News From Your Board – November 9 Meeting

—Peter Johnson, Faculty of Environment representative to the FAUW board

The FAUW Board got back to business on November 9, after an October filled with special events, including the FAUW 60th anniversary celebration. We had a packed meeting room, evidence of a healthy and energized board, and of the strength of our organization and importance of our mandate.

We started off with a report from our independent auditor on the financial health of the organization. In a year that has seen great change at the administration level of the University, FAUW maintains a strong and prudent fiscal position that is neither overburdensome to our members nor compromising of our ability to protect our members and advance collegial governance on campus. Congratulations to Dan Brown, treasurer, and many treasurers before him for maintaining this balance.

Board members discussed ways to support our colleagues at local colleges while they are striking to reduce reliance on precarious employment and to obtain the academic freedom that many university faculty enjoy. FAUW has made a financial donation on behalf of our members to support those on the picket lines, and we are currently investigating other forms of support.

As discussed at our 60th Anniversary event, one of the main benefits of our Memorandum of Agreement with the University is that, compared to traditional union-based bargaining, in which a new collective agreement is negotiated every few years, FAUW is in a process of continual negotiation with the administration over terms of employment. The only thing we negotiate in the upcoming round of bargaining with the University is compensation.

In the last round of bargaining, our negotiating team secured the salary anomaly review, changes to the Faculty Professional Expense Reimbursement (FPER), and annual scale increases to salaries and thresholds. That settlement expires April 30, 2018.

Our lead negotiator for this round, Benoit Charbonneau (Pure Mathematics), attended this Board meeting to brief the group and discuss preliminary strategy. Undoubtedly there will be more to come on this front, as bargaining commences in December. Shelley Hulan (English Language and Literature) and Dave Vert (School of Accounting and Finance) are also on the negotiating team.

The Lecturers Committee raised concerns with apparent discrepancies across campus regarding lecturer eligibility for departmental or school service tasks. FAUW would like to hear from any lecturers who have been prohibited from serving on departmental or school committees, especially Departmental Tenure and Promotion Committees (DTPC) involved in making hiring or promotion decisions about lecturers, and chair/director hiring committees.

News From Your Board – September 28 Meeting

—Sally Gunz, past president

Peter Johnson and I agreed to take turns writing recaps of FAUW board meetings. We’ll focus on the main items and try to avoid the chit-chat that make all board meetings memorable events. For a fee, we will provide the chit-chat separately!

One of the lingering issues from the recent Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) revisions is that of histograms (13.5.11). This has proven to be technically challenging and a sub-group of the Faculty Relations Committee has been working on revisions for some time. The sub-group continues to work on this and will be providing recommendations soon.

FAUW senators summarized the debate on the CEPT report at Senate. A motion will be moved at the next senate meeting to create a new working group that will develop appropriate methodology to assess teaching per se (and not student perceptions of teaching, which is the focus of the current evaluations). You can read more about this motion on the FAUW website.

Bryan Tolson brought the board up to speed on recent changes to the Office of General Counsel and there was general agreement that these were positive for our membership. We also conducted a sound debrief of our new faculty events.

We discussed the impact of Unit4 on research accounts and the difficulty in gathering information. Peter Johnson indicated that as a stopgap measure, IST developed a tool to query and export salary reports from Unit4. This tool is generally easy to use and would be a significant advantage if it were extended to all areas of research grant reporting. Ultimately, while Unit4 may meet the needs of Finance as-is, it does not meet the needs of admin or faculty. This alternate tool developed in-house and ably supported by IST has the ability to do so. Discussions at UCIST (University Committee on Information Systems and Technology) to this effect will continue.

News From Your Board – September 14 Meeting

Welcome to a new series of FAUW blogs, “News From Your Board”. To increase the transparency of board activities and keep members up-to-date, we’ll be sharing some of the non-confidential discussion from our biweekly Board meetings.

The first highlight from the September 14 meeting was welcoming Bryan Tolson to his first board meeting as President. Bryan began with the always-aspirational goal to end the meeting on time!

We revisited ideas and plans for the year from our day-long retreat at the start of September:

better defining our membership
further communications improvements (like this series)
continued aspirations for a more robust teaching evaluation system to complement student surveys
how we can contribute to Indigenization efforts across campus

A regular part of each Board meeting is reports from FAUW committees and constituent positions, including updates from the Faculty Relations Committee (FRC). FRC is the main venue through which FAUW and the administration work together on collegial governance of the University. We also hear from representatives of the Lecturers, Academic Freedom & Tenure (AF&T), Status of Women & Equity, and Pension and Benefits committees.

The last agenda item was the slate of upcoming FAUW events. Our packed Fall schedule includes the New Faculty & Family Welcome Dinner on September 22, a workshop for mid-career faculty on September 29, FAUW’s 60th anniversary party on October 26, a Council of Representatives meeting on November 14, and the Fall General Meeting on December 6.

And with that, Bryan managed to squeeze one of the most ambitious September agendas in recent FAUW memory into the actual scheduled time! Congrats Bryan! Looking forward to the next meeting in two weeks!

—Peter Johnson, communications lead, FAUW Board of Directors

FAUW Highlights: Visiting the School of Pharmacy

The FAUW Board recognizes that the University of Waterloo includes satellite campuses as well as the main campus. In mid-April, the FAUW Board took a field trip to the School of Pharmacy, located at the Downtown Kitchener Health Sciences Campus. This experience was the perfect opportunity for the FAUW Board to learn more about the perspectives, ideas, and innovations of a key University group.

On April 14, several Pharmacy faculty members participated in an informal discussion, which was strengthened by the various career stages represented at the table. The FAUW Board gained insight into a distinctive feature of the School of Pharmacy which is the amazing number of team-taught courses. Team-teaching ensures that each expert can connect with students at the appropriate place in the curriculum by sharing their knowledge on a specific topic. It is clear that Pharmacy faculty members function as a team in the classroom. Needless to say, the Board greatly appreciates the time Pharmacy faculty members took out of their busy schedules to meet with us!

As the official representative of all regular faculty members at the University of Waterloo, FAUW is continuously interested in the thoughts, questions & concerns of all University faculty. The FAUW Board strongly encourages any faculty member to contact FAUW at fauw@uwaterloo.ca anytime a question or issue comes up which is relevant to FAUW. We want to hear from you!

FAUW Highlights is a series of regular updates from the FAUW Board, written by Elise Lepage and Shannon Gordon.

FAUW Highlights: Inclusivity & the FAUW Board

Greeting FAUWers!

The FAUW Election Committee is passionate about addressing a recurring issue: balanced and inclusive representation of all six faculties on the FAUW Board. At the moment, there is significant Faculty of Arts representation in the group, but no Directors affiliated with the faculties of Environment, Mathematics, or Applied Health Sciences.

Representing the interests of all faculties is vital to a group like the FAUW Board, and to support this approach, the new FAUW Constitution ensures that each faculty has at least one representative on the Board, with additional “At-Large Representatives.” 2016-2017 will be a transition period toward this new representation on the Board.

This month, FAUWers will elect their President (July 2016 to June 2018), as well as one member affiliated with each of the six faculties (July 2016 to June 2018). Current members whose terms end in 2017 will become At-Large Representatives. To support this transition, one of the Board’s current Lecturer members (Heidi Engelhardt) will become the “Lecturers Representative” until the end of her term in June 2017.

The need for this new cycle of elections arose from a lack of informed voices around the table regarding current practices in each of the six faculties. Inevitably, FAUW’s operations were slowed by the need to go outside the Board to find the information we needed regarding a number of issues.

Although elected from each of the six faculties separately, it is understood that the individuals elected in this way will still act in the interests of the membership as a whole, not exclusively the members of their faculty.

We believe that this new approach will foster better representation of our members. This also means that we look forward to your nomination forms!

Your next steps:

Read the Elections Committee report outlining how the transition to the new Board structure will play out over the next two years.
Read the Call for Nominations and download the nomination form on the FAUW website.

Note: Only active members of FAUW – those regular and non-regular faculty and professional librarians who have opted in – are eligible to vote and be elected. If you can’t recall whether you’ve opted in, check the bottom of the Call for Nominations announcement in your email.

FAUW Highlights is a series of regular updates from the FAUW Board, written by Elise Lepage and Shannon Gordon.

New Board Updates, Starting with Weather Policy

By Elise Lepage

Greetings FAUWers,

I’m one of the newest Directors on the FAUW Board, and will start hearing from me quite regularly on this blog (I hope!) to share what this Board is about and what it is doing for you.

Having attended bi-weekly Board meetings since last summer, I have been amazed by the number of crucial issues that FAUW is committed to. Meeting agendas are packed with a variety of burning topics requiring a range of expertise, and fostering in-depth discussions.

My hope is that regular, short updates on the blog will help you better understand FAUW’s role, gain insight into what is at stake, and encourage you to reflect upon the UW environment – and to share your stories with us.

* * *

I will start this week with a timely issue: the Severe Weather Policy. This issue stems from 2015 when the University of Waterloo remained open during a very stormy winter day. The University updated the weather closing guidelines on January 19 of this year, and has agreed to discuss, with FAUW, revisions to these guidelines as they are integrated into the University’s overarching emergency guidelines.

The FAUW Board and SWEC have been hearing a number of concerns from faculty, mainly about the need for clear and transparent standards for non-closure during severe weather, such as priority snow clearance routes to aid accessibility, and accommodating missed classes fairly.

As this important discussion continues, the silver lining is perhaps that the remaining weeks of the winter semester may bring more spring than snow!

As always, we want to know how issues are affecting you. Please join the conversation in the comments, or send private concerns via email.

FAUW Board Update

By: Sally Gunz, FAUW President

This is the first of what we hope will be regular summary updates of FAUW activities. It is a little long-winded as we are playing catch up after a summer hiatus from meetings. If you have any questions about any of the following, please contact any of the FAUW Board members or fauw@uwaterloo.ca.

Important dates/events

Get Science Right – Science & Democracy Under Threat: What You Can Do About It.

FAUW is collaborating with the Canadian Association of University Teachers, Evidence for Democracy, SJU-ASA and WLUFA to conduct this important pre-election event. Please join us on 1 October 7:00 pm at the Waterloo Inn, Heritage Room. Attendance is free and you all are welcome.

Hagey Lecture

The speaker will be announced shortly. Please save the evening of November 17th. The location this year is Fed Hall.

Meet Your FAUW Board

We will start up our FAUW monthly gatherings at the Grad House shortly. Please join us on Thursday 15th October, at 4:.45 pm at the Grad House. Again, you are all welcome.

Updates on recent issues that have attracted FAUW attention:

Senate. The first meeting of this term was the 21st of September. A key thing to watch is one provision in the Terms of Reference for the Mid-Term Break (e.g., winter reading week). Included in the list of “shall not’s” for that week is TA-related work. How will this affect those who have tests just before the break, for example? It seems the consensus was that where students are assisting in grading and want to do this, it will simply be considered an exception. Exceptions are allowed, although this is not included in the list provided of examples in the Terms of Reference. You might want to get better informed about this issue and the roles of graduate students in particular during mid-term breaks. Senators associated with FAUW voted solidly against this provision mainly because it was far from clear what it covered. The majority of Senate supported it and it was therefore approved.
Course Evaluations. The review of online student course evaluation tools continues. The elephant in the room remains issues of bias and how they are addressed in the use of these evaluations. FAUW has concerns. It has asked several colleagues with specific expertise in this field to provide both the Course Evaluation Project Taskforce and FAUW with advice on draft recommendations for the instrument, its application and the use of results.
Lecturers. There are a number of issues concerning the terms and conditions of employment of lecturers arising in part from the Policy 76 review that is underway. FAUW now has a committee focusing specifically on lecturers’ concerns. Watch for a targeted survey that will be conducted in the next few weeks.
Scheduling System. Scheduling remains on the FAUW agenda. Bryan Tolson has taken over from Roydon Fraser as our key person working on this.
Electronic Keys and Parking Fobs. Are you worried about privacy issues arising out of key fobs (parking, locks) and other University activities? This is on both our and the University’s agenda. Until this is studied fully, those of you switching to the new parking fob system for H Lot can be assured that Parking Services has undertaken to retain no data about you or your use of the lot.
ADDS Status. This is now “all done.” Faculty members should be eligible for solo PhD supervision within the first year of being hired into tenure-track positions. If you are experiencing any difficulties, please contact FAUW right away. A separate, more detailed email about this is going out shortly to all Assistant Professors.
Employment and Family Assistance Program. It’s coming! Money has been assigned in the University budget for an external service provider, recognizing that Counselling Services is fully engaged with student demand, and cannot adequately meet the needs of faculty and staff. An EAP program typically covers counselling and related issues. We will be working with others in the University to see that the best plan is selected. Again, we are grateful to several faculty members who have agreed to provide expert advice.
Fall Break. The associate vice-president academic is hoping to bring a proposal for instituting a Fall Break beginning in the fall of 2017 to Senate for discussion and a vote at the October meeting.
Policy Reviews. Due to the excessive workload generated by the Secretariat and Office of General Counsel’s Policy Review initiative, we have agreed collectively that no more major reviews will be initiated until we have this crop done. The major reviews we are currently involved with are Policy 33 (ethical behaviour), 76 (faculty appointments), 14 (pregnancy and parental leaves), and Class A policies (appointment, promotion and removal of administrative officers).
Salary Anomalies Review. This was one important outcome of the recent salary negotiations. The committee is now struck and we look forward to good progress. FAUW reps are Lynne Taylor (Arts), Cecilia Cotton (Math), and Benoit Charbonneau (Math). From the administration, Jean Andrey (Environment), Christianne Lemieux (Math), and Bill Power (Science).

Ten seems a good number to end on. More to follow in the next update.

We know there is a lot more for us to do. For example, you may have concerns about the FAUW website. We’re working on it! We will be revitalizing and revising our Council of Representatives (one person from each department/school) shortly. Whether on the Council or not, if you are keen to volunteer your expertise in any area in which you see we are lacking, please contact us. We are always looking for more help.

Finally, if you are someone who has not yet been able to find a mentor, please contact us at fauw@uwaterloo.ca. If you are facing confusing practices, rulings, or conundrums, also contact us. FAUW is fortunate to have highly skilled staff and a large number of well-qualified volunteers. Let us know how we can be of assistance.

FAUW Updates Fall 2014 (Part 1 of 2)

David Porreca, FAUW President

Welcome back! Although this blog went dormant over the summer months, this does not mean that FAUW has been idle. In fact, so many things have kept us busy of the past couple of months that this inaugural 2014-15 update blog post needs to be divided in two. The first five of the following topics are posted today, while the rest will be posted on Monday.

The topics:

Continuity in UW administration
Meeting with lecturers
Negotiations
Scheduling
Electronic expense claims
Pharmacy Building
Fall Break?
FAUW Staffing
Re-vamped Course Evaluations
FAUW Retreat and Priorities for 2014-15

Continue reading →

FAUW News Flashes

David Porreca, FAUW President

Today’s blog post aims to bring our readership up to speed on a number of different issues that FAUW is working on at the moment.

FAUW elections

All of the open positions on the FAUW Board of Directors have been filled by acclamation this year. I am very pleased to welcome the following new faces for the 2013-14 academic year: Vivian Choh (Optometry and Vision Science), Jasmin Habib (Political Science) and Bryan Tolson (Civil Engineering). We also have an experienced hand with Frank Zorzitto (Pure Mathematics) returning to the Board, and I will be continuing as President.

MoA changes

Expect an electronic vote imminently on two separate questions, both of critical importance:

Adding a modification clause to our MoA, which had been absent before; and
Re-configuring Article 14 on Research Integrity in order to abide by the Framework established by the Tri-Agencies and imposed upon all institutions receiving Tri-Council monies.

In principle, UW has until the end of the month to sort out the latter. We are still collaborating with the Secretariat to establish mutually agreeable wording before presenting the final draft to a membership vote.

Scheduling

Discussions are ongoing with the Registrar’s Office to improve communications and procedures surrounding the testing of the new scheduling software. FAUW has been informed that a communications professional has been hired by the Registrar’s Office in an attempt to remedy a long-recognized problem. We wait to see whether this welcome development will make a positive difference. FAUW is well aware that this issue rankles faculty members like few others can, so we are keeping a sharp eye on it.

Daycare

Construction is underway on Columbia just north and east of the optometry building. Since we have a significant financial stake in the operation, FAUW is helping Bright Starts Inc. (the amalgamated daycare operator) negotiate a lease agreement with UW. Discussions are ongoing – this very morning, in fact. Stay tuned.

Access Copyright

Access Copyright has decided to press a lawsuit against York University for copyright infringement. This will be a test case for the viability of that enterprise’s approach to academic users of copyrighted materials. CAUT is paying very close attention to this issue, as is FAUW.

Fallout from our Spring General Meeting

The following items were raised at FAUW’s Spring General Meeting that we plan to tackle over the next weeks and months, in addition to all of the rest of what we are pursuing:

We need user-friendly software that allows faculty members to track their research funds in real time.
We need to push for the modification of the provisions for choosing membership on university-level committees such that regular faculty members are not placed in a position to run for election against their own Dean.
UW needs covered, secure, well-lit bike parking, and/or the ability to park one’s bike in one’s office, while acknowledging that the latter doesn’t work for students.
The net effect of full-cost programs has been exactly what FAUW feared it would be: the diversion of the teaching efforts of the full-time professorate to those programs, while leaving our regular students to be taught by sessionals and TAs, thereby de facto relegating them to a second-class student status. This is a serious problem that will need careful attention, since it arises at the intersection of pedagogy and university finances.

Do you know of anything we need to add to this list? Please leave a comment below!

Work-Life Balance Report

FAUW has been asked to provide a prioritized list from the recommendations contained in the Work-Life Balance Report (full text available in the Senate materials from March) that UW is to tackle first for implementation. If any of you have strong feelings on this question, please do not hesitate to provide a comment below, or contact the FAUW President.

In conclusion

There are a number of other issues we are dealing with at the moment where discussion is ongoing but there isn’t any concrete progress to report in this forum. These include:

Our concerns over ADDS status.
Finding alternatives to the Registrar’s Office restricting student access to LEARN when their fees aren’t arranged on time.
Information collection from Short-Term and Long-Term Disability claims.
Parental leave salary top-up for families with both parents being university employees.
Compassionate care and bereavement leave.
Ongoing concerns over scheduling.

All this to say that there’s a lot going on behind the scenes for FAUW on behalf of our membership, and we’re far from idle!