It has been a long two weeks for faculty and staff at Athabasca University. The university executive is engaged in a high-profile, media-heavy battle with the Ministry of Advanced Education over questions relating to where and how staff and faculty do their jobs, with the threat of loss of funding. While it seems that recently there has been a slight thaw in relations, both sides have acted extremely recklessly. Having this fight out in the open and without consultation has needlessly caused significant stress and concern for faculty, staff, and students as once again this successful and important university is making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
So far, this fight has generally been framed as a zero-sum game, with the AU administration’s “near-virtual” plan on the one hand and, on the other, the Ministry’s unreasonable demands for both jobs in the region and bums in seats on campus. However, we have seen a number of distinct issues being conflated: relocation, recruitment, and work from home policies. This blog post seeks to pull at some of these threads before seeking to reframe the issue entirely.
AUFA makes the following commitments in regards to this controversy:
AUFA rejects forced relocations of AUFA members and our colleagues in other unions.
AUFA will continue to advocate for increased hiring to the Athabasca area.
AUFA will advocate for staff to have agency and flexibility to work in ways that empower them to do their best work. This includes both working from home and having access to office space.
Relocation
The Ministry has said publicly that they want AU to submit a plan to the Minister by September 30th to have 65% of staff living in Athabasca within two years. Although the Minister has since said that they are open to discussion on this number, the desire for staff to live in Athabasca remains. Minister Nicolaides has since said that at the bare-minimum they would like to see senior executives and administrative staff to be based in town.
It isn’t yet clear who might be included in a focus on “administrative staff.” As we have already shared, AUFA will use every tool at our disposal to resist any forced relocations of AUFA members. Defending the rights of members is part of our core purpose as a union, and we all benefit from both our contractual protections as well as the solidarity of our fellow members.
The demand from the Ministry for the executive team of the university to relocate is a distinct issue. Most recently, some AU staff and executives have said they would not continue at AU if they were forced to relocate. It is not AUFA’s role to take a position on whether they should indeed be required to move. We can only hope that this one issue affecting a handful of top executives isn’t something that puts the university as a whole in jeopardy.
Bottom line: AUFA rejects forced relocations of AUFA members and our colleagues in other unions.
Recruitment
The idea of requiring some or all new positions to be based out of Athabasca has also been raised as a part of this battle between executive and Ministry. In an effort to understand how AUFA members feel about this, we included some questions on the most recent membership engagement survey (conducted in early June).
The survey asked members whether they supported AUFA’s current position that, while no current AUFA member should be forced to relocate, AU should make an effort to hire a portion of new staff to the Athabasca area. To this, 65% of respondents said yes, 15% said no, and 19% had another response. Given that several of the comments for the ‘other’ responses did clearly line up with a yes or no answer, the percentages are closer to 73% (this is the number reported in an earlier blog post, which has been updated with a clarification), 16% no, and 11% unsure. The survey also asked members whether they thought AUFA should take a position on this issue at all. The results were very similar: 67% yes, 13% no, 20% other.
Bottom line: AUFA will continue to advocate for increased hiring to the Athabasca area.
Please note that, with this position, AUFA has never advocated that all new positions should be based in the region.
While the survey was conducted in June, the comments from members on this question reflect many of the varied arguments made in the context of the recent media storm. This broad range of perspectives suggests that there are many layers to the question of whether and how to recruit to the region. It is clear that there is much more going on behind the simplistic claim we have seen repeated or implied: that it’s somehow impossible to recruit competent, qualified, and talented people to the area. This stance reveals offensive assumptions and judgments about the region, and often the whole of rural Alberta by extension.
For those less familiar with the long history of this issue, it’s important to point out that AU has not made good-faith, well-resourced efforts to recruit to the region. Instead, there’s been a slow trickle of jobs leaving the community as vacancies and new positions are filled elsewhere. This was a clear trend well before COVID, which only accelerated the shift. It seems that AU has assumed that the “best and the brightest” do not or would not want to live in Athabasca, rather than work collaboratively with residents, staff, or potential employees to encourage and support living in the area. More broadly, HR’s practices with respect to where staff are located seem to vary widely, with little consistency for even broader questions such as who is required to live in Alberta versus elsewhere in Canada.
Recruitment is complex, and very few AU staff would claim that all positions can and must be filled in the Athabasca region. But there is so much room for much more thoughtful, equitable, and consistent hiring practices at AU that could seek to balance concrete commitment to the region with the specific needs and priorities of faculties, departments, and teams. There is also plenty of room to explore specific incentives that might tip the balance in favour of moving to or staying in the region for both current and prospective employees.
Working from home
Finally, questions of relocation and recruitment have been conflated with the “near-virtual” policy. While there is a lot of rhetoric associated with this policy in terms of the way the university’s long-term future might be shaped, in concrete terms it is about increasing the portion of staff working from home. It is quite separate from questions of recruitment, as there’s no inherent contradiction between hiring to the region and supporting staff to work from home if they choose to. Even still, we have heard a lot of complaints about the “near-virtual” policy, ranging from anger about what is essentially a different form of forced relocation by not allowing staff to work in office, to general agreement with the overall aims coupled with frustration with the decision-making process and specific implementation details, as well as then insufficient support for working from home including things like office set up, supplies, and ergonomic support.
Again, this is a many-layered issue that is being reduced to simplistic rhetoric on both sides of the current spat. On one hand, the Ministry seems interested in getting most or all staff back to working on campus full time. On the other hand, the university executive is misrepresenting the policy and the results of a highly constrained and problematic survey process (e.g., there was no truly hybrid option on the table). Neither of these positions is helpful. Dictating that staff must work on campus or, alternatively, limiting their access to the campus, does nothing to improve morale or productivity. Instead, staff should have agency and flexibility to work in ways that empower them to do their best work in the service of students.
Still, it is true that there is a palpable absence of people and energy on the Athabasca campus. This is the result of both COVID restrictions and longer term trends in where in-person university activities are based. But, again, dictates from on high about where daily work must be done will do little to remedy this. Instead, the university should be exploring creative ways to encourage and support faculty, staff, and students to connect with each other at AU’s home base. We are hopeful that there will be at least some positive developments in this vein when plans for the space are shared at the General Faculties Council meeting this Thursday afternoon. These meetings are open for guests to attend as observers (with no voice or vote); interested members and colleagues should contact their GFC rep for meeting details.
Bottom line: AUFA will advocate for staff to have agency and flexibility to work in ways that empower them to do their best work. This includes both working from home and having access to office space.
Reframing the issue
Clearly, these distinct yet connected issues have deep roots, complex histories, varied perspectives, and, crucially, many opportunities for positive and long-term resolution. Despite how it has been framed, this is not actually a zero-sum situation. It is very possible to balance the agency and rights of existing staff, the long-term growth and sustainability of the university, and the long-term growth and vibrancy of the Athabasca campus and region.
We will continue to urge both the university administration and the Ministry to consult meaningfully with staff, students, and community members to find a mutually acceptable solution. At the same time, we recognize that we have an extremely engaged and thoughtful membership ready to contribute fantastic ideas that, if implemented, could do a great deal to support vibrancy on campus and within the town and region.
So, rather than simply plead and wait for proper consultation from the powers that be, the AUFA executive is very interested in contributing in a positive way. Rather than a narrow focus on where staff should live and work, we are interested in broadening the conversation to encompass the myriad ways the university could be contributing to community and campus vibrancy.
We have already heard some excellent ideas from members, from substantial incentives for voluntary relocation, to hosting more events on campus, to improved short term accommodations for visiting staff and students. We would like to gather many more of these positive ideas and present them to both the university and Ministry. Please share your thoughts with the comment box below.
We will also be hosting a townhall meeting this Friday, August 19 at 1 PM (details to come), that will be open to members to discuss, given the support of most members for AU to contribute to the Athabasca region in some way, how we might do this in ways that do not include forced relocation.
Rhiannon Rutherford, AUFA President
Katie MacDonald, AUFA Secretary