What the Okanagan Charter means for Waterloo faculty

–Dan Brown, FAUW Treasurer

In October, 2018, President Hamdullahpur signed the Okanagan Charter at a mental health forum about the status of the 36 recommendations of the President’s Advisory Committee on Student Mental Health (PAC-SMH) report. At our general meeting in April, we heard from Campus Wellness about some of the ways the Charter is being implemented (download the general meeting slides).

Let’s dig a little deeper into what the Charter is and how it might affect faculty at Waterloo.

Continue reading →

FAUW’s response to so-called “double dipping” legislation (updated)

– Bryan Tolson, FAUW President

“The Ford government is giving itself the power to force post-secondary institutions to reduce the pay of any employees who are also receiving a college or university pension.”
CBC News, April 15

I hope you are all excitedly preparing for a nice holiday weekend with family and/or friends. I am trying to, but this news story, “Ford government stopping university, college profs from ‘double-dipping,’” is getting in my way. Lines like “this includes the power to reduce pay to zero” make me pretty unhappy. Then some of the comments on the story make me just plain grumpy. (For those interested in the legal details, the story refers to the language in Bill 100, pages 116-17.)

This new (proposed) legislation is a serious escalation in the public relations battle the Ford government has decided to wage against Ontario faculty. Any guesses what the Ford government thinks about sabbaticals or tenure? With that in mind, we need to defend ourselves and our profession, and we need your help to do that. Here are four talking points you can use in conversations with your family and friends this weekend and beyond.

At Waterloo, the provincial government pays only 1/3 of our salaries!
Pensions are simply deferred compensation, and, roughly speaking, half of the pension we collect at Waterloo comes from our own contributions.
The average starting age of faculty at Waterloo is somewhere between 35-40 years old. Think about what that means in terms of the pension implications of such a late career start (not to mention the wait-time to start collecting a career salary).
Any Canadian employee working at age 71 or older is forced by federal law to start taking their pension.

Continue reading →

Update on UCOI class sizes memo

FAUW wishes to update the membership about a matter that is currently in progress. On February 20, the Provost issued a memo to various administrators about increasing class sizes from 25 to 40 for Undergraduate Communications Outcomes Initiative (UCOI) courses taught by English or Communication Arts as stand-alone courses, effective as soon as possible. That’s a 60% increase.

For those unfamiliar with UCOI, these are the courses that were recently created to replace the English Language Proficiency Exam (ELPE).

FAUW has heard from its members in affected units (both those offering the courses and those in other Faculties whose students take them) that they are deeply concerned about the following, among other, issues:

the lack of consultation with academic units and instructors prior to issuing the memo;
the increase in workload that instructors will experience as a consequence of the increased class sizes;
the risk that some definite-term positions created for the purpose of offering these courses will not be renewed;
pedagogically, the impossibility of delivering the courses’ intended learning outcomes with larger class sizes.

FAUW is concerned about unilateral changes to faculty terms and conditions of employment. We are also concerned that the process in this case seems to violate some aspects of Policy 40 (“The Chair”) and Policy 45 (“The Dean of a Faculty”).

Continue reading →