YUFA
External
OCUFA Conference: Restructuring of the Academy: Current Realities and Preferred Directions
Toronto, January 19, 2007
by Joan Allen, YUFA VP Internal
23 Mar 07 - This conference provided an overview of shifts in higher education in several key areas, including faculty complement, the post-Fordist, flexible specialization organization of faculty work, political issues facing librarians in the post-9/11 world, disability issues, funding of research through boundary agencies, and shifting copyright and patent issues. The consensus of the conference was that we are on the cusp of a university reorganization and redefinition equivalent to the post-war massification of higher education.
David Foot of Boom, Bust & Echo notoriety presented some demographic trends affecting higher education. The Bust generation is now having kids. According to Foot, by 2010 and 2011, both the echo population and the double cohort will be in decline. Over 60% of current faculty come from the boomer generation; one-half are over 50. Foot pointed out that new technology has an effect on the balance of power in universities, shifting it towards students. In the second decade of 2000, the boomers will retire, and university enrolments will simultaneously decline. In Europe there is already a greatly lowered demand for post-secondary education. The Echo generation is in graduate programmes now. In five years, the double cohort will be gone.
Jan Newson, of York Sociology, focused on the disaggregation of parts of academic work into teaching, research and service. She predicts that teaching only positions will proliferate. The consequences will be ghettoization of non-research faculty, insufficient remuneration, and no job security. Therefore, fewer faculty will have the responsibility to contribute to carrying an administrative load. Such reorganization makes faculty susceptible to being played off of each other in bargaining by being in different unions. Some faculty associations, such as Dalhousie, already limit the number of positions that can be part time.
Sussman and Yssaad of Statistics Canada presented material showing the inequities of female faculty salaries, rank, and female representation in the sciences and mathematics. Women still have weaker presence at upper academic ranks and amongst tenured faculty. In 2004, women faculty median salaries were 13,500 less than men. This can be attributed to being disproportionately in the lower ranks. The gap narrows when rank and field of study are taken into account. Women are particularly underrepresented at the full professor level.
Martin Finkelstein co-author of The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers, discussed trends relating to the “marketization” in higher education. He noted the increase in the number and influence of external stakeholders. Finkelstein centred his presentation around the question of restoring the status quo or developing a new order in higher education.
He raised the spectre of radically decentralized market oriented system where no one is in charge. He noted the development of more different kinds of academic worker in the current marketplace. Universities need to become more flexible and nimble, Finklestein claimed, and recognize marketplace realities of self-employment and entrepreneurship. This new version of faculty as contingent workers coincides with trends experienced by professionals such as accountants, doctors and others. “Universities are moving from social institutions to businesses producing a product”, a kind of elite provider. Education is now a commodity in the global market. This is evidenced by the fact that certification and degrees are commodities subject to free trade policies.
Finklestein predicted that professors of English and Humanities, foreign languages, and hard sciences will become homes for fixed term teaching only faculty. In the United States, most new entry women faculty have been hired into off tenure track positions. Finkelstein cited Carol Twigg (2002) of EDUCAUSE who formulated the effects of information technology in unbundling educational activities. This has led to the outsourcing of “non-core” university functions (computer centres, bookstores, security, dining, student advising, and even teaching of courses).
Some implications of these trends are new mega-universities and increased privatization. The division of labour in universities is predicted to become functionally specialized. There will be an increase in full time off track appointments. Course design will be unbundled from delivery.
He noted the growing division of full time faculty role into teaching only faculty, research only, and director only appointments, along with the reform of tenure. This follows the British trend in which Thatcher/Major eliminated tenure in the 1980’s. In the United States, 3/5 of new hires are not tenure track. Assuming a 4% retirement rate the rate of tenure stream faculty will decrease to 30% by 2020.
Finkelstein’s conclusion was the “Post WW II academic career is no longer modal in the United States.”
At points he seemed to be an apologist for restructuring, and spoke in the vein of a management consultant, as he stressed that universities must re-imagine and re-invent themselves. Conference participants challenged Finkelstein during the limited time for discussion and noted the need to resist embracing these trends.
In sessions on equity, we learned those Canadian university faculties were comprised of 35% women in 2005. Edith Samuel noted the significant wage gap between visible and non-visible minority faculty. She also noted an average gender gap of $17,300 between male and female salaries; her research shows Ryerson as the most equitable in gender and salary with women earning $5,400 less on average than male faculty. Minority faculty suffer much higher rates of unemployment, with equal qualifications, and once in, experience hostile departmental climates and lower teaching evaluations due to student biases.
The impact of changes in the organization of higher education was discussed. Regarding mandatory retirement, in Quebec and Manitoba most retire at 61 or 62 in spite of ability to stay past 65. Employers want more apprenticeships, and more fluidity between colleges and universities. Sandra Acker raised the question of how changes to mandatory retirement will influence the male-female balance.
Some interesting innovations we heard about included the use of elders in the Nunavut Arctic as advisors in instruction in an Organizational Behaviour course.
At the University of Manitoba, single mother refugees from war torn countries get a waiver of tuition.
York’s Education professor Neita Israelite noted that disabled faculty are increasing by 20% a year. There are problems with the definition of Long Term Disability, which is defined as limitations involving “any and every duty pertaining to occupation.” The effects of Bill 118 2005, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, was discussed. One question raised was what the effect of increasing disabilities on workload will be.
Dr. Janet Atkinson-Grosjean of the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics, UBC, discussed regime changes in academic industry partnerships. She noted the trend towards closed science, i.e. the move to patent before publishing.
The Gates Foundation was one example of a boundary organization usurping the traditional university role. Such organizations are problematic due to their lack of public accountability.
Librarian Toni Sanek recounted political confrontations that North American university librarians have faced recently. Sanek noted that Mao claimed the fastest way to take over a nation is to kill the librarians first. A student was recently tasered at UCLA because he was without an ID card at 11PM while studying at the library. In Florida, a librarian was not allowed to take part in a gay pride parade.
Professor Samuel Trosow of University of Western Ontario discussed intellectual property issues. He noted that Canadian law is vague about who owns copyright and patent. Patent involves novelty, and is non-obvious. Copyright can have a chilling ability on ability to present at conferences. Historically, the university is protected by patents and the author by copyrights. The increasing commercialization and privatization of universities he predicts will result in the erosion of the public sector and public space.
Other Reports from this
Conference:
Susan Dimock
Indhu
Rajagopal