Correction: The lobbyist mentioned under ‘The Campaign’ is jointly funded by both the Town of Athabasca and Athabasca County.
Recently, the Alberta government announced a major initiative to recentre Athabasca University in the Athabasca area. This follows a decade of steady job losses in the region and an extensive lobbying campaign run by town locals, originally started by AUFA and AUPE. AU President Peter Scott has responded to this initiative defiantly, making it clear that the university intends to continue a “near-virtual” plan that would see all staff work from home.
Background
In 2015, AUFA identified the gradual loss of professional and excluded positions in the Athabasca area. Although there had been a mass exodus of academics from Athabasca over ten years previous, this was offset by rapid hiring to other positions at AU. The job losses were triggered by 2013 layoffs which primarily targeted Athabascans, and a subsequent recovery that was entirely in Edmonton. While AU’s overall employee numbers grew, Athabasca’s shrank. Since 2012, AUFA’s professional complement in Athabasca has shrunk by 39%.
After Neil Fassina’s hiring as the first President to not live in Athabasca, AU’s senior leadership (directors, deputies, AVPs, executve) were hired out of town, or moved to join their colleagues. In 2016, 18/25 or 72% of senior leaders were in Athabasca. As of now, it is 5/35 or 14%, despite adding ten more management jobs. Part of the plan of the new executive was a virtual campus where positions would slowly move to work-from-home.
COVID-19 accelerated these plans as almost all AU staff began work from home. This allowed AU to simply cancel any plans to return to offices, and divest itself of its physical locations. As of now the Edmonton and Calgary offices have been permanently shuttered save for one floor with drop-in spaces in Edmonton. It should be noted that this is not without controversy as a complete lack of communications to staff and students over the future of exam invigilation, and a complete lack of awareness of FST programs that require in-person labs has complicated matters. Governing all of this is an expected work from home policy, which AU has been promising for at least two years now.
It should be noted that working from home is broadly popular and many AUFA members have been positively impacted by the shift. At the same time there is a significant minority who are adversely impacted by the forced work from home due to home life situation, lack of office space, or bad internet. Many people took jobs at AU on the expectation they’d have an office.
The campaign
AUFA and AUPE local 69 began campaigning on keeping jobs in Athabasca with a request that future positions be posted to the town. The campaign was successful in raising awareness, but it was not successful in keeping jobs in town. However once it became clear that the executives had left town, a town advocacy group was created to lobby for the cause. The lobbying was publicly funded by both the Town and County, involved several connected conservatives, and hiring a lobbyist who had a long history with Premier Kenney.
The jobs mandate
On March 24th, the Premier, Minister of Advanced Education, and Minister of Agriculture and Forestry all attended a packed town hall in Athabasca. There, they announced the following:
That Athabasca residents would be appointed to the Board of Governors
That the AU Board must develop and implement a comprehensive talent development, attraction, and retention strategy by June 30th to maintain and grow a range of employees in Athabasca
That the AU Board must develop and implement a reopening strategy to resume most employees working onsite
To allow public access to services such as registries, student support, and specialized services
This was a complete reversal of all AU plans since Fassina became President. Notably, no representatives from Athabasca University attended the town hall.
I met with Minister Nicolaides on April 26th who provided further details:
There is no interest in forced relocation of AUFA members
Those who are in Athabasca should receive incentives of some form for the university to determine
This approach will likely take time
A priority in the mandate is to re-centre AU’s senior leadership in Athabasca
AU’s Response
AU’s current administration have made the ‘near-virtual’ campus a top priority and the Board of Governors approved a strategic plan which would permanently move most staff to work from home. Although originally there was discussion of a hybrid model in the Athabasca area, it is clear those offices were intended for partial or complete closure as well. The announcement of the Premier clearly caught AU Executive off guard.
After an initial response that said very little, Peter Scott said the following in a letter to AU staff:
… Consequently, we have received several inquiries from AU team members regarding reports of these [The Minister’s] comments. I would like to underline that our operations, mission, and mandate remain unchanged.
AU’s mandate, developed by the Board of Governors in consultation with the Minister of Advanced Education, provides the direction under which the Board is obligated to manage and operate the university under the Post-secondary Learning Act [PSLA s.60(1)(a)]. AU is leading the future of open and accessible education and our mandate and direction are clear. We are committed to “…open access and digitally enabled lifelong learning [as] … Canada’s only public and research-intensive university offering fully accredited distributed learning from its online virtual campus.”
…The university has been clear in every meeting with the Government of Alberta, the town and county councils of Athabasca, and local community members that AU has no plans to leave the community, that we are reaffirming our primary physical location is in Athabasca by ending office leases in Calgary and Edmonton, and that we will continue to give preference to suitably qualified candidates for both place-based and virtual roles who live in, or are interested in moving to, the Athabasca region.
The gist of the above message is a hard ‘no’ to the government’s order, relying on the notion that AU’s near-virtual plan is a part of its mandate and thus can’t be changed. This is incorrect, although it is definitely problematic for a government to allow an updated institutional mandate and then overrule it, it is completely within their legislative power to do so.
Further comment from President Scott at the last General Faculties Council underlined his full intention to resist the government mandate, leaning heavily on the concept of institutional autonomy and openly insulting the Premier and Minister of Advanced Education. Although every faculty association has been encouraging its administration to stand up to the government for decades, the President’s hypocrisy is troubling.
Autonomy
Institutional autonomy is an important concept in universities and is tied heavily with concepts of collegial governance and academic freedom. If a university is too beholden to a government, it compromises the integrity of the academic mission. Interference in internal operations prevents a university from being a true place of learning, and instead corrupting it to a political tool of the government.
A February 25th email from President Scott underlines his enthusiasm for this kind of university:
On a positive note, it is really heartening to see in the provincial budget a focus on "powering up" the Alberta 2030: Skills for Jobs agenda. The government has come forward with a future-facing plan that includes targeted opportunities over the next three years for Alberta’s post-secondary institutions to compete for new initiative funding.
Work-integrated learning, for example, is a key component of the plan, so government is proposing increased work placement support in a broad range of industries experiencing skills shortages. At AU, we know many of our learners are already focused on the world of work, balancing careers, family, and education; so, this should be an area in which we might think creatively.
Where was the President’s defiance at this point? Not only is the extent to which AU’s budget been cut still kept secret, but the current Alberta government is openly trying to rebuild the post-secondary sector in their party vision. Massive cuts to almost all PSEs followed by new money tied to metrics is a deliberate attempt to reshape the teaching and research into job creation, which is a complete misread of the purpose of a university. This gross violation of institutional autonomy was cheerlead by President Scott.
The location of a university’s buildings and jobs is not within the spirit of institutional autonomy. Grande Prairie Regional College could not close its campus and move to Edmonton and then cry foul if the government intervened. Universities are public works projects and placing them in key locations to boost the economy is the normal function of a government. Ensuring they stay there is similarly just as normal.
AUFA’s Position
Since 2015, AUFA has held a position that Athabasca University should at minimum maintain or at best expand its presence in the Town of Athabasca.
With regards to working in-office, AUFA’s position is that it should be down to member choice. As the UCP has mentioned there should be inducements to work in Athabasca, these inducements should be tied to required in-office hours at the campus. Members who wish to work entirely from home, regardless of location, can forego the inducements. Those who do not wish to be affected by this change, should not be.
Any administrative plans that may change the working conditions of our members should be done through thorough consultation with the union, and in compliance with our collective agreement.
Why AUFA holds this position
This issue primarily affects Athabasca members, who have repeatedly supported this position
An overall majority of AUFA members has supported some continuing hiring in the town
This is a unified issue with AUPE Local 69, and brings the two unions closer together
The position can be supported without adversely affecting members outside of Athabasca
AU is the top employer in Athabasca, as jobs leave the quality of life for the remaining AUFA members will suffer
The desire for administration to run a fully online workplace is tied to a desire for increased casualization, contracting out, and other forms of union-busting
AU is a less appealing target for government cuts when it is tied to a small town that has swung both Conservative and NDP
What happens next?
The UCP have already made good on their promise on the Board of Governors and have appointed three people tied to the Athabasca region to the board. Although AU has signalled it will resist this move, it is unlikely the AU Executive can do so permanently. The AU executive is hired by the Board of Governors, the Board of governors is determined by the ministry.
It is difficult to determine where this will land. However, the complete defiance of the government is an unusual, and highly risky thing for a university executive to do. One of the reasons why university Presidents so openly support bad government policy like metrics-based funding, is they know it is political folly to talk back. A more conventional political strategy would be to say little and then do the bare minimum to get the government off their backs. Open defiance may carry consequences and if President Scott is not careful, he may dig himself a hole so deep he finds himself back in Australia.
Dave Powell
President
Athabasca University Faculty Association