Make Your Voice Heard!
Please email your Senators to tell them what you think about the program review and whether the review of academic programs should be done by the elected Senate and not the President’s appointed Task Force. We need to let our Senators know our views on this important matter! A list of email addresses for Senators is available at seanc129.sg-host.com/2013-2014 Senators Email. (or open Excel Worksheet Option)
On Wednesday, September 18, two motions on Program Review will be presented to Senate. These motions respectfully request that (1) the President direct his Special Task Force to stop the Program Review and (2) the President refer any matters related to program review to the Senate for its consideration, conduct, and decision. These motions are based on an assessment by a majority of the Senate Governance Committee members that the President has exceeded his jurisdiction in taking on responsibilities for academic review that are expressly assigned to Senate under the Brock Act. Please note that the motions do not reject the idea of a having an academic program review; however, they do assert that any such review should be directed by Senate.
We believe that it is very important that Senate passes these motions on September 18. Our elected Senate must not abdicate its responsibility for leadership in academic matters; to yield its authority in this important matter will make it harder for Senate to exert its legitimate role in future academic decisions. It also will give the Administration and Board of Trustees the message that it does not need to involve Senate in formative and operational phases of conducting reviews and dealing with other academic matters . BUFA has heard many complaints about the way the Task Force is conducting the current Review; it is through Senate that faculty and librarians can take control of any meaningful review process through their elected representatives. Please email at least 5 Senators to tell them your views.
Did you know that:
The Task Force has still not posted any minutes of its meetings, even after the Task Force agreed to do so in mid-August.
The Task Force has declared the Library to be an administrative program and not an academic one.
The Task Force is still not representative of all faculties and the library.
Between 700 and 800 programs have been identified and thus will have to be evaluated and ranked by Task Force members in a process that compares programs against all other programs within the University, both administrative and academic.
Estimating that about half of those are academic programs, with homes in 35 Departments and Centres, and estimating that each, on average, will take about Chairs/Directors (and other Department/Centre members) 10 hours to prepare the criteria submissions and subsequent responses to the Task Force; and each Department/Centre Committee and subcommittees will need to meet repeatedly to discuss the unit’s programs, the Task Force recommendations and possible appeals; various Senate committees will meet to discuss the Review process and recommendations; and Task Force members themselves have considerable meeting time; and so on. We can further estimate that approximately 9000 faculty and senior administrator hours are involved in the program review. That number of hours can be multiplied that by an estimated average faculty/administrator salary of $68/hour to obtain an approximate cost for the academic portion of the program review. This amounts to $612,000, for the period from July to December 2013. Oh yes, and then add the $100,000 that the University has budgeted for the Review, which includes course releases and consultant costs. And then let’s estimate the hours of work involved for the Task Force’s 10 member support group, the “regular” staff time required for completing the review on the administrative side, and the lost opportunity cost of those hours that we could be spending doing other things…..I expect that the total cost will be well over a million and a half dollars. And if the work of the Task Force lacks credibility in the University Community, scarce resources will be wasted.
Send Us Your Program Review Stories
BUFA is interested in your experiences with the program review to date, which will help us understand and communicate the impact of this process on the University community. If you have participated in the program identification phase or other aspects of the review, please send us an email at [email protected] describing your experience. We would appreciate receiving them before the Sept. 18th Senate meeting.
All-Union Lunch Topic: The Program Review
BUFA and the other campus Unions will be co-sponsoring a lunch in the Pond Inlet on Tuesday, Sept. 17. Lunch will be available from 11:30 – 1:30 and all BUFA members are invited. There will be a brief presentation from several of the Union Presidents about the Program Review at 11:40 and again at 12:10.
Request for Comments on Draft Revisions to the University’s Medical Information Forms.
Over the last few months, BUFA has been negotiating with the University to make changes to the forms that the University requires for obtaining medical information related to sick leaves and accommodation arrangements. The medical details required in the existing forms went beyond that necessary for the employer to know, given current legislation. More detailed information and the proposed revisions of the medical information forms are available at seanc129.sg-host.com in the “Issues and Campaigns” section of the website. Please let us know if you see any difficulties with these draft forms by September 20.
Regards,
Linda
Linda Rose-Krasnor, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology
President, Brock University Faculty Association
Brock University
500 Glenridge Avenue St. Catharines ON Canada L2S 3A1
Phone: 905-688-5550, ext. 3870 Fax: 905-688-6922
[email protected]
