Tenure granted at UCN

But talks continue to determine the future of northern institution

Tessa Vanderhart Staff

The controversy surrounding tenured academics at the University College of the North has been successfully resolved in negotiations with union representatives, according to UCN president Antony Bos.

At a meeting of the interim council last week, Bos said, UCN and representatives of the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union (MGEU) were able to reach a consensus on academic freedoms and tenure, along with several other points of contention.

“We have an appointment promotion of tenure clause in our new agreement with MGEU, and it describes the full process involved in achieving tenure,” said Bos. “Our tenure provisions are not different from those at the Manitoba universities.”

However, the remaining half of the controversy — the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ (CAUT) contention that UCN’s governing council is not sufficiently bicameral, and that there is too much provincial involvement in the university college — remain to be resolved by the provincial government.

John Baert, a communications officer with the MGEU, said that the union is pleased with the results of negotiations between the union and the university college.

“We believe that we’ll come out of this with something everyone will be pleased with,” he said. “And we believe CAUT is wrong — period.”

Full agreement has been reached on a number of issues: academic freedom, appointment, promotion and tenure, workload, research and study leaves, and financial exegency — “everything within our scope of discretion,” said Bos.

The University College of the North has faced serious allegations from the Canadian Association of University Teachers regarding academic freedoms, namely: the supposed lack of tenure for professors, failure to provide an equal and bicameral board of directors, and the potential for involvement in the affairs of the post-secondary institution by the minister of advanced education.

While Diane McGifford, who currently holds this post, denies these allegations, negotiations continue between the province and CAUT, as well as with MGEU.

The University College of the North is not a member of the Association of Universities and Community Colleges (AUCC), which has specific requirements for the number of degrees conferred, in comparison to diplomas.

However, according to Jeff Pappone, media relations officer for the AUCC, the organization does not differentiate between universities and university colleges.

“The universities and university colleges that are members are of the same status,” he said. “We wouldn’t differentiate between the two.”

The University College of the Fraser Valley is currently working its way to full status as a university, something UCFV president H.A. Bassford says is incredibly important.

He explained that the name “university college” is somewhat ambiguous, as it provides some of the same programs as a university, — albeit with a different name; — but, he added, in his experience, there are few differences between the board of governors, or ability to grant tenure, between the two types of institutions.

The Manitoba Organization of Faculty Associations has also raised serious concerns about UCN, saying that the UCN Act allows for “direct government intervention” in the affairs of the institution, while the Council on Post-Secondary Education (COPSE) Act protects others from this interference.

In October, representatives of UCN and MGEU will go to Ottawa to discuss avoiding possible censure by the CAUT.

Bos said that he hopes the changes instituted by UCN to ensure tenure for professors will not be obscured by the ambiguity remaining in the UCN Act, which, he said, is now the responsibility of the provincial government.