News From Your Board: March 8 Meeting Recap

—Peter Johnson, director for the Faculty of Environment

Collegial, yet occasionally salty, language ensued at our first meeting after reading week.

The Board received an update from Alan Macnaughton on discussions by the Responsible Investing Working Group, specifically on the possibility of divestment from fossil fuels. Alan indicated that conversations focus on integrating environmental, social, and governance factors in investment decisions, and that government regulations pose challenges to the possibility of divestment.

Of great interest was a quick analysis of data on the gender and appointment type of faculty hires from 2012–2017. We’ll be bringing a fuller analysis to Senate this spring, so stay tuned for more details.

The Board continued its discussion of the Policy Review Project, and of how best to ensure that policies that affect members’ conditions of employment are drafted with full FAUW participation.

Upcoming events and initiatives from FAUW include a survey of members about the fall break schedule (look for this later this month), a new faculty event at the Grad House on March 21 (2:30-4:30), and the Spring General Meeting on April 5 (QNC 2502 from 11:30 to 1:30). More events are listed on our website.

President’s Report

Sally Gunz, FAUW President

This is my last report as president of FAUW. Tomorrow, Bryan Tolson will return from his sabbatical and assume his rightful position in my stead. Bryan is an associate professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering. He has represented FAUW in many roles, and for the past two years has been its vice president. The membership made a fine selection. Bryan cares deeply for FAUW and its members, and I have no doubt he will bring a whole new level of positive energy to this position.

How do I feel at this stage? Of course there is inevitably a real sense of relief. This is, to all intents and purposes, a full-time job that brings with it a tremendous sense of responsibility to make decisions, offer opinions, and take initiatives that are in the best interests of the membership. Fortunately, the FAUW board of directors comprises a strong set of people with a vast array of experience, and we have many people on campus whose past experience with FAUW can be very useful. Issues are seldom new, even if they are new to me. Thoughtful people have always been there to offer advice and support and I thank them.

Further, FAUW has recently built up a team of permanent staff members who are highly skilled, tactful and always generous with their time. Volunteers will come and go with FAUW but our staff provide our memory and our continuity. We are most fortunate that all three of our staff are not only excellent at what they do, but are genuinely decent and caring people. Those of you who come by our offices in MC will know the value of the warmth and friendliness with which we are always greeted.

My goal coming into this position was to ensure that I left it with a strong organizational structure, sound staffing, a talented successor, and a strong board and, while any achievements are hardly my doing alone, I can say that as a group we have met all these expectations. FAUW is in very good hands. Here are some further observations, particularly relating to the months since I last reported.

New faculty

Summer is one of the really enjoyable times of year when we greet new faculty members. I gather we have approximately 40 new members of our academic community. In July and August, we held informal get-togethers for those who had just joined the University and these were fun. The newcomers are filled with enthusiasm and the pleasure they take in joining this university is infectious. We look forward to many more gatherings like this as the new academic year begins.

New administrators

The past months have once again seen major changes at the senior administrative levels of the University. Provost Ian Orchard’s retirement was not the best news, but, fortunately, George Dixon is well known to us all, and of course he knows the university through and through. It is good to have a University Secretary once more, especially as Karen Jack already has a sound understanding of the operations of the university. We also welcome Cathy Newell Kelly in her new role as Registrar and Beth Sandore Namachchivaya as University Librarian. But we remain engaged in hiring for top level administrators and there will be the obvious next transitions and adjustments.

Upcoming events

There are many issues FAUW will continue to work on over the next year. For now, I will let you know of the new events we have planned:

Workshop for mid-career faculty – September 29

This is for all of you who have become a continuing lecturer or acquired tenure in the recent past. You are officially “mid-career.” The workshop is offered in recognition of the relatively poor job we do of introducing faculty to the full range of options available in an academic career (as all universities do). We are often asked how people become administrators, journal editors, policy advisors, etc. Often it is a matter of being in the right place at the right time, which is obviously not good enough. Acquiring career security marks a significant transition in your life as an academic and this half-day workshop will introduce you to many of the options now open to you. Shannon Dea will lead the event and has brought in others with really solid experience at this university and others in a range of capacities. Please register in advance.

Celebrating our birthday – October 26

Yes FAUW too is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. We understand we are competing with many special events, but we believe ours will be the best. Please mark your calendar for October 26th, when we will have an afternoon panel session followed by a reception. We will be providing more information soon.

FAUW service awards – October 26

At our 60th anniversary event, FAUW will present its inaugural service awards. These will be given on an annual basis to members of the university community who genuinely have made significant and lasting contributions to the well-being of FAUW members.

Mental health workshop

We are currently exploring an event that would help faculty better understand mental health concerns in academe to complement other, more student-focused initiatives on campus. Stay tuned for more information.

Thank you

Thanks all of you for the support over the last two years. FAUW belongs to its members. It is an inclusive and transparent organization. We welcome all of you who wish to work with us on any of the important issues that arise in our academic community.

What You Can Do About the Travel Ban

Practical things academics can do to help colleagues affected by the U.S. travel and immigration ban.

Last week, President Donald Trump issued a 90-day prohibition on entry to the U.S. by nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The same executive order blocks all refugee admissions for 120 days, with the exception of Syrian refugee admissions, which are suspended indefinitely.

Lawyers got to work, with mixed results. Some people from the seven countries have indeed been prevented from entering the U.S.; others have not. Suffice it to say that, for now, travel to the U.S. for nationals of those countries is very uncertain. And indeed, Muslims from countries other than the affected seven, as well as members of other marginalized groups, may well be wary about entering the U.S.

By now, you will likely have received communications from your professional organizations about how they’re responding to the ban. The Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Ontario Council of Faculty Associations, and University of Waterloo President Feridun Hamdullahpur have all issued statements too.

Beyond such statements though, what practical measures can you take in response to the travel ban? Herewith, in no particular order, is an initial round-up of practical things you can do. If you have other ideas, please add a comment below this post. We’ll update the list as we receive your ideas.

Things to keep in mind

don’t presume that only people from the seven countries listed in the executive order are choosing not to travel to / leave the U.S.; many nationals from other countries are reluctant to plan visits to or travel away from the U.S. because they fear the next immigration order that might be coming;
don’t presume that colleagues or students will disclose their national origin / identity; given the current political climate, they may fear to do so, even in Canada;
remember that some individuals may be affected by the executive order without knowing it. In particular, the ban is not limited to passport holders of the seven countries. In some cases, marriage or parentage may determine who is affected.

Conferences, workshops, etc.

since loss of travel opportunities results in less networking, less prestige, less demonstrable engagement with wider groups of scholars, offer to workshop and celebrate the scholarship of affected colleagues in journals, blogs, and courses. Tell the scholars in question that you are doing this (and give the workshop a name so that the scholars can list it on their c.v.s);
invite nationals of the seven affected countries (those who live outside the U.S.) to be speakers at academic events in Canada;
organize conferences and workshops in Canada so that scholars from the seven affected countries (those living outside the U.S.) can attend;
make sure that conferences and workshops have good tech options so that those unable to travel here can Skype in, or otherwise participate “virtually”;
reschedule events until after the 90-day ban is over, at which time more colleagues living in the U.S. will (unless something changes) be able to travel. But remember that there may be future travel bans. Don’t count on the 90-day timeline being reliable;
when choosing conferences for your research teams, make sure that they are in locations the entire team can travel to. (Put differently, if one of your grad students is Iranian, it might not be cool to bring your grad team to a conference in the U.S. because that student will be comparatively disadvantaged.);
if you’re planning alternative conferences, etc. in Canada so that folks don’t have to go to the U.S., remember that lots of U.S. scholars will be excluded by this. Many of them don’t receive funds to attend out-of-state or international conferences. So, you may need to Skype them in, or provide them with stipends so that they can travel here;
remember that the ban will prevent colleagues not only from travelling to/from the U.S., but also from travelling through it. For some colleagues, this may mean no more South American trips, etc.

Administrative supports (including hiring, tenure):

extend student application deadlines for prospective students from the affected countries;
create post-doc opportunities for nationals of the seven countries—the sooner the better; some prospective post-docs may right now be scrambling to replace planned, but no longer tenable, U.S. post-doc positions;
plan university events and issue media releases celebrating cultural, intellectual, scientific contributions of scholars from the seven countries;
seek out opportunities to co-author or otherwise collaborate with affected scholars; invite them to make contributions to larger publications;
establish and contribute to travel grant funds for nationals of the affected countries;
in hiring, remember that nationals of the seven countries currently living in the U.S. will not be able to do fly-in interviews in Canada for fear of not being re-admitted to the U.S. after the interview; make alternative arrangements so that they are not thereby disadvantaged in the competition;
in the future, when evaluating tenure and promotion files, graduate rankings, or similar from 2017, remember that nationals of the affected countries may have less research output from the period due to restrictions on their conference travel; take this into consideration fairly;

Final thoughts

when colleagues from the affected countries tell you they are worried, ask how you can help. But resist offering unsolicited advice, and don’t tell them not to worry. This is a difficult time for them, and their concerns are justified; don’t dismiss them.
If FAUW can help in any way, let us know.

FAUW hopes that this advice is helpful beyond the University of Waterloo. Please feel free to adapt, share, and use this post.

FAUW Issues Update

David Porreca, FAUW president

It has been an extremely busy start to the Fall term. Now that we are at the mid-way point, it is time to provide you, dear reader, with an update as to what has been keeping us at FAUW on our toes over the past several weeks.

ADDS status

The task force on the Approved Doctoral Dissertation Supervisor status regulations is pursuing its work with a view to reporting to the Faculty Relations Committee and the Graduate Student Relations Committee in November. We are looking at solutions to ensure good graduate supervision that meets students’ needs while addressing the manifold concerns with how the current ADDS policy is communicated, applied and enforced. At FAUW’s request, the Provost’s Office has written to each individual faculty member who has been hired in the past 6 years to inform them of the current policy, and equivalent language has been included in employment letters for those colleagues hired this past year.

Since doctoral dissertation supervisors can belong to a number of different categories of faculty members (e.g., visiting, clinical, tenure-track, tenured at UW, hired with tenure from elsewhere), the eventual policy would need to be formulated in such a way as to address the issues relating specifically to each one.

New AF&T chair

I am very pleased to announce that our colleague Christopher Small from Statistics and Actuarial Science had kindly agreed to replace Peter Van Beek as the Chair of FAUW’s Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee when the latter ends his term of office at the end of August 2014. The AF&T Chair is a challenging position that can have an enormously positive impact on the careers of our members, and we at FAUW are very pleased that Christopher has expressed such keenness to take on the role.

Athletics

Our blog post from September 9 highlighted some of the issues relating to athletics that affect faculty members’ working environment. New concerns have come to light in the meantime:

University of Waterloo Physical Activities Complex

There is no controlled access to the change rooms (e.g., turnstiles), which is commonplace in most reputable athletics facilities.
All staff members who dispense towels and oversee the (otherwise) uncontrolled access to the change rooms must walk through the men’s change room area in order to gain access to their office space.
Upon examination of the floor plan of the PAC, it turns out that the female change room is about ½ the size of the men’s. Unless there is a demonstrable difference in usage rates between the two groups, this layout is evidently problematic from an equity perspective.
A rough estimate sees 1/3 of the lockers in the men’s change room being broken and unusable, and another 1/3 being unused (those with the locks upside down). In other words, the space is under-used by a substantial margin. The lockers are in a deplorable condition, and we should all be grateful that campus ambassadors do not take visitors through the change rooms.

In light of the above, the Faculty Association is pushing for renovations to the PAC that would

Restore separate change rooms for faculty and staff
Replace the lockers with new equipment
Maintain safe access to the emergency exits
Ideally, address the concern over equity

If all groups of stakeholders – faculty (FAUW), staff (UWSA), graduate students (GSA), undergraduate students (Feds) and the university administration (via Athletics or the Provost’s Office) – could come together to fund such renovations, all the stated groups would benefit at a modest cost to each.

Also, feedback from female colleagues as to the state of the women’s change rooms at the PAC would be greatly appreciated. Please comment below or e-mail the FAUW president at dporreca@uwaterloo.ca.

Best practices in hiring

FAUW’s Status of Women and Equity Committee (SWEC) produced a 6-page report on “Best Practices in Hiring” for faculty members. This document has received endorsement by Deans’ Council and will be presented to the Executive Council of the university in late November. Recognition of the need for such a document at those high levels of university administration is an encouraging sign to be sure, as long as we eventually see proportional corresponding action.

The Best Practices in Hiring document in its current stage (pdf)

Grad House memberships

Some of you have been asking about how faculty memberships at the Grad House work. Henry Ensley, manager of the Grad House, has written a letter explaining how it all works.

Instructor evaluations

FAUW is being consulted on what shape we would like to see course evaluations take in the future. Discussions will include student representatives and qualified staff from CTE. If you have strong feelings or ideas you’re willing to share about course evaluations, please comment below or e-mail the FAUW president at dporreca@uwaterloo.ca.

OCUFA Queen’s Park Lobby Day

UW’s Kate Lawson (OCUFA President) and David Porreca (FAUW President) met with four local MPPs on Wednesday 23 October at Queen’s Park: Ted Arnott (PC – Wellington–Halton Hills); Catherine Fife (NDP – Kitchener–Waterloo); Rob Leone (Cambridge) and Hon. John Milloy (Kitchener Centre). We had four basic messages to deliver to our representatives:

That the province needs to fund an independent study on the working conditions of contract academic staff across the province in order to help resolve long-standing concerns about their job precariousness, lack of real academic freedom and potential for exploitation.
That the province needs to provide temporary solvency relief to university sector pension plans for those institutions that need it. We had been asking for a 1-year extension of such relief in order to give enough time to OCUFA to complete its study on university-sector pension plans. Much to our relief, however, in the middle of our meeting sessions, news came out that the province had granted a 3-year window of solvency relief.
That the province needs to restore funding to its faculties of education. This question did not concern UW as much, so I shall not belabour it here.
That the province need not incentivize differentiation between universities in the province because institutions of higher education are already plenty differentiated as it is, from small liberal arts colleges to the University of Toronto, with UW standing out – among other things – for its long-standing commitment to the co-op stream and for having a full Faculty of Mathematics.

Our messages were well-received, in particular, the first point, with members from all three parties agreeing to request such a study from the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.

Scheduling

FAUW is anxiously awaiting the results of the latest simulation of the new scheduling system, as discussed in last week’s post by Bryan Tolson.

Senate bylaws

The Secretariat has announced plans to undertake a full-scale revision of the Senate bylaws. The first phase of this initiative is restricted to housekeeping changes, but revisions to Section 5 (selection of members of the Senate) are being left for last as they are more likely to be substantive. These revisions require great vigilance to ensure that nothing deleterious to our working lives as faculty members happens as a result of the proposed changes. Faculty senators are encouraged to exercise active vigilance when these documents become available for consideration.

UW’s numbered policies

The Secretariat is also undertaking a full-scale multi-phased revision of all 69 of UW’s numbered policies (still listed as 1-77, with some gaps). The first phase will involve housekeeping changes (e.g., regularizing and updating the names of buildings and offices that are mentioned in the policies), but later phases will also involve substantive changes. Through the Faculty Relations Committee, the approval of the Faculty Association will be necessary for any changes that are to be made to Class F, FS and A policies. FAUW plans to devote substantial time and energy to make sure that any changes are favourable to faculty members’ interests. The numbered guidelines and procedures will also be subject of an eventual analogous revision.

Work-Life Balance Report update

The joint FAUW/Provost’s Office Work-Life Balance Report that was presented to Senate back in February 2013 is becoming integrated purposefully into the “Value System” focus area of UW’s newly released (but-not-yet-fully-Senate-approved) Strategic Plan. FAUW’s Status of Women and Equity Committee produced a “Compassionate Care and Bereavement Leave” report that will be considered in conjunction with the WLB report at the same level.

Work-Life Balance Report (pdf)

Event reminders

Please mark your calendars for the following events:

Privacy Colloquium: Wednesday, December 4, 2 – 5 in M3 1006, with reception to follow.
Fall General Meeting: Monday, December 9, 11-1, Location TBA. Light lunch provided