OPSEU Local 560

The faculty-only section dealt primarily with recent changes.  You’ll find it at questions 75 through 83.The first four questions dealt with change over the last five years.  Only 6% of faculty respondents saw improved quality in the teaching/learning environment, while 76% saw that it had diminished.

On questions about time for professional de-velopment, course review and development, and the conditions for developing and deliv-ering curriculum, over 70%  saw a turn for the worse.

When we look specifically at the more recent changes to seven-week courses and fourteen-week semesters, it gets worse!  Only 21 % believe the seven-week summer courses en-hance learning opportunities.  Seventy-nine percent do not.  And when shared delivery is considered, the number who see the fourteen-week summer semester as enhanc-ing learning drops to just 19%.

Only 4% of faculty responded that the se-mester changes improved the teach-ing/learning environment, while 79% percent say that is has diminished.

For most faculty, these figures will likely not be surprising.  But they fly in the face of the image of the College of the 21st Century.  How can quality possibly be maintained, let alone enhanced, under such conditions?
Excuses of budget limitations and new para-digms will not wash.

The survey reveals that faculty are commit-ted to their teaching, and desirous of im-proving standards and overall quality.  But faculty are clearly and undeniably hamstrung by decisions made at levels so far removed from the teaching/learning process that those who make them seem to have lost sight of reality.

There are successes in Seneca which rightly should be celebrated.  But there is also malaise, which if not addressed soon will be too hard to remedy.  And public relations papering-over will not solve these problems.

Relying on strong enrolment patterns, which reflect a great catchment area, and a strong history, will not provide long-term health.

The survey can be a useful tool.  Holding one of those magnifying  mirrors up to one’s face can be an unnerving experience.  The view may well be kind of scary.  And some would rather just say that the mirror must be distorted; or that those holding it must have treacherous motives.

It takes courage to act.  Those who have the power must be willing to find root causes of problems and then deal with them. 

Article 11 in our current collective agreement, effective Sept. 1, 1996 - August 31, 2001, governs our workload. No changes were made to this article even though management attempted to force concessions during the last round of bargaining.
According to Article 11.02 A 1 (a), "Prior to the establishment of a total workload for any teacher, the supervisor shall discuss the proposed workload with the teacher and complete the SWF... The supervisor shall give a copy to the teacher not later than six weeks prior to the beginning of the period covered by the timetable excluding holidays and vacations. It is recognized that if the SWF is subsequently revised by the College, it will not be done without prior consultation with the teacher." Any violation of this Article can be dealt with at the Workload Monitoring Group (WMG).

Things to look for when you receive your SWF :

1. Weekly hours attributed for preparation of different course types: There are seven possible course types you may have on your SWF. Each type has a different factor, which when multiplied by the number of teaching contact hours, gives the attributed hours for preparation for that course.
To ensure that your course is being allotted the appropriate "type" designation and factor, see Article 11.01 D 1, D 3, or forward your SWF to the WMG for review.

2. Weekly hours attributed for evaluation and feedback: There are three types of evaluation and feedback (Essay or Project, Routine or Assisted and In-Process). Recently, the college has reduced the percentage of Essay or Project type of evaluation and feedback on the SWF. Check yours for accuracy. For a complete description of the three types of evaluation, see Article 11.01 E 2. A factor is assigned to each type and multiplied by the number of students and the number of teaching contact hours to give the weekly hours attributed for evaluation and feedback on the SWF. See Article 11.01 E 1.

3. Compare the number of students in your class with the class size recorded on your SWF. After the last day for withdrawal of registration, which is ten days after the start of each semester, you can request a review of your student numbers. If your actual student numbers in any class exceed what your SWF indicates, your SWF needs to be revised. This may put you in an overtime situation. See Article 11.01 E 3.

 4. Number of Sections and Different Course preparations: The number of sections taught in any semester should not exceed six. The number of different course preparations should not exceed four.

5. Timetable considerations: Article 11.02 A 5 states "... a Timetable form...shall be given to the teacher no less than two weeks prior to the beginning of the period covered by the timetable, which shall be the same period as that covered by the SWF."  Article 11.01 L 1 states " The contact day shall not exceed eight hours from the beginning of the first assigned hour to the end of the last assigned hour."

6. Complementary Functions:  The Back of the SWF: All time for necessary meetings has to be attributed on an hour-for-hour basis. According to Article 11.01 F, "an allowance of a minimum of five hours of the 44 hour maximum weekly total workload shall be attributed as follows:  -three hours for routine, out-of-class assistance to individual students. - two hours for normal administrative tasks" Examples of  "normal  administrative  tasks" include filing papers, completing surveys, recording grades, etc. No assigned work, including time for meetings, can be included by the College as part of these five hours. Any work on College committees should be credited on an hour-for-hour basis, including curriculum review or development.

7. Overtime:  Any overtime is voluntary and will be recorded on the SWF. Working overtime can reduce the number of faculty positions. Any agreement to work overtime should be considered very carefully in light of the potential impact on a colleague's employment and the number of Faculty, Librarian or Counsellor positions in a department.
If you have any concerns regarding your workload, contact any member of the Workload Monitoring Group. The Local 560 members serving on this committee are: Paul Matson, Ext. 2434, Josef Stavroff, Ext. 2208, and Carol Williams, Ext. 2266.

You may have noticed a change in the content of the articles appearing in the union newsletter. This occurred as a result of a decision made last spring by the LEC to strike a communications subcommittee for the purpose of producing the newsletter. Collectively, it was decided that the process of determining what goes into the newsletter should be made more open and inclusionary to the membership. In these times of rapid and frequent change in the last few years in the college, including the introduction of a third teaching semester, the use of peer tutors and computer-based instruction to replace faculty, faculty evaluation, performance indicators, private/public partnerships, and the decrease in the full-time faculty complement and professional and development resources, it was thought to be important for faculty to have a forum to obtain information and exchange points of view about these vital issues.

Soliciting articles from faculty about the concerns in their academic areas and asking various people in different geographic locations on various campuses to inform us about their work environments seemed to be an addition that was needed in the composition of the union newsletter. Inviting letters from faculty to comment about educational issues in the college and the larger community was also viewed by the committee as important in encouraging dialogue. While material submitted will be reviewed by the committee, it is intended that a variety of faculty positions will be circulated, with the only proviso that it is in accord with union philosophy. The committee reserves the right to edit for length, clarity and libel.

YOU ARE INVITED TO GET INVOLVED AND CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR UNION NEWSLETTER. PLEASE SEND ARTICLES, OR DROP A LINE COMMENTING ON ISSUES THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO YOU. 

At Seneca and other community colleges, professionalism and collegiality were never taken seriously by senior administrators who gleefully adopted an "industrial model" of labour relations. Faculty were employees, pure and simple, and had privileges only at the pleasure of management. Notions of "academic freedom" and "faculty empowerment" were derisively dismissed. Still, there was some flexibility. At Seneca, much of what happened in the classroom was left to the discretion of teachers (as long as they did not claim their authority as a right). That was then; this is now.

Today, several trends beg examination. Enrolments are up. Faculty workload is up. Bureaucracy is centralized. Faculty evaluation is … well, the less said the better. And curriculum is one of the casualties. For some years, many of us have been distressed by the concerted efforts of publishers to "dumb-down" textbooks. Now, we are being forced to dumb-down curriculum. Teaching more with less and in less time may appeal to the quantitatively minded, but it simply doesn’t work. Clever initiatives such as the current six mini-semester system may look good on a spreadsheet, but anyone modestly concerned with quality will know this is a shell game. Management has at last decided to get its fingers into day-to-day teaching, and the prospects for education are awful.

One part of the problem is the new approach to professional development. Professional development was once carried out by academic divisions. Faculty and "front-line" supervisors determined appropriate activities which were commonly completed to the satisfaction of all. Now, the Centre for Teaching and Learning is the clearing house for all professional development. I am happy to say that a grievance I initiated has removed the mandatory filing of professional development plans; however, as we move into an era when "customer satisfaction" replaces educational credibility as the criterion of success in colleges, we can expect more sinister strategies to emerge.

Professional development projects increasingly encourage efforts to put course material "on line" and to eviscerate genuine education with "learning outcomes." Teachers who actually challenge students may find themselves in professional development programs aimed at their rehabilitation. And, if professional development is ever effectively linked with faculty evaluation, especially in the context of provincially mandated "key performance indicators," any thought we might give to the curriculum as the "soul" of the college will be purely for entertainment as gallows humour. As usual, the best defence against tyranny is democracy. Perhaps establishing professional development committees in each Faculty or School would be a useful tactic; if nothing else, it would make it necessary to dismantle these groups in order for management to impose its will. There is an opportunity here to reclaim what was traditionally ours before it is fully, formally and finally taken from us. 

The record of injustices perpetrated by these tribunals has been described in various books (The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on American Campuses by Kors and Silvergiate  (1998)  Zero Tolerance: Hot Button Politics in Canada's Universities by Emberly (1996), and many newspaper articles.  On July 18, 1997, a Globe and Mail editorial stated that such cases revealed "a disturbing lack of respect in academic institutions for due process and the rule of law".  A university professor conversant with several notorious cases was quoted as saying "administrators [dealing with these cases] tend to witch hunt and have knee-jerk reactions rather than following proper legal procedures."

One institution in particular, Simon Fraser University, gained notoriety in 1997 for a number of decisions made by its boards of inquiry (as these tribunals are usually called). That same institution, however, in 1998 promulgated a Human Rights Code that could serve as a model for an enlightened approach to the protection of human rights in academic institutions.  The new Simon Fraser code effectively dealt with many of the problems created by the short-sighted and dangerous interpretations by its boards of the poorly-drafted previous policy.  It is important that the Seneca policy also prevent or minimize these potential abuses.  As presently formulated, it fails to do so.

There are several basic problems with these poorly drafted codes and the way that they are interpreted and applied.  First, these policy enactments are worded and interpreted to infringe upon such cherished values as academic freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of thought — freedoms that have usually been considered important in academic institutions.
The Seneca College policy sets out what are called prohibited grounds (twenty of them, including race, ancestry, place of origin, ethnic origin, creed, sex, age, marital status, disability, union membership, political affiliation etc.). The policy then defines harassment as "a course of vexatious comments or conduct related to a prohibited ground that is known, or might reasonably be known to be unwelcome/unwanted, [or] offensive... which adversely affects the academic status of the individual."  In addition, there is also a prohibition against "creating a poisoned environment" which is created by "offensive comments based on a prohibited ground...". The complainant does not have to be a direct target to be adversely affected…"

Consider the ramifications of this policy.  A teacher in a General Education class, during lectures pertaining to political systems, disparages neo-conservative ideology (ideas which might happen to form the platform of a particular political party), in order to provoke thought and stimulate classroom discussion.  Or to use another example, a teacher requires students to learn the theory of evolution.  In the first example, the teacher knows or might reasonably be taken to know that such remarks are or might be offensive to some students who belong to or favour such a party.  In the second example, the discussion might be offensive to people who hold a religious belief in creationism.  If these students were hypersensitive or rigid in their views, they might not feel comfortable because they might not understand or appreciate the intent of the teacher.  They might not perform well on their tests, and might attribute this result to the discomfort created by their teacher.

The remarks would amount to a violation of Seneca's policy, should such students choose to complain.  If you consider that the purpose of education is to expand and broaden a student's mind and to develop critical and analytical skills, then the Seneca policy violates this pedagogical purpose.  The policy would severely hamper a teacher's ability to carry on a free-wheeling classroom discussion on a wide range of topics pertaining to politics, history, religion, marriage, divorce, unions, age differences, sex, children, parents etc. ... for fear of the possibility of offending students who come to the class with any number of preconceived views or opinions and a variety of temperaments.

The new Simon Fraser University policy avoids this problem.  Its definition of personal harassment includes the following: "Behaviour directed towards a person which serves no legitimate purpose; and would be considered by a reasonable person to create an intimidating, humiliating, or hostile work or teaming environment... " (emphasis my own).  There is no protection against conduct that is simply "unwelcome, unwanted, or offensive", except in the area of sexual harassment.
In the opening principles section, the enactment further states, "This policy will not be applied to infringe [on] academic freedom... [which] involves the right to criticize the University and society at large.  The frank discussion of controversial ideas... and the study, and teaching of material with controversial content do not constitute harassment".

At Simon Fraser University, the teacher in the above illustration would not be found guilty of harassment, provided he/she was simply carrying out his/her teaching function, and (depending on the circumstances) the student's complaint would not likely be considered reasonable if the professor's purpose was being carried out in a justifiable manner.  Unlike the Seneca policy, the values of academic freedom, freedom of speech and thought, and the education function of the institution would not be ignored.  The tribunal would be required to look at the context of the situation and consider the various rights and freedoms involved.

There is an almost automatic assumption encouraged by the wording of Seneca's policy that anyone accused of harassment based on a prohibited ground is guilty.  The policy omits any "reasonable person" standard in the definition of harassment by which to measure the rationality of the complaint; it prohibits statements which are "unwelcome" and "offensive" to the complainant (a prohibition which is inappropriate in an educational milieu, except perhaps for harassment of a sexual nature); it omits any "legitimate purpose" test which is essential to safeguarding the educational process; it pays lip service to but fails to protect academic freedom; and it ignores freedom of speech and opinion.
Instead of the definition of harassment requiring that the conduct complained of be considered as intimidating etc. to a reasonable person, it is only the complainant’s subjective reaction that counts, however distorted or unreasonable that might be.  Omitting the "reasonable person" requirement opens the door to a professor being made the victim of a student suffering from hypersensitivity, paranoia or misinterpretation.

Requiring the comments or conduct to simply be "unwelcome, unwanted or offensive" rather than meeting the more severe "intimidating, hostile or humiliating" standard is also short sighted and dangerous.  Acquiring a liberal education is not always a comfortable process for a student.  If an academic institution is considered to be a marketplace for information, ideas, points of view, and opinions, a place where students might be introduced to new ideas or ideas that run counter to their preconceptions, predilections or prejudices, then prohibiting ideas that individuals might find offensive, unwelcome or unwanted would run counter to the purposes of the institution.  Ideas that are novel or that challenge their preconceptions may often be disturbing and unwelcome to a student.  That is why prohibiting ideas that are unwelcome or offensive interferes with the educational process.  And that is why the policy's prohibitions should be directed only towards conduct or comments that would in the specific circumstances be considered to be humiliating, hostile, or intimidating and where there would be no legitimate educational purpose being served by such remarks.

It is true that the Seneca decision maker is allowed in the procedural section of the policy to reject the complaint if he or she finds it to be frivolous, vexatious or in bad faith.  But these concepts can be interpreted to apply solely to the motive or purpose for the complaint.

The existing policy requires that if the complainant was genuinely offended or humiliated by a statement that could conceivably be interpreted by this complainant as offensive and related to a prohibited ground, then the student's complaint must be upheld, even if such a statement would not normally in the circumstances have been considered intimidating, hostile or humiliating to a reasonable person.  The reasonableness of the complainant's reaction is of course, not a definitional requirement of harassment in Seneca College's policy.

A complaint would be considered frivolous or vexatious if the decision maker finds that the complainant was not serious or genuine in making the allegation, but had some ulterior motive or simply desired to cause trouble.  The policy bolsters this interpretation when it states that a complaint found to be frivolous or vexatious is an abuse of the policy, may invite sanctions, and would be subjected to the same process as a complaint.  A complainant would not likely be subjected to this treatment if "frivolous" was considered equivalent to merely "unreasonable".  The former concept denotes an element of mischief worthy of sanctions, the latter concept does not.

The Seneca policy does indicate that it is intended to "foster a balance between academic freedom and freedom from discrimination/harassment", but compare the wording of Simon Fraser's policy with that of Seneca's policy.  Simon Fraser's policy defines what is meant by academic freedom and how this
principle will limit findings of harassment.  Seneca's policy does not do either of these things, but instead obfuscates the meaning of the term.  There is a reference to protecting the use of materials, but strangely no reference to protecting statements, discussion, ideas, or teaching.

Space does not permit me to deal with difficulties created by the policy that present unnecessary obstacles to the student with a legitimate complaint, such as the obtuse requirement relating to "academic status" in the definition of harassment. A student should not have to show poor marks or failure in order to complain about vexatious statements associated with a prohibited ground that are humiliating, intimidating, or hostile.