YUFA

External

 

 


   Home

   Feedback

   Archive

Doing Academia Differently: CAUT Biennial Women’s Conference
Ottawa, February 22-24, 2007 

By Didi Khayatt, Office of the Dean, Faculty of Education

7 Mar 07 - The conference began on the evening of February 22nd at 7pm. There was a welcome by Greg Allain, President of CAUT. He gave us many statistics, quoted the work of Janice Drakish and Penni Stewart regarding the advances of women. The work required for academic life is often in the neighbourhood of 60 or 70 hours a week, a schedule that few women who have young families are able to achieve. He also reminded us to what extent activism, or, in the academy, service, is hugely undervalued. Concluded by calling for a balanced approach to work and life.  

Jim Turk, Executive Director of CAUT also welcomed us. Told us that the last conference of this kind was in 2002, but also commented that this conference is vital because it brings together so many women. This conference deals with what has been called (unfortunately) women’s issues, issues like parental leaves, sexual harassment, human rights etc.

Keynote Panel: 

Pat Armstrong, York University.

Her talk was funny and refreshing while at the same time, she reminisced about some historical activism. Early in her talk, she quoted Kathy Jones saying: “this Government’s policy regarding women is: you’ve come too far, baby!” That about sums her talk. She gave many examples of how women’s gains have been eroded, from academic freedom to losing the possibility of a room of one’s own. She ended by saying tenured women have to take risks to benefit younger women. On the subject of work-life balance, she ended her talk with a quote from Emma Goldman: “we need to dance at our revolution”. 

Barbara Byers, Canadian Labour Congress.

To know where we are going, we have to know from where we came. We have to talk about activism, about the work of women in conferences and on committees. She pointed out our gains: the right to be at labour events with anti-harassment policies (where harassment protection was gained with much difficulty); affirmative action positions; reproductive choice; etc. She claims we won in small ways, issues like child care, pay equity in some universities, and parental leaves. She said that we need to celebrate all this, but we still need to protect every one of these issues in the future. She also tried to remind a (mostly white and straight) audience that we have to remember our lesbian sisters and our Aboriginal sisters. 

Patricia Monture, Aboriginal Mohawk lawyer, University of Saskatchewan.

Doing academia differently: what would we do if we could change the university and meet the needs of Aboriginal students and communities? Women understand collectives, understand indigenous knowledge assumptions. Do not make pan-indigenous knowledge assumptions. Men often have knowledge and women have knowledge and you get a system when you put the two together. Elders: we must know from where we come to know where we are going. We must acknowledge colonialism. Colonialism is not an historic event, it is ongoing. Residential schools may be closed, but their spirit is still with us: what about foster care of Aboriginal kids? Detention programs, etc. Colonialism is gendered (for instance the matrimonial will property laws not resolved yet). Colonialism makes victims of the colonizers as well as the colonized. Often white people say that Reserves are on free land. What about the settlers? They too were given free land. This talk was a reminder to all in the audience to what extent, when we think about women, we often forget our Aboriginal sisters, when we think about students, we do not heed the needs of Aboriginal students, undergraduate and graduate. Finally, she said, more Aboriginal women go to jail than to university.   

February 23, 2007: 9 am

Faculty: Balancing Work and Family

Leslie Burke: Staff Representative, FPSE BC.

  • Talking about stress and women/workers
  • Signs of stress: absenteeism
  • There is no public policy regarding stress here in Canada
  • If we are to change, we have to think of different strategies.
  • Ducksbury and Higgins did research in Canada regarding stress and work- life balance. The two reasons it is becoming a major problem are demographic and worker turnover.
  • Conflict between an emerging career and a new family is the major reason cited regarding stress. The typical career was not organized with the woman worker in mind.
  • Women’s participation rate in the workforce has more than doubled (72%). Dual income families are also on the increase (1 in 7). More families are caring for elder family members (1 in 4).
  • Rising increases in childcare at a time when real pay is decreasing makes a difference as well.
  • This all holds true for women faculty members who are trying to balance a career in academia with family work. This produces conflict and stress. Cell phones and email have exacerbated the problems: you can always be reached. For instance, email has redefined student/prof contact hours. Feb.13th Stats Can: 1986-2006 a huge decrease in time spent with family. TV also produces part of this decline.
  • Solutions: 1) programs government initiated, like some of the initiatives taken in Northern Europe; 2) Collective agreements.

Linda Hawkins: Executive Director, Centre for Families, Work and Well-being, Guelph.

  • She wants to talk about stories from women and work: grad students saying that they would like an academic career but I want a family. Second story: Leaves: the research report they had to do when taking their leaves, the reports that had to be done before. They may also not take the leave because of family concerns: parents dying.
  • Work-life balance is a balancing act.
  • Work family research: decades of research in multiple disciplines. Some of the stuff, we know already, like job segregation, childcare etc. Multiple roles are good for women (and men). We should begin to look at men’s care work. Women are the ones who adapt and change. Role conflict Family conflict. Permeability of roles has been documented. Another way of measuring is energy.
  • Affects on family: young ones prefer quality time to just time at the home.
  • Control and support are both important. Social support family and friends.
  •  Puzzle 1: It looks like a great job. (she is not a teacher). She keeps telling us how much we are privileged: control, money, benefit, prestige and recognition, etc. BUT: job demands. Ideal worker/scientist; “expert status; constant evaluation; self employed.( are we entrepreneurs or employees. We do, after all, go out and get our own funding and we manage these. Also, we look like consultants when we teach. Puzzle 2: Policies. Sometimes they are good, sometimes not. Accessing policies difficult; implementing policies difficult; no evaluation; resistance; reducing demands.
  • Rather than make demands and look very little like the ideal worker, women don’t make demands.  Policies are often inconsistent.
  • Ideas for Change/Balance: as individuals and as collaborators. Put boundaries around the time you spend on work.

We then broke into small groups. I was in Group 4 and I have notes in my book regarding that section of the meeting. 

Then Lunch. 

Pay Equity: 2-30 pm

Rosemary Morgan: Legal Counsel, CAUT

A very interesting talk about law and pay equity. Learn the culture of your specific university and understand the context of what you are asking for before you have to go to arbitration. Human Rights policies supercede Collective Agreements. Turn to your sisters to learn of the approaches re pay equity. A very legal talk. 

Michael Piva, Assistant Executive Director, CAUT

General observations:

  • University salary systems are whacky and bear no relations to market salaries. If you look closely, there is no system. Pay equity can only happen by looking at systemic discrimination rather than looking at the salary system, but by looking elsewhere, like the key bargaining issues. Aniko (Western), when she was chief negotiator, was able to negotiate a pay equity, and look at us, ten years later, there are the same problems all over again.  The engine that is revving the problem is not taken care of, and it keeps generating the same problems. A junior faculty is hired and he/she is not making as much as a FP because they have to be trained, the question becomes: how many years will it take to get to the ceiling? The answer should be plus or minus 15 years. Some say about ten years is more than enough. You are learning the job in that time and you should have reached the top by then. No criteria, totally arbitrary. No procedure and not monitored. And add to that labour market differentials.
  • There is no pattern of salary so there can be no discrimination.
  • Do not look to the salary system to eliminate pay equity. Look to hiring practices etc.
  • Something happens at the PhD level. That degree is the entry level diploma. Something bad is happening there: The system of salary discriminates on the basis of longevity. It assumes you are entering the system for thirty years. It is also discriminatory by discipline: there is no reason to pay an engineer more than an historian.  The entry age is another pay equity problem: the entry age for women is much higher than men. The longer you stay in that position, the more you will suffer discrimination. The average age of men is also increasing.
  • There is an undervaluing of women’s scholarship. You will see it first in the hiring process.
  • In merit, women’s scholarship is undervalued. Merit Pay is completely arbitrary and is therefore a built-in method of discrimination.

 Saturday, February 24, 2007

Activism in the Academy

 Glenis Joyce: USFA (Saskatchewan)

  • See the handout
  • Sexual assault: she told a story about two sexual assaults that happened at her university and that were not recognized.
  • Employment equity: arbitrator had studied gender equity, but recommendations were not included and that made it a breach of the report. Diversity strategy, a not very useful term that is difficult to prove.
  • Female students: women in engineering were in smaller numbers at U of S. Dean was not aware.
  • Canada Research Chairs at U of S is 22.2% women.
  • What effective changes has the university made to include women?
  • Unobtrusive exercise of power: “It is not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, their cognition, their preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things either because they see or imagine no alternative to it or they see it as so natural and unchangeable and they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial.” Lukes, S. (1994)
  • University has asked to move toward a diversity strategy: we are moving from a traditional gender equity approach to diversity principles, transform the university structure, looking for leading edge scholarship. Use of diversity consultants who sell information from somewhere else, and who, in one case, has on his website: maximizing neurons per university dollar.
  • Know when to quit watering the plant, stop your activism: We are shoring the ivory basement, and it is time we let them know it. Quit sitting on myriad committees that appear to do something for gender equity. Find ways to disrupt the complacency of our colleagues.

Cindy Oliver: President, FPSE BC

  • Activism works from the inside out: we talk to each other.
  • The median salary for FP is $6000 less than males
  • How do we change all these stats?
  • Three elements: Collective bargaining, skills building and organizing.
  • They have a salary scale of 11 years to go through it. 73% of the members are at the top salary scale. Of those, 60% (or maybe 16%) are women. They just bargained this in BC
  • Regularization – meaning tenure. This is for part time workers, most of whom are women.
  • We need to help all women, that includes students.
  • Our struggle as university women is difficult to separate from the wider struggle of women in society.

Closing Plenary: Moving Forward: 12.00-12:30pm

Panel: Nancy Clegg, Kwantien University College, FPSE, BC (was sick so someone, the panel chair, read her summary)

Activism: Just do it! The Nike slogan should be ours. Tying language down so as to police it better, best made through the collective agreement. Become weekend warriors.

          Loretta Czemis, Past President, CAUT

Summarizing the work life balance. She tells us a story about a female colleague who worked at Bishop’s: 4 years ago, she was having difficulties at home. She was commuting and she would drive every weekend to her husband. She noticed that her husband was suffering lapses of memory and extreme mood swings. He went for tests which determined that he did not have Alzheimer’s but that he should have counseling. He did not get better. She was stressed by his deteriorating condition. Several years later, he was diagnosed with a brain deterioration. She kept him at home and did not tell anyone at the university. She became ill. As soon as she felt better, she went back to teaching. She got ill after that. Then diabetes and she kept driving. Then breast cancer. She could not drive any longer. She was asked why she did not continue driving. Her breast cancer got worse; she was dying. She died five weeks ago. Before she was buried, the chair had a proposal for a replacement for her. What does it come down to this need to give our lives to the Institution. Actually, I do not understand why she told this story. It is sad, but what can we learn from someone’s disastrous story.         

Wendy Robbins, Chair, CAUT Women’s Committee

She actually took notes during the discussions and she is about to summarize these. Pay equity: student debt is a gendered issue. It is an impediment to creating the work life balance in the academy. Women are having a baby gap. Best practices: McGill seems to be the best. Seniority versus merit to benefit women. Steps should be reduced to benefit women. It is Black History Month, she quoted Lillian Allen: “Instead of being a door mat, get up and be a door!” 

In summary, this conference was very interesting and great for networking. You should send delegates in the future.

Other Reports from this Conference:
Joan Allen
Kym Bird
Eve Haque