to come.

For our local, social justice is not an exercise in branding, but a lived reality. It’s embedded in our union’s commitment to the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, to Jane and Finch Action Against Poverty, to supporting Indigenous struggles for self-determination.

And it is embedded in our union’s commitment to direct democratic representation of its members in the collective bargaining process.

Yet, in York’s submission to the Industrial Inquiry, our model of democratic organizing and open bargaining—which is an active practice of social justice—has been directly attacked. And Simon Mortimer used our members’ written academic work in order to attack it.

This is an assault on our members’ academic freedom. Our own critical analysis of York University is being used against us in a legal process to break our union.

What new era of bargaining does the Lenton regime want to normalize here? Clearly it involves as little bargaining as possible, and as much security, fake websites, and bogus PR that money can buy.

This administration does not care about students. This administration does not care about academic integrity or academic freedom. This administration does not care about its own reputation. And it certainly doesn’t care about its workers.

All this “social justice” university cares about is breaking CUPE 3903, by any means necessary. Even if that means destroying the summer semester and losing millions of dollars in the hope that next provincial government will introduce unconstitutional back-to-work legislation in June.

Rhonda Lenton, “social justice” president, are you really hoping for the next government to fulfill your wishes?

That’s a direct question, but I don’t expect a truthful answer. And I don’t think anyone does anymore. York University’s “social justice” president lacks integrity. And your sorry excuse of leadership is falling apart.

A growing list of student groups, departments, and faculties are passing motions of non-confidence in the senior administration, President Rhonda Lenton and in the Board of Governors led by Rick Waugh.

Rhonda, our own department of sociology has expressed its loss of confidence in you.

So I ask: President Lenton, will you stop destroying everything this university stands for and resign immediately?

Statement by Ricardo Grinspun, at Senate Meeting, April 26, 2018 Reply

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April 26, 2018

President Lenton, I rise today to ask that either you commit to making a meaningfully improved offer to CUPE 3903 in order to end the strike immediately or, failing that, offer your resignation, since you will have failed the academic mandate of this institution. Your letting down of the community of faculty, staff, students and their families will be beyond repair, unless we settle this strike now. If you are not able to take the necessary steps, it is time for you to step down and allow us to move on with the fundamental work of our university: To advance knowledge and scholarly work through a vibrant community of students and faculty – working together – for the betterment of our minds, lives and society.

The managerial and leadership approach that defines your administration is unsustainable and detrimental to the common good that characterizes a healthy university. Your uncompromising and unnecessarily aggressive approach displayed throughout the CUPE 3903 strike is profoundly inimical to the university as a public trust and the values espoused in our mission statement, such as collegial governance and academic freedom. The hardball approach to both governance and labour relations contradicts York’s publicly stated espousal of social justice, and the social justice-engaged research that defines so much of our university. Unfortunately, your actions confirm the concerns expressed by the 900 full time faculty who responded to the YUFA poll in November 2016, of whom only 11% supported your candidacy to be President of York.

The university is paying a very heavy price for your appointment. Your intransigent actions during the labour dispute, and the complete disregard of the impact on York’s academic reputation, speak clear. The community feels shocked and helpless in the face of your categorical refusal to bargain, your reckless brinkmanship, regardless of the cost for students, academic standing and our reputation. While pursuing a scorched earth approach to labour negotiations in the hope of crippling the union representing graduate students and contract faculty at York, you have hurt the lives of tens of thousands of students and brought disarray to our university.

Because of your refusal to bargain and your disdain for York’s students, the winter semester is threatened, and you have eroded academic integrity beyond recognition by proposed accommodations on a broad scale. Now your administration has announced the imminent cancellation of summer semesters. This announcement once again usurps the authority of Senate and Senate Executive to make decisions on class suspension due to a labour disruption. The Senate Executive Committee, on which you sit, has managed remediation in full deference to this administrative approach. It has created chaos and dysfunction within York, intensified the anxiety and stress of students, faculty and staff, and undermined the faith of the public in our university.

No amount of money poured into public relations or private security can obscure this reality. You now wear this reality.

President Lenton, speaking on behalf of thousands of faculty, staff and students, please know your actions so far do not have our confidence. Unless you move to settle this strike, we call for your resignation.

Statement from CUPE 3903 Member, Devin Clancy, at Senate Meeting Reply

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April 12, 2018

I’m Devin Clancy, a student, teaching assistant, and senate representative for CUPE 3903.

First, I’d just like to express my gratitude to the Senate Executive for booking a room that can accommodate the public. It’s too bad that it took a student reclamation of the senate chambers in order for these meetings to even be open and accessible, but I’m nonetheless glad I don’t have to fight off a headlock from security to be here today.

I have a question for President Lenton and the executive, but it requires a little bit of context so bear with me.

While Rhonda has been expensing luxury headphones and first class accommodations, this institution has been under attack, an attack that is painted by the executive as “business as usual.”

But what is “business as usual” for York University?

Recent history suggests that it means cutting 800 GA jobs without warning, and unilaterally tearing $5,400 of TA funding out of our protected Collective Agreement.

It means offering an incoming MA student a unionized job with health benefits, only to deny it once they’ve accepted. It means this student is forced to drop out because of uncovered health costs, and it means that FGS now demands this student payback their fellowship.

It means denying students’ summer pay.

It means empowering a Bargaining Team who doesn’t understand that 2 conversions is less than 8.

It means a final offer that is full of concessions.

It means systematically failing to meet with our union’s health and safety committee and an accessibility office at Glendon that isn’t wheelchair accessible.

It means taking four weeks to respond to complaints of asbestos in our workplace.

It means failing to notify the community of bomb threats and hate graffiti.

It means inviting a dozen toronto police onto campus to violently detain someone using rubber bullets.

It means kicking someone out of Ross in the dead of night in winter for trying to sleep in a sheltered space.

It means a library roof that has leaked for years, a mouse and cockroach problem in Vari Hall, and an unpaid water bill.

It means an administration that spends hundreds of thousands on anything but bargaining in good faith with CUPE 3903.

It means meeting with the crisis management PR firm Navigator to mislead the public and tarnish CUPE 3903’s reputation.

It means purchasing radio ads that misrepresent our union’s bargaining positions and it means buying the back page of Excalibur for months.

It means charging CUPE3903.com to the Faculty of Graduate Studies, a website currently under investigation by the ministry of labour for redirecting web traffic to York’s own labour webpage.

It means spending thousands of dollars on private security to surveil and intimidate striking workers, and students that have reclaimed the senate. So much so, that the Canadian Civil Liberties Association reached out to President Lenton, imploring her to end these tactics immediately.

It means trying to ban metal gates and firebarrels on the picket lines, instruments that are essential to ensuring the safety of our members as they exercise their legal right to strike.

It means reinterpreting the York Act to disempower collegial governing bodies, and it means transforming the Senate Executive into a hollow mouthpiece for an unrepresentative corporate Board of Governors.

It means hiring Hicks Morley, a union busting law firm that gives lectures to employers on how to avoid liability in cases of critical injury or death of workers.

It means forcing workers out in the cold on strike for 40 days. And it means only coming back to the bargaining table for 1 day, only to walk away and force a bogus ratification vote.

And it means providing the ministry of labour with fake employee emails and incomplete membership rolls.

To be honest, I didn’t even know a president could be so corrupt and incompetent.

But let me tell you, workers are fed up with a profit driven corporation that uses “academic integrity” as a rhetorical shield while deepening academic precarity and exploitation.

And we’re fed up with a University that appropriates the language of social justice as a marketing tool, only to entrench unjust working conditions on 60% of the educational workers at York.

This union destroyed your bad offer, and voted 85% to reject the administration’s attempt to impose neoliberal austerity measures on our membership.

And now the Liberal government has abandoned your desire to impose back-to-work legislation.

You’ve lost Rhonda.

You’ve lost the strike, you’ve lost the confidence of the community, and you’ve lost the Senate, literally.

Don’t be foolish enough to lose the summer semester too.

So I ask: President Lenton, when will York University return to the bargaining table?

Statement by YUGSA: York must bargain a fair deal with all units of CUPE 3903 Reply

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March 21, 2018

YUGSA is calling on the York University administration to negotiate a fair deal with CUPE 3903. We were heartened that the employer resumed bargaining on March 20, but the outcome has been incredibly disappointing. As CUPE 3903 stated following the bargaining meeting, “Rather than negotiating, the employer issued an ultimatum: capitulate on all important issues, or York walks away from the table.” York continues to neglect an entire Unit of 3903 (Unit 3), and is claiming that Unit 1 has absolutely no reason to be on strike, when the union and its membership have continually made it clear that the fellowship model of funding needs to be brought into the Collective Agreement.

Whatever optimism we had on the morning of March 20 is now gone, and we find ourselves again in the position of having to urge the Employer to immediately get back to the bargaining table, which they have resisted by rejecting CUPE’s offer to bargain again today.

We are concerned with 3 main issues that have arisen thus far in the strike:

1. Strikers’ well-being and safety on the picket lines
The longer that university administration neglects Units 1 and 3, the longer the strike will go, putting the safety of 3903 members at risk on the picket lines. Violent and confrontational incidents have occurred to CUPE 3903 members on the picket lines who say that they have been confronted by verbal and physical violence on a daily basis.

CUPE 3903 has run multiple de-escalation trainings for their members, but as a result of York administration’s unwillingness to resolve the labour dispute and their futile attempts at maintaining the pretense of “business as usual”, students and other members of the York community are increasingly frustrated and, unfortunately, some have taken out their frustrations on picketers.

This is unfair to picketers who are exercising their right to picket – a right that is part of our fundamental rights of expression and assembly. York must return to the bargaining table and bargain in good faith to protect picketers’ well-being and safety.

2. Attempts to keep classes going and undermine Senate democracy
The York administration has shown a complete disregard for all students by pressuring faculty to continue classes, and by asserting that York University’s senior administration and/or Board of Governors has authority or veto power regarding decisions to suspend classes during a labour dispute.

The last Senate meeting on March 8, 2018, erupted in chaos when members of York administration preventedSenate from putting a motion on the floor regarding class suspensions. In effect, the York administration has forced the university community to keep classes running. But allowing classes to continue causes faculty, staff, and students to feel unfairly pressured to cross picket lines, putting them in compromising situations. Pressure by York administration to keep classes going while failing to return to the bargaining table has greatly exacerbated the frustration felt by the broader York community.

It has always been understood that Senate (as the highest decision-making body of the University on academic matters), in conjunction with Senate Executive, has the responsibility for making decisions to suspend classes during a labour dispute based on considerations of academic integrity and fairness to students. As 27 Senators wrote in a collective statement on March 12, 2018: “It is the duty of Senate to consider and determine this issue, a duty that must not be denied the Senate by Senate Executive or other bodies within the university”.

The membership of Senate is composed of students, faculty, staff and administrators who act in concert to oversee and enact the academic policies of the university. Attempts to avoid putting the motion on the floor regarding class suspensions meant undermining the legitimacy of Senators, and denying academic integrity and fairness to all students.

YUGSA denounces the decision of the Senate Executive Committee on the continuation of classes, and requests the Senate to immediately call for a suspension of all classes. The Lisa Philipps statement, that “Nothing is more important to York University than our students and their success,” is nothing but a sign of hypocrisy. Words such as “excellence” and “impact” are nothing but empty signifiers that veil the lack of respect of the university administration for knowledge and the true mission of academia, and hide the profit-seeking mindset behind its actions and attitudes.

3. York administration’s combative approach to labour relations
The Employer’s approach to labour relations with CUPE 3903 has become a cause for alarm among all the other employee groups at York, as the Cross-Campus collectively observed before the current strike began (see statement released on February 28, 2018).

When the York administration cut the graduate assistantship positions of over 700 Master’s students, they initiated a labour conflict in the first place. They knew this from the very beginning of this round of bargaining, and did little to nothing to solve this issue and prevent the strike. The unwillingness of York to bargain during the weekend after CUPE 3903 overwhelmingly rejected their final offer, and that CUPE 3903 made themselves available to bargain that weekend, was evidence of York administration’s disrespect to the principles of fair bargaining.

The York Administration has not only declared war on a union that does 60% of teaching at this university, but also a war on all its stakeholders, including the student body. This is a war between those who are here, at this university, to serve their communities and elevate knowledge in our society, and those who merely follow the chain of commands. This space is neither a factory nor a military academy; this is a university that should enhance true knowledge and stand for principles of social justice. Unfortunately, yet not surprisingly, people with ballooning incomes and corporate mindsets and agendas would hardly understand what social justice is.

YUGSA believes that CUPE 3903’s issues regarding the cut over 700 graduate assistantships, lack of job security for contract faculty, and funding for equity, anti-racism and anti-sexual violence initiatives must be addressed by York administration immediately. President Lenton’s claim that “York’s compensation package remains the best of all Ontario universities,” is entirely false, because Master’s students no longer have access to CUPE 3903’s health benefits and various forms of support (i.e. academic and non-academic, monetary and non-monetary), which was taken away from them when York administrators cut the majority of graduate assistantships. This is an act of union-busting and it is a great loss to our graduate student community.

With great respect for and solidarity with our teachers who fight for knowledge, education, collegiality, and social justice at this university,

The YUGSA Executive

Open Letter to Minister Hunter 2

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March 19, 2018

Honourable Mitzie Hunter
Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development
Government of Ontario

Dear Minister Hunter,

The Ministry should be aware that the present Board of Governors of York University is operating outside its By-laws and the York University Act. To all intents and purposes, a small group of people exclusively from the banking and big business sector have taken over control of the Board, usurped powers granted to the Senate under the York University Act, and are seeking to impose their own views and agenda at the expense of York University’s legitimate educational goals and responsibilities as a publicly-funded institution.

It is clear that the current Board of Governors does not have the legitimacy and credibility to carry out its functions of oversight with respect to York University. Dominated by big business and big finance to the exclusion of vast segments of our society, it has adopted a brutal corporate-driven managerialism that is impervious to the educational needs of York’s students, including the fundamental right to safety on campus, and dismissive of the vital role of a university to contribute to the conservation, communication and creation of knowledge.

Rather than nurture students, staff and faculty in a dynamic, forward-looking educational process, this Board has demonstrated a persistent underlying anti-intellectualism and hostility to women and other equity-seeking groups that is preventing York University from realizing its full potential in program development and innovation. Quite literally, by its outmoded macho authoritarianism, it is choking the creative forces of York University.

I have been a professor at York University for almost 28 years. I came to York University in 1990, after teaching 10 years at Queen’s University. During the academic year 1993-1994 I served as Chair of the Selection Committee for a New Principal of Glendon College. I also chaired the Glendon Policy and Planning Committee from 1993 to 1995, as well as the School of Translation.  I am a full professor with an excellent record of external research grants, an active international research profile, and an exemplary teaching record. My student evaluations are routinely above 4.7 on a scale of 5, and last year, students in a fourth-year course even gave me a perfect score of 5.

I have also had the great privilege of holding the Seagram Chair in Canadian Studies at McGill University, and the bilingual Joint Chair in Women’s Studies at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, and being a visiting professor at the University of Bologna and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. I have served as President for two mandates of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies. I founded and direct a respected international peer-reviewed publication series, Vita Traductiva.

York University is the second largest university in Ontario and the third largest university in Canada. According to the statistics given on its website, York University has 46,400 undergraduate students and 5,900 graduate students, and 7,000 faculty and staff (http://about.yorku.ca/). It is an important institution of higher education, funded in large part by the government of Ontario.

It is extremely distressing for me to witness York University being hijacked by private interests to the detriment of its students, staff and faculty, and its amazing potential to make a dynamic and productive contribution to the future of our society.

  1. The Board’s composition does not respect the broad community representation set out in its By-laws

Ontario universities have a moral and legal obligation to be accountable to the public and to work for the collective good. Boards of Governors fulfil an essential function in ensuring the public accountability of a university but to do so, they must represent a broad cross-section of citizens who can bring to the University a rich and diverse range of perspectives.

This is far from the case at York University. The York University Board is comprised of 29 members, including three ex officio members (the President, Chancellor and University Secretary), six members from York University (two students, two staff and two faculty members) and 20 external members.

External members clearly dominate the Board, but these external members are exclusively from big business and big banking. There are no external representatives from the non-profit sector, no representatives from blue and white collar unions across the province, no members from the small business sector, no representatives from the health and social services sector, no social workers, no nurses, no teachers, no fire workers, no representatives from seniors’ associations, in other words, no representation from the community at large.

Yet this very principle of community diversity is enshrined in the By-laws governing the composition of the external members of the Board of Governors at York University:

The Governance and Human Resources Committee will have the responsibility of proposing candidates for election to the Board as external members who will best serve the needs and interests of the University and who broadly represent the public community. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing such candidates shall be reflective of the Arts, Business, Industry, Labour, Professions, Sciences and the community at large. (Article VII, 1(c) ii at http://secretariat.info.yorku.ca/board-of-governors/board-by-laws/)

Already in November 2016 during the Presidential Search I advised the York University Board of Governors that the Board’s composition was far from complying with its By-laws.

At that time, based on the biographies of Board members presented on the York University website (http://secretariat.info.yorku.ca/board-of-governors/), all 21 external Board members came from the world of big finance (57%) and big business (43%).

In fact, 18 (86%) members of the Board were at the time or previously, Presidents or CEOs, and of the remaining three (14%), one was a senior partner in a corporate law firm, one a senior Vice-President of a financial institution, and one the spouse of a CEO in a pharmaceutical company.

This appalling situation is not representative of Canadian university Boards. While under-funding has led universities to search for financing in the private sector and generally increased big business representation on their Boards disproportionately, a 2016 study by Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) found that the ‘business world make up 49.1% of the membership of the boards of governors at Canada’s 15 research universities.’ (http://www.caut.ca/bulletin/articles/2016/09/do-you-know-who-sits-on-your-board). At York University, it is 100%.

Furthermore, the gender gap on the Board boggles the mind. Of the 21 external Board positions filled at that time, incomprehensively only 6 (28%) were held by women and 15 (72%) or almost three-quarters by men. In the 21st century, such an imbalance is highly suggestive of gender bias within the Board. The Board is responsible for safety policy on campus. Certainly, this male-dominated Board has repeatedly failed to engage fully to prevent the frequent and persistent incidents of violence against women (including rapes and armed assaults) on campus, for many of which the aggressor has never been identified or punished.

The 2011 census shows that women outnumber men in Ontario, by a ratio of 95.1 men for every 100 women overall.

Statistics available on the Common University Data Ontario (CUDO) website show that from 2006 to 2015, women consistently composed more than 55% of university students (http://cudo.info.yorku.ca/report/2015-a-general-information-2/).

In 2015, women constituted 58% and men 42% of full-time undergraduate students at York University (http://cudo.info.yorku.ca/report/2015-a-general-information-2/).

How can the Board of a university predominantly frequented by women justify that almost three-quarters of its Board members are men?

  1. The Board stubbornly refuses to bring its composition into compliance with its By-laws and Ontario legislation on gender equity

To my knowledge, the Board has not taken any action since 2016 to change its composition to comply with its By-laws.

An analysis of the current composition of the Board based on information on its website shows appallingly that all of the now 20 external members of the Board continue to come from the big finance (40%) and big business (60%) sectors.

In terms of professional rank, 17 (85%) hold President, CEO or senior executive positions, and the remaining senior partner positions in the corporate law sector. Such a Board can in no way be seen to “broadly represent the public community.”

Moreover, despite current Ontario legislation to improve gender equality on corporate boards, the Board’s gender gap is still unacceptable. Of the 20 external Board members, 14 (65%) are men and only 7 (35%) are women.

In reality, women are even more under-represented on the Board than this already unacceptable statistic would suggest.

The Board has seven committees, only one of which, the External Relations Committee, responsible for fund-raising and out-reach, is chaired by a woman. Seen from this committee perspective, men control 86% of the Board’s activities.

The key committees of Governance and Human Resources, Academic Resources, Finance and Audit, Land and Property, Investment, are all controlled by men. Since the Executive Committee is composed of the Chairs of the other committees, it has only one woman member. Women constitute only 14% of the Executive Committee.

In other words, at the second-largest university in Ontario where your government is working so hard to prevent violence against women and to promote gender equality, York University’s Executive Committee, arguably the most important committee of the Board since it can act for the Board as a whole, is 86% composed of men.

The Board is responsible for appointing its members and is therefore directly responsible for this non-respect of its own By-laws. The closed, internal nature of this process allows an unscrupulous Board, in defiance of its own By-laws, to define and perpetuate itself through controlled co-optation. It is clearly an old boy’s closed shop.

Current Board members must be aware of Board By-laws, but they have chosen nonetheless to co-opt members from a very narrow range of professional networks, and they have done this in defiance of a basic rule of university governance: the need to respect the By-laws set up to ensure that the university be accountable, not just to a small elite, but to the community as a whole.

  1. The Board’s composition skewed to favour of faculties representing only 5% of undergraduate student enrollments

But this is not all. The Board is out of kilter in other ways that also gravely undermine its legitimacy.

Of the 20 external members of the Board, 10 (8 men and 2 women) hold MBAs (one holds an equivalent business management degree) and 7 (6 men and 1 woman) LLBs. Of these 15 Board members (two hold both an MBA and an LLB), 12 hold one or other of these degrees from York University.

In other words, 75% of Board members are coming from an MBA or LLB background and 60% are graduates of only two of the 11 faculties at York University: Osgoode Hall Law Faculty and the Schulich School of Business.

Indeed, five (25%) Board members sit concurrently on advisory Boards of Schulich, including the Chair of the Board and the chairs of three important committees: the Executive Committee, the Investment Committee and the Land and Property Committee.

These unacceptable incestuous links between the Board and one York faculty mean that one faculty can unduly the influence the Board and unfairly advance its perspective and needs at the expense of the other 10 faculties at the university.

This imbalance aggravates the serious infringement of the By-laws calling for a broad public representation on the Board. Seen in the context of student enrollments at York University, however, it is even more troubling.

Statistics on enrollments by faculty at York University are not easy to obtain. The most recent statistics I found on the university website come from a White Paper produced by then Vice-President Academic Patrick Monaghan. That paper shows that for the year 2009-2010, and there is no reason to think that the general situation has varied substantially since then, undergraduate enrollments at Schulich and Osgoode Hall represented only 2.64% and 2.22% of all undergraduate student enrolments at York.

In other words, while 75% of external Board members come from law and business degrees, these two faculties account for less than 5% of the 46,400 undergraduate student enrollments at the University.

Nor is this disproportion attenuated by York alumni representation on the Board.

The Board’s website does not indicate clearly which members are serving as representatives of York alumni. Nonetheless the biographies of Board members show that two hold executive positions in the York Alumni Association. Not surprisingly one is a graduate of Schulich and the other of Osgoode.

While the Board website provides guidelines for the election of student, staff and faculty members to the Board (together these categories only represent 6 internal Board members), there is no indication that the Alumni Association provides for an election.

Finally, the narrow composition of the Board is exacerbated by other examples of undue professional concentrations. One can ask:

Why on such as small Board there should be two members who were senior executives at the same financial institution (Scotia Bank);

Why three out of 20 (15%) Board members have connections to the Ontario energy sector;

Why of the four members of the Board with a science background, three were trained as engineers (In 2015, engineering accounted for 499 or 1% of overall full-time undergraduate enrolments at York University and of these 499 engineering students only 79 or 15%, were women; http://cudo.info.yorku.ca/report/2015-a-general-information-2/); and

Why one of these engineer Board members should serve concurrently on the Board and on the family Foundation whose donation led to the creation of the School of Engineering at York University, allowing a university donor to exert undue influence over the university.

  1. A Board in defiance of its By-laws does not have the legitimacy and credibility to oversee the well-being of York University as an institution of higher learning

According to the York University Act, the Ontario legislation that created York University, the “objects and purposes of York University are

(a) the advancement of learning and the dissemination of knowledge; and

(b) the intellectual, spiritual, social, moral and physical development of its members and the betterment of society.” (http://secretariat.info.yorku.ca/governance-documents/york-university-act-1965/)

It is evident that the present Board is in no position to ensure, and indeed has shown no interest in ensuring that these objects and purposes are not only respected but nurtured.

A Board that represents the professional and educational interests of less than 6% of the York University’s undergraduate students cannot make informed decisions affecting the academic needs of the other over 94% of York’s 46,400 undergraduate students and the programs, research, staff and faculty upon which they depend.

The vision of such an imbalanced Board is inevitably skewed by the interests of two (or three if engineering is counted) faculties accounting for less than 6% of undergraduate student enrollments, and by the attitudes and practices from the business and banking world that are inappropriate in the context of a public institution of higher learning.

York University cannot present itself as a progressive institution respectful of diversity, as it does on its website, when its own Board comes exclusively from big business and big finance and only 35% of its members are women, relegated to secondary roles.

The Board has direct oversight on a number of issues with important gender implications, including questions of safety, the prevention of sexual violence.

Given the gender imbalance in the composition of its Board, it is not surprising that York University has an abysmal record in terms of the prevention of violence against women.

But the gender imbalance of the Board has other far-reaching consequences.

Women still hold only 40% of faculty positions at Canadian universities  (https://www.univcan.ca/media-room/media-releases/percentage-female-faculty-canadian-universities-growing-statistics-canada/). If the Board is not even committed to having equal numbers of women and men among its members, how can it contribute to reducing the gender gap among faculty?

Statistics compiled by the Ontario Confederation of Faculty Associations (OCUFA) for the Ontario Gender Wage Gap Steering Committee show that there has been an increasing trend to precarious academic jobs and that women far more than men are trapped in such low-paying and insecure academic work:

“59.5% of contract faculty respondents were female, compared with 33.3% men (the remainder chose not to indicate their gender). Moreover, women were more likely to be among the ranks of precarious contract faculty (i.e. contract faculty who earn their main income from sessional instruction and aspire to have a full-time academic career) than

men, whereas men were more likely to find themselves among the ranks of classic contract faculty (i.e. retirees and professionals who engage in sessional instruction as a supplement to a separate career)” (https://ocufa.on.ca/assets/OCUFA-Submission-on-the-Gender-Wage-Gap-FINAL.pdf). Again, how can a Board that is not even to committed to ensuring its own gender balance equity be committed to reducing the gender gap caused by the precarization of academic work?

Finally and of great concern, the exclusively corporate background of Board members has led to sustained pressures to change the administrative culture at York University from the open, transparent and democratic culture required for public accountability to a narrow, opaque and outdated authoritarian culture not even effective anymore in business contexts. The Board is seeking to control the University as though it were the CEO, and the university, its company.

This is approach is leading to other important infringements of the York University Act. In the last Presidential Search, the Board usurped the power granted to the Senate under Article 12 of the York University Act to “make recommendations as to the appointment of the Chancellor and the President.”

Instead, it carried out a closed search, with little input from students, staff and faculty, under a Search Committee inappropriately chaired by the Board Chair, and unilaterally imposed the appointment of a candidate garnishing only 11% support from York’s faculty members (https://www.yufa.ca/yufa-poll-results-on-presidential-search/)

  1. Should the Ministry consider placing York University under supervision?

I do not believe that a public institution of higher learning such as a university should be run like a profit-making business, all the more so in the present context where businesses too often put short-term profit goals ahead of responsible citizenship.

A university has broad responsibilities to society to support a vibrant democracy and to ensure the development of a lively and diverse range of knowledge, responsibilities that cannot be contained in a profit-based perspective.

Universities offer students an environment for personal and professional growth, beyond the contents of specific courses.

University professors fulfil, on a voluntary basis, important social functions through informed comments in the public space on topics of public interest and concern, through key contributions to professional associations that regulate professional accreditation in the interest of the public, and through the public dissemination of scientific knowledge.

The current Board has persisted in its defiance of the By-laws requiring a broad community representation. It has not diminished its ruthless and unscrupulous efforts to impose an authoritarian control over the York University at the expense of recognised general social goals, such as gender equity and women’s safety, and in contravention of the York University Act. It is clearly unwilling and unable to commit to any significant reform.

For that reason, I see no other option than to request that your ministry consider placing York University temporarily under government supervision, disbanding the current illegitimate Board of Governors, annulling its appointment of Dr. Rhonda Lenton as President, and appointing an interim Chairperson of the Board of Governors.

The first tasked of the interim Chair should be to oversee a transparent process for the appointment of a new Board respectful of the rules set out in the York University Act (1965) and the By-laws of the Board of Governors. The first task of the new, duly constituted Board should be the conduct of an open search for a new President.

Your government has undertaken important measures to prevent violence against women, to improve gender equity and to assist Ontario universities to develop their excellence. I hope that the present plea will be well received.For ease of reading, I have also attached a PDF version.

Yours respectfully,
Agnes Whitfield, Ph.D., c. tran.
Professor/Professeure titulaire,
Department of English/Département d’études anglaises
York University/Université York, Toronto (Canada)
http://people.laps.yorku.ca/people.nsf/researcherprofile?readform&shortname=agnesw
Founding Director/Directrice fondatrice, Vita Traductiva
http://yfile.news.yorku.ca/2012/02/13/english-prof-launches-new-translation-studies-series/
Bilingual Joint Chair in Women’s Studies, Carleton University, University of Ottawa/Chaire conjointe bilingue en études des femmes, Université Carleton, Université d’Ottawa, 2009-2010
Virtual Scholar, Heritage Canada/Chercheure virtuelle, Patrimoine canadien, 2006-2007
Seagram Visiting Chair in Canadian Studies, McGill University/Chaire d’invité Seagram en études canadiennes, Université McGill, 2003-2004
Présidente, Association canadienne de traductologie /President, Canadian Association for Translation Studies, 1995-1999

 

Corporatization of Canadian universities leaves students and faculty on the brink Reply

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“At Carleton, one out of every five courses was taught by part-time faculty in 2003; by 2011, that number was one in three. Part-time contract appointments in the humanities and social sciences increased at York by 136 per cent from 2000 to 2010, including a gobsmacking 564 per cent in the English department. At Trent, part-time positions increased by 203 per cent; at the University of Toronto, 235 per cent.

The rates are consistent across all his data. In 2001, tenure-tracked appointments outnumbered contract faculty by one-quarter. By 2010, there was more part-time faculty than tenure-tracked. And the differences in salary, benefits, hours and job satisfaction are stark. ‘In no other occupation,’ Brownlee writes, ‘is there such a wide disparity between groups whose jobs and training are so similar.'” From Corporatization of Canadian universities leaves students and faculty on the brink, an article by Michael Stewart on Rabble.

The Essense of Corporate Education: Greed and more Greed Reply

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“Some of America’s greatest “school reformers” today (and by that I mean arrogant *&%$# like Bill Gates) insist that if we turn over the schools to corporations everything will turn out just great. Color me skeptical, I guess. As I see it, “corporate” is to “education” as “cigarette manufacturer” is to “public health and well-being.” Think that sounds harsh? Do a bit of digging and see what evidence you find.” The Essense of Corporate Education: Greed and more Greed, an article by John J. Viall.

‘How to Raise an Adult,’ by Julie Lythcott-Haims – The New York Times Reply

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“When did the central aim of parenting become preparing children for success? This reigning paradigm, which dictates that every act of nurturing be judged on the basis of whether it will usher a child toward a life of accomplishment or failure, embodies the fundamental insecurity of global capitalist culture, with its unbending fixation on prosperity and the future… Instead of allowing kids to experiment and learn from their mistakes, parents hover where they’re not wanted or welcome, accompanying children on school trips or shadowing them on campus. Caught up in what the author calls the “college admissions arms race,” parents treat securing their children a spot at one of 20 top schools… as an all-or-nothing proposition. Concerned about the effects of a flawed high school transcript, parents do their children’s homework, write or heavily edit their papers, fire questions at teachers, dispute grades and hire expensive subject tutors, SAT coaches and “private admissions consultants”. ‘How to Raise an Adult,’ by Julie Lythcott-Haims – a review by Heather Havrilesky.

The Neoliberal War on Higher Education – Twilight of the Professors Reply

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“Twenty-eight years ago Russell Jacoby argued that the post-WWII expansion of higher education in the U.S. absorbed a generation of radicals who opted to become professors rather than freelance intellectual troublemakers. Since Jacoby’s book was published, things have gotten worse. There are still plenty of left-leaning professors in U.S. colleges and universities. But as an employment sector, higher education has changed. There are now powerful conservatizing trends afoot that will likely lead to the extinction of professors as a left force in U.S. society within a few decades.” “The Neoliberal War on Higher Education – Twilight of the Professors” by Michael Schwalbe.