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OCUFA Conference: Restructuring of the Academy: Current Realities and Preferred Directions
Toronto, January 19, 2007
by Indhu Rajagopal, Social Science, Faculty of Arts
19 Feb 07 - True to its form and essence, the theme of this conference was effectively delivered to the participants. There are many issues that could not be, for want of time, squeezed into a day’s schedule. However, the conference covered issues so current to academe and offered scholarly presentations that potentially would act as a springboard for further discussions.
The opening keynote address set the tone and tune on what was forthcoming. Professor Glen Jones of OISE/U of T elaborated on his thesis: In the knowledge economy in Canada, if investment in human capital were to be central to the contribution of knowledge to economic growth, there should be more research on the nature of academic work and on the increasing trend toward privatization and commodification of academic work.
Professor Martin Finkelstein of Seaton Hall University, South Orange, N.J., in his lunch time keynote address, highlighted and illuminated the findings of his work (with Jack H. Schuster) in The American Faculty: Restructuring Academic Work and Careers, (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). He inferred that Canada could face increased retirements leading to recruitment challenges, private sector emerging in higher education and challenging the public university system and forcing its institutional stratification (à la MacLean’s ranking), and academic profession itself getting reconfigured and transformed in the next two decades.
Apart from the Keynote addresses, two interesting presentations were made, one by Dr. Janet Atkinson-Grosjean of the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics, UBC and another by Professor Samuel Trosow of University of Western Ontario. While Trosow discussed the fundamental issue of commercialization of universities, Atkinson-Grosjean alerted us on how academic freedom in research could be undermined, provoking us to question the very ethics of public funding of privatized research. Atkinson-Grosjean explained that there is a new research order afoot because of institutional changes in research funding and accountability. The focus of her thesis was: Boundary organizations, e.g. Genome Canada, a privately incorporated body receiving heavy public funding, are removed from public scrutiny and public accountability, and this raises the following questions of great import to academe: Do these boundary organizations and their research undermine not only academic autonomy but also the ethics of converging public and private interests in research? This is indeed an urgent issue for all academic researchers to ponder over, be they of Arts or of Science stripe. Trosow discussed the future of academic work in the context of increasing commercialization of intellectual property ownership on campus, and identified the causes for this situation as lack of public funding and altered public policies that promote privatization of universities and commodification of academic work and research production. For the current predicament faced by the faculty re: their Intellectual Property rights, he blamed the lack of a coherent public policy on the scope and objectives of commercialization of the university.
On women faculty, two impressive findings were presented, one by Professor Edith Samuel of Atlantic Baptist University (Academic Work, Gender and Equity), and the other by Sussamn & Yassaad of Statistics Canada (The Rising Profile of Women Academics). These presentations brought out the divergence between the realities faced by the two marginalized faculty groups: Women and Visible Minorities.
According to Sussamn & Yassaad, in the last decade, women doctoral degree-holders have steadily increased since 1995, and women secured more than half of all doctorates awarded in the fields of Arts, Health, and Fine & Applied Arts. However, they are sparsely represented in the faculty in pure and applied hard sciences. Despite equity adjustments and requirements, women faculty still earn much less than their male colleagues. In 2004, the median salary for women faculty was $13,500 less than that for the male faculty. However, if we consider the median salaries of male and female faculty of equal rank, the difference narrows from $6,000 at Full Professor level to $1,800 at Asst. Professor rank. Although their hiring status and salaries remain lower than that of their male counterparts, women with qualifications comparable to those of men are entering the profession in increasing numbers.
In contrast, Professor Edith Samuel argued that the dominant culture of ‘Whiteness,’ reinforced by faculty hiring/treatment and student expectations of visible minority faculty, male or female, makes their life quite a challenge in academe. Discrimination appears to be the name of the game, and visible minority faculty have to brave it, or go under. This picture does not augur well for the future of Canadian academe that aims to reflect the society at large.
On the whole, the conference was exemplary and resourceful. I found it quite stimulating and enlightening as it did bring out the overarching concerns of academe that are often forgotten. Don’t we often miss the forest for the trees?
Other Reports from this Conference:
Joan Allen
Susan Dimock