In collective bargaining, both AUFA and AU have proposed changes to the current academic and professional freedom language. Earlier this week, AUFA provided details about these proposals. In short:
AUFA has proposed extending full academic freedom to professional members.
AU has proposed eliminating professional freedom entirely.
AU has also proposed narrowing academic freedom.
AUFA polled its members. There were 143 responses (so 34.1% of members voted). The results are:
86.0% supported AUFA’s proposal to extend full academic freedom to professionals.
97.9% opposed AU’s proposal to eliminate professional freedom.
98.6% opposed AU’s proposal to narrow academic freedom.
Member comments about these proposals included:
Yet another tone-deaf proposal from an executive that has no effing idea how universities work. We should resist these proposals, by striking if necessary, but really we need to get rid of all of the VPs and the acting president. These people are completely unqualified to run this place. How could the VPA sign off on reducing academic freedom? How can two associate VPs sit on the employer team and propose changes so antithetical to what being a university means?
Once again, a pattern is clearly showing of (1) AU attempting to split the union by further separating the rights of professional and academic staff and (2) putting provisions in place that would make it easier for AU to attack and discipline staff at their own discretion for something as simple as being critical of the institution, or whatever else the employer may find objectionable.
To quote Nick Driedger from 2019 (https://aufa.ca/blog/2019/1/29/why-is-the-employer-acting-this-way): "Many comments made both at and away from the bargaining table indicate that the employer desires a greater degree of control over the workforce. … As it stands, the employer has said they feel the protections for academic freedom at AU are too strong and have signalled that this may be a place they want to seek concessions from the union in future. They intend to start with professional freedom and then roll academic freedoms back from there. … It is absolutely baffling that an employer who is doing so well would jeopardize all of this progress simply to “fix” something that is clearly not broken."
Why do they even bring these silly proposals forward? Is it an attempt to distract attention from other, less over-the-top diminishments?
Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.
Been here for 15 years now and every year it seems my employer wants to constantly beat me down.
Academic freedom IS NOT NEGOTIABLE. Period. The employer lacks the moral and intellectual credibility to make these suggestions. Extending academic freedom to everyone is overdue and it is refreshing to see this initiative. We have endured blows from the other side for too long.
Where is the fear coming from that drives these changes in proposals? Is AU not doing something right that the AU Community will protest?? Just a rhetorical question.
Is there even a leadership left to bargain with? It seems that they've all but disappeared in the last month - radio silence all around. Of course they want to curtail academic freedom as part of their pitch, you wouldn't want anyone to say the wrong thing.
AU might want to take a refresher spin through their "I-Care" values located in their "Imagine" plan.... “We are guided by ethics, honesty, and fairness in all our actions, engendering trust within our University community." NOT.
Stand firm on not eroding academic freedom - that’s a slippery slope we don’t want to start sliding down.
Why does the administration choose now, this round, to attack academic freedom? It suggests they may be up to stuff that may not stand the scrutiny of institutional criticism...
These proposals from AU are embarrassing. If implemented, these policies would create the widespread public impression (and, indeed, likely the reality) that AU is not a real university.
This is a very slippery slope; without academic freedom, academic and professional staff would be subject to 'flavour of the month' as determined by AU leadership as to what they can write, say, protest, and communicate. Academic freedom without punishment and loss of job is the very cornerstone upon which post-secondary education sits upon. We, in Alberta, are seeing what the current UCP government is proposing to do with elementary school curriculum; I shudder to think of how they would like to control what we teach and think.
If AU succeeds in dividing academics from professionals, we would all go down together.
This is an insulting and demoralizing action. You would think that a PSI would support and encourage professionals to not only achieve higher education but also to conduct research and publish as a way to enhance the professional's role and value while also increasing the university's status and reputation. Treating professionals as 'less than' employees who SHOULD not increase their skills or add to the research and publication pool is contradictory to what a PSI is intended for. We are not a corporation; we are a place for learning, research, and the dissemination of knowledge.
I do not understand the rationale behind AU's proposal to eliminate professional freedom. All of their bargaining proposals are insulting to professional members.
Academic freedom is a cornerstone of AU's organizational culture. For that culture to thrive its members require a circle of safety to hold the university to account for its actions. Academic freedom is integral to what it means to be a university. AU-values name integrity as its pre-eminent value because, without it, academic freedom and the university will not thrive. … The proposal to carve off the professionals is a non-starter.
@#$ executive's #$@#$ transparent attempt to @#$#@ undermine academic freedom and make us into compliant little cogs in the neo-liberal system of exploitation. We see what you are trying to do and we don't like it. #$$$@#$'s
AU seems to want the right to commercialize education.
Academic freedom is the very foundation of the university in today's society. This would mean that a Board under pressure from a government or corporation or corporate donor could censure academic or professional staff. This is a line in the sand.
Institutionalized censorship? Come on AU; what century and in which country do you think we are in?
Narrowing academic freedom undermines the quality of academic contribution and the status of professors in the eyes of students and society, in the long run this eroding of status will be detrimental to the institution as our independence is part of how we can create help the university create value reputational, educational and $.
When it comes to academic freedom, I ask for a full stop to AU's non-sense. This is NOT a privately funded university, it is publicly funded. As such, AU can't just do whatever the fuck it wants. I pay taxes, and I want academics to be able to speak about AU management's stupidity.
The AU bargaining team must be made to appreciate just how fundamentally important academic freedom is to the integrity of the institution's reputation, the ability to attract quality scholars to the various faculties, and more broadly to the production of knowledge and teaching in Canadian society.
Once academic freedom is narrowed or eliminated, fear will come. Fear will spread and impede creativity.
I had thought Academic freedom was designed to give freedom of inquiry by putting removing targeted repression of that inquiry. So it seems they would like us to think we have freedom but be able to pull out the violation card whenever they want. Okay, I'm not going to say anything under that then. And now we are back at the absence of freedom. Absence of inquiry results in poor decisions.
I've noticed that this trend towards silencing us has resulted in us being afraid to mention facts. In turn, it's pretty regular for decisions get made poorly because they are made without those pertinent facts. In one major case, we had a good deal of work done by a lot of staff before those facts just came out themselves (but just barely). Consequently, the top manager immediately reversed the untenable decision. The damage of lost time investment was already incurred. This isn't good for any of us.
Once again, the employer… [has] proposed restrictions and in this case aspects that are fundamental to the centuries old societal expectations of the role of a RESEARCH UNIVERSITY. Being critical, including that of your university employer is the ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY of people who work at a RESEARCH UNIVERSITY. However, as the very audacity of AU's proposal on this topic suggests without contractual and therefore legal protections, one is likely hesitant to speak TRUTH to POWER. Once again AU's strategy is to waste time and energy of everyone involved hoping to wear AUFA members down. It is once again further evidence of their disrespectful, loathsome and anti-intellectual stance towards the individuals that actually "do" the work of the university.
This poll suggests that there is strong support for extending academic freedom to professionals. AUFA’s proposal reflects the fact that professional staff engage in many of the duties traditionally associated with academic work at AU and deserve the same protections presently enjoyed by professors and academic coordinators.
This poll also suggests that there is no appetite for the elimination of professional freedom or the narrowing of academic freedom. It is difficult to Imagine that AUFA’s bargaining team could get an agreement that contained AU’s proposals ratified by the AUFA membership.
Bob Barnetson, Chair
Job Action Committee