Party Wednesday May 3

Quote from John Kenneth Galbraith:

"One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the realization that such people rarely read."

Too true.

But this post is re a post-picket party. Our grades are due on Wednesday, and half of our faculty start holidays the next day, so we are gathering at Steve's (totally informally) on Wednesday May 3rd after grade posting to wish some of our colleagues "bonne vacances" and also to renew contacts made on the picket line. This is an invite to all who picketed with us at Davis to join us tomorrow, after 1 p.m. at Steve's. If you don't already know this place (where we gathered after our Friday picket line duties) please contact your local Davis union steward or me and we'll let you know where it is! Hope to see you all there.

We can chat, reminisce, plan strategies for the future ... one thing I like is a massive strike fund for the next time -- or just chill out. ALL picketers are welcome and this is a totally non-sanctioned event, just so that you know that neither the Local (nor the management) is involved :-)))

A fellow faculty member has been looking back at some of the issues specific to our situation at our college, and has the following comments. It should be noted in our context that our Local asked on several occasions to have our picket lines moved back from the intersections where it was perceived that there was significant danger to picketers, and, according to them, these requests on all occasions were refused by management. This naturally made management claims that our safety was of utmost importance something of a sick joke in our eyes. In addition, our VPA (based on quotes in a recent edition of the college newspaper) suggests the strike was a situation where faculty was unreasonable. "My personal opinion is that the strike was not justified," she says. "I think that the management proposal was a reasonable response to the issues given the financial circumstances." In addition, a morale survey done many years ago was basically supressed at that time by the then-management, and in the intervening years no further surveys have been taken (nor, from our perspective, have any actions been taken to address the issues that were identified by that survey).

Here is the comment from my fellow faculty member:

The strike was merely the most recent symptom of an "US (faculty) and THEM (management)" situation that has been building for more than ten years. Several years ago, the infamous “morale survey” revealed similar problems and pressures to those of today. Since then, there has been no real opportunity for faculty to express their views collectively.

In this context, the strike provided an unusual opportunity for faculty to get together and discuss their perspectives and concerns. The following is a synthesis of a great number of points that arose during these picket-line discussions, in which “WE” are the faculty and “THEY” are the senior administration and Board of Governors.

WE feel that diminishing resources have forced US into an increasingly frustrating struggle to maintain the integrity of OUR excellent "tried and true" college programs that it took US years to build and which benefit large numbers of students, while

THEY make our job more difficult by under-budgeting OUR college programs in order to provide funds for THEIR priorities such as applied degrees and research, which generate neither net revenues for the college nor benefits for the vast majority of OUR students.

When WE went on strike over Ontario’s under-resourcing of the colleges, the colleges could have said that THEY sympathized with OUR concerns, and regretted that given their inadequate level of funding, they were unable to address those concerns.

Instead, THEY spent large amounts of money to publicly accuse US of being lazy and greedy, whereas:

THEIR salaries had increased more than three times as fast as OURS over the past 4 years.

In this context, the squabbling over specific tactics involving picket lines can be seen as a relatively inconsequential symptom of much larger issues.

The comment from the VPA is, in my view, a telling one. The issue may or may not be "the financial circumstances" in toto, but certainly at the faculty level it has everything to do with spending priorities, which we can all observe.

Time to Think and Converse

When did you last have a conversation, a real conversation, with a colleague or a friend – while paying them the compliment of your full, undivided attention?.... That we have built organizations which preclude the one activity they’re designed for is an irony of monstrous proportions, well beyond the scope of a single individual to fix.
by Margaret Heffernan

I have been out of town at a funeral of an old friend of my husband's this weekend. Talking with old friends has led me to consider the need for thoughtful discussions with friends and colleagues (not so much the multi-tasking that this article is referring to but rather the issue of the fact that many of us spend far too little time discussing the things that are important with friends and colleagues).

I am fortunate in that some of us at my campus make a point of getting together once or twice a week at least after class (usually at our local pub but sometimes at the home of a friend, or over a game of bridge) to discuss what has happened with our students (good and bad), or in our classes, or what is positive or is bothering us in the classroom or in our program or with our management or whatever it is that is on our minds. And it is so important that we do this. It never fails that after these informal "meetings" I am refreshed, or reminded of important things that during the hectic day I had not had time to think about, or simply cheered up and encouraged.

I am reminded that until there is some sort of crisis we often put off this necessary time to get input from others, to discuss, to debate, to hear other views and so on. Certainly on a formal basis the opportunity for these occasions has not happened for many years and it is only those of us who make a private effort to continue them have this opportunity. Our college, as it now operates, make it almost impossible to do so. There is no time when those in one program (let alone across programs) can actually get together to talk to each other, to share experiences, to learn from each other. We live scattered across the GTA, our timetables are designed by a computer so that, for example, as many of us teach on more that one campus, so it is often virtually impossible to find even one hour a week when two of us are on the same campus at the same time in order to discuss issues, let alone a group of us. The May/June period used to be set aside for program and course development, but now that some of us must be there in May/June and others in July/August, this year we have exactly (count 'em) 0 days to meet with the faculty that teach in our program between the time the marking is done and the time that holidays for roughly half the faculty start.

How does an educational organization, which claims to value teamwork and collaboration and cooperation expect this to happen when they provide no time for this type of activity to occur?

What's Wrong Here?

From a report entitled "Enhancing Governance and Accountability Capacity", prepared for the Ministry in 2005 by Deloitte, comes the following interesting quote:

Key Process - Executive Performance Assessment

Board responsibility for the selection, evaluation and compensation of the
CEO/president is viewed as one of a board’s most critical responsibilities. In “best practice” models, CEO assessment is undertaken by a committee of the board, using a defined performance assessment tool. The scope and breadth of the process is dependent, but at its most fulsome includes some form of “360” review, and assessment of both qualitative (typically financial) and quantitative goals (leadership, communications, etc.). The literature of governance generally suggests that this is one area where boards are not performing to the highest standard ...

Wow what a surprise that one is! I hope our BoG keeps their responsibilities in mind over the next year or two, recognising that they "are not performing to the highest standard"! I would personally welcome a 360 review for a CEO that measures "leadership, communications, etc."

Here's another quote from the same document:

When the board member population is analyzed based on an internal/external split and the degree of constraint experienced, internal members experienced a slightly higher degree of constraint than did external members (although, overall, both groups expressed minimal constraint on all dimensions). Those areas where internal members reported a 10% or greater variance than was the case with external board members included:
• human resources management related to the president;
• stakeholder communication;
• governance practices and accountability;
• knowledge and understanding of the postsecondary environment; and,
• financial and information management.

Please note particularly that the internal versus external members of the Boards of Governors have a 10% or more variance in feeling "constrained" re H/R management related to the president, knowledge and understanding of the post-secondary environment and financial and information management. I would consider a 10% difference significant in terms of the real understanding of the BoGs on these issues. I would also bet that if this survey were to be redone today (post-strike) that the 10%+ difference between internal and external board members would be much larger. Remember too, that most members of the BoGs are external and cannot be expected to really understand what is happening at the "shop floor" level.

So what does this mean? To me, it means that a significant number of the external BoG members are neither aware of nor permitted access to the realities of the college situation. I do not blame the external members. This report also makes it clear that they have limited time to devote to their position, and in addition we (internal) folk know that they are not necessarily provided with adequate information on specific situations. That view is backed up by our current BoG faculty rep, who has commented both recently and in the past that those internal members who would present an alternative to the rosy view presented to the BoG are either stopped from providing information in open sessions or are, when they try to do so, channeled into sub-committees (where their views are buried or disparaged by other internal members on the subcommittee), or who are so discouraged by the lack of understanding of the outside members (who are basically appointed by the top management) that they just give up trying to get action on what is important to faculty and staff.

It became clear to many faculty during the strike that there is a large disconnect between the "shop floor" experience and what the BoG's understand as the situation. Let me be clear here: many of us, prior to the strike, thought that our experiences were the "exception". We figured that perhaps we were among a minority who sensed that, when it came to financial allocations, for example, that our department, division or our college was the exception. We now know that this is common across the college and the system (granted it is expressed in different ways based on the unique situations.) But ...

Those BoG's who simply rally around the flag at this time, instead of asking for a clear financial and strategic review of their colleges' allocation of resources and their colleges' communications and their colleges' "leadership" can -- in my view -- be compared to those who rally around GWB and declare that all is well and that all those WMDs that were found did indeed justify an invasion of Iraq. Our Boards of Governors need to know the "shop floor" reality.

Re the "slightly higher" quote (above) ... I would point out that when KPIs (key performance indicators), on which programs in colleges are judged, are analysed, a 10% variance between programs may indeed cause a program to be cancelled, so with due respect to Deloitte (who, by the way, were paid by Ministry, I consider a 10% difference to be significant. And the committee itself, please note...

was co-chaired by the Assistant Deputy Minister, Postsecondary
Education and the Chair of the Executive Committee of the ACAATO Board of
Directors. In addition to the co-chairs, the committee included:
• three college governors;
• a college president;
• a vice-president administration/board secretary;
• two representatives from the CCAC;
• the Director of the Colleges Branch; and,
• a representative from the Ministry of Finance.

A Working Group Secretariat comprised of a project coordinator and a
representative from ACAATO, CCAC and MTCU assisted the Committee.

Do you see any faculty? Do you see any support staff? Hmmmmm ... disconnect!

I hope it is understandable why I question their assertion that a 10% or greater difference reflects "minimal constraint". But of course I am prejudiced ipso facto. I only work there. I am not a governor, a president, a VPA, a CCAC or a ministry type. Sorry about that. Just my opinion.

Take the weird test... I am adequately weird! Are you? Sometimes we have to get less serious about this stuff!
:-)))

A Picket Line Manifesto

I just found this one, it is a few weeks old (found on the Algonquin Local 415 web site) but its topic remains very relevant, despite the fact that it was written before the strike was over.

Why I strike: a picket line manifesto

By Joe Banks, Citizen Special, 22 March 2006


I am a proud graduate of the Ontario community college system. In May 1978, I was presented with my diploma in journalism on the stage at the Durham College convocation.

It was one of my most exhilarating moments. Along with a few of my classmates, I earned honours with an average of more than 80 per cent.

When I fell over the finish line in Grade 12, gasping, I couldn’t have imagined a more unlikely end to my post-secondary education. I was a mediocre student in high school, nearly failing actually, cursed with a brain that could not grasp math, but which somehow had an affinity for the arts and writing.

When I enrolled in a community college journalism program, something clicked.

Instructors taught me not just what I needed to know to get my first job, but also street sense. I didn’t know it then, but what they were teaching me was so much more important than lessons rendered by rote. They taught me how to wonder.

According to the curriculum of the day, they didn’t set out to do it, and I didn’t set out to learn it. It just happened. It happened because they were unencumbered by the distractions of the minutiae of academia.

Experience your education; live the learning, I learned.

This was what the Ontario community college system gave me then and what I think it gave to hundreds of thousands of graduates who went before and came after. A sturdy, useable education that never pretended to be anything more than what it was: a practical, pragmatic way to find out how to do things that make society function. Faculty members were hired from the very sectors that needed new blood. People who had proved they could do, were hired to teach.

But rather than building on that model, rather than continuing on a trajectory that had been set in motion by former education minister and premier Bill Davis in the mid-’60s, the system was allowed to be starved. Rather than seeing the hiring of full-time faculty as an investment in excellence, they were looked upon during the Harris years of the ’90s as expensive and politically disagreeable liabilities. Still, aware of the political fallout of being seen to be doing nothing as the double-cohort approached, it threw hundreds of millions of dollars at bricks and mortar and, with the tacit acceptance of college presidents, ignored the situation that would bring us to where we are today — 22-per-cent fewer full-time faculty during a time when enrolments rose 53 per cent. That has equalled larger classes and a steadily growing reliance on part-time faculty paid only for their classroom time (marking and prep remain unpaid) and, surprise, surprise, a steadily declining quality of college education which, through always-present performance and student assessments, would put any failures squarely on the shoulders of an increasingly harried and declining number of full-time faculty.

And so I picket. And as I watched my colleagues pressing their signs against the wind last week, people who are far more comfortable and competent with markers or laser pointers than picket signs in hand, I remembered something I learned and try to teach my students.

Some things are worth fighting for. I had learned a long time ago, maybe from dad, maybe from mom, maybe from my teachers, that principles can stand as long as they are based on selflessness. Then they will endure any test thrown at them.

But don’t take my word for it. We trip over ourselves arguing to a weary public that it’s the students who really matter. So let’s hear from the head of the Ontario College Student Alliance, Matt Jackson, who said on March 16 the provincial government of Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty must put more cash into college education to help bring an end to the strike.

“While the McGuinty government has made a historic investment in post-secondary school education (in last year’s provincial budget, he pledged $6.2-billion over the next five years for Ontario’s universities and colleges), the college system is still suffering from years of neglect and cuts of previous governments,” Mr. Jackson said. “Ontario college students still remain the lowest funded in Canada on a per-student basis. This is absolutely unacceptable.”

The Durham diploma hangs on the wall in my office at the Woodroffe Campus of Alqonquin College here in Ottawa in room N-209A. It will stay there as long as the college sees fit to employ me.

Joe Banks is a former rural community newspaper publisher and editor in the area. He teaches journalism at Algonquin College when he isn’t the picket captain for the Woodroffe evening shift — and a mighty fine one at that.

Questions and Answers

A respected college educator, who shall remain anonymous at his/her request, asked that his/her views be published. (Seems that a large number of us are worried about the culture and climate of vindictiveness!)I am happy to post it, with some small edits, here:

A college strike can raise many questions. One question that some faculty are asking themselves is "What type of educator tries to pit students against their teachers?" The reason that faculty are drawing a blank on this question is that real educators would never do such a thing. Yet that is exactly what ACAATO and our top management at the college did before and during the recent strike.

The realization that management aren't real educators goes a long way in explaining the workings of the college over the last few years. It has long been expected that current management didn't understand (and didn't care to understand) the importance of the teacher-student relationship. This is now proven by their willingness to sabotage that relationship. It also explains why some administrators are more interested in speaking with people who read about how things are done at other institutions rather than speaking with their own faculty. Other oddities make sense also: their use of "management by student survey", the Seinfeld meetings ("this is a meeting about nothing") and the medieval process they have established to approve new courses.

We have been preparing young and old for the workplace for 39 years. During all 39 of those years faculty have been able to deliver quality education to students. In some of those years this was done with management's help. In others it was done in spite of management's neglect or interference. Management's actions during the strike signal that this is a time when we must focus on delivering quality education in spite of management.

Thanks, our "name withheld" faculty member!

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable. (Mark Twain)

So how many times did you read in the press that we were just lazy and greedy, and that the colleges had offered a "generous" salary offer? Hmmm .... I read it constantly. So ... let me quote you what our college stated on our website (I think I already mentioned I saved this stuff, even though our college quickly took it down after the strike was over). Here's the quote ..."The colleges have provided a good offer to OPSEU ... A 12.6-per-cent increase in salary over four years".

Well anyone who teaches statistics knows that you can twist statistics in a variety of ways. Here's the way the offer actually went, according to the OPSEU bargaining team:

End rate 2005 at top of salary scale $82,299

Effective Date: %Increase 12-month salary
Sept 1/05 to Mar 31/06 2.00% $83,945
Apr 1/06 to Aug 31/06 1.00% $84,784
Sept 1/06 to Mar 31/07 2.00% $86,480
Apr 1/07 to Aug 31/07 1.00% $87,345
Sept 1/07 to Mar 31/08 2.00% $89,092
Apr 1/08 to Aug 31/08 1.00% $89,983
Sept 1/08 to Mar 31/09 2.00% $91,782
Apr 1/09 to Aug 31/09 1.00% $92,700


Total additional salary over 4 years $23,568
Actual $$$ increase over 4 years 7.16%

NOTE -- 7.16% over 4 years. Now does that look like 12.6 percent to you? But what impression did that 12.6% give to the media and the students?

A friend of mine predicted this type of misleading use of statistics from day one of the strike. After all, they have done this to us before, so why would one be surprised that they are doing it again? So ... I would have a just-barely-over 7% increase in real $$$ over 4 years. Maybe it is (partly) about the money after all, especially given what the "sunshine club" (those in the colleges who make over $100 000) already get.

But of course we are back to work now and the strike issues will disappear from the press and this information will get no play in the media and what will stick in the public's mind is that misleading 12.6%.

Lessons Learned

Let's Give 'Em Something To Talk About!

Well I have been too busy with my own particular "semester completion strategy" to write anything much this week, but what the heck, it's the weekend now, so as all of us know, we profs. have nothing to do but relax on weekends.

Our own particular top administrators, who all reside on the second floor of the "main" campus, sent an interesting email to us all this week, claiming that our Union agreed to having our picket lines in an area which was clearly dangerous. Without going into the merits of the argument (and there weren't many merits, trust me, given our Local had asked 4 times to have the picket lines removed to a safer location, and given that the college refused 4 times) ... well, never mind! ... Bottom line is that the memo made it even worse.

I cannot understand why someone who is paid almost $250 000 per year plus over $26 000 in taxable benefits does not understand the basics of H/R (Human Resources) 101.

We found it bizarre that the e-mail sent to us was signed by both the president and the vpa but was sent from the email account of one of our H/R people. What does this mean? We are all reading the entrails ... does this mean that they straight-armed this poor person in H/R and made her send it? Or, more likely .. does it mean that neither the president nor the vp/a knows how to use email? or has an email account? or were they worried that they would get so many nasty "reply" emails that they did not want to use their own account? Or maybe they can't type? Or maybe they figured we wouldn't open it if we saw it was from them? (Oh for a return-to-sender button on email!)

At any rate the email was not only offensive to most faculty but also perceived as a feeble attempt to make some sort of lame (albeit cleverly-worded) excuse for their actions. And of course there was no apology for the shabby way we were treated (verbally). It included no "mea culpa" (which might have been something that reasonable faculty could have grudgingly accepted) but instead was a "we did this and here's why we did it" non-rationale. Some H/R professors commented sarcastically after they received this CYA memo ... "ohhhhh ... so I guess everything is ok again now? HAH!" Nobody that I have talked to gives any credence to this after-the-fact pseudo-rationale. So you gotta wonder why it was sent. Might it be to garner support at the Board of Governor's level? I am too tired to go on tonight, but I shall return with more tales tomorrow.

Do The Arithmetic

I was talking today with a good friend who reminded me about the "generous" offer on the part of the colleges to hire 120 faculty over the course of the Council 4 year contract offer ... what was missing in the Council communication was the math. Try 120 faculty, divided by 4 years, divided by 24 colleges! My handy dandy calculator (called "in my head") puts that at 1.25 faculty members hired per college per year over the course of the contract.

What an excellent offer! I guess they figure we cannot do the arithmetic. Maybe they were going to hire all 120 in the first year? Oh ... I did not see that in the offer. I do straight arithmetic ... which is all I saw in that offer.

My Picket Line Pal

We all felt like this little guy when we were out walking the line so I thought I'd adopt one. I may also send it to the folks at College Boreal, who have adopted a penguin as their mascot! Salut mes amis a Boreal! Tease him with your cursor, he loves it! And feed him a Timbit (errr .. fish ... healthier!) by clicking on the "more" tab!

adopt your own virtual pet!

Be Afraid ... Be Very Very Afraid.

"One in five older working Americans say they will never retire, whether out of financial need or to stay active and engaged, according to a study released on Monday" This from Yahoo News.

That means, my administration friends, that you are going to be stuck with people who REMEMBER this "negotiation" for a long long time.

Part of the Problem

Although the majority of the subjects I have taught over the years are not specifically in the "communications" area, I have taught 2nd year courses in reports and presentations and for the last few years have also taught a similar course at the 3rd year level. In addition for a number of years I taught business courses which had both reports and presentations as a major component. In addition my "formal" education was in English language and literature, so I feel I can comment on this area of "quality investment" that is needed in the colleges.

So first I would like to reference the website "rant" of an excellent teacher. This is not my view ... I have never been in her classroom nor seen her courses. But my daughter took courses from her, and while my offspring was somewhat blunt in her assessment of some of her instructors, she gave top marks to this one: in fact, she said that of all the professors she had had during her 3 years, this one was the one she learned the most from. So go see what this professor has to say about the need for support in the colleges for what may be the most basic skills that a student needs in order both to learn and to demonstrate other skills, let alone to succeed after graduation. But at our college unless you have a PhD (in anything) you will not be hired to teach -- even if you have a master's degree and can teach, I still suggest you not bother to apply at this point, as should anyone with a PhD apply you will probably be rejected out of hand. You will likely not even get an interview, even if you have taught on a part-time or partial-load basis for years and have excellent teaching reviews from students. As this professor points out -- what has happened to a system that teaches MSWord and presentation skills with "computer studies" teachers with no background or training in language skills? What has happened when other analysis-intensive courses that used to have 3 or 4 case studies (individually done) now have 1 per term, because the evaluation factors do not allow for more? And, as I have noted before, we used to have an 18 week semester with 4 hours per week to teach such skills, and we are now reduced to 14 week semesters and 3 hours per course. Rumour on the picket line has it that one of our top administrators was heard to say that the college only wanted to develop new programs that taught theory, not skills .... hmmm, surely that cannot be accurate?

As you can see from the date on the web page, this issue is nowhere near being new ... we in the college system have been trying to cope with this issue for a number of years now. (By the way, this professor is now retired, so don't be surprised if you try to contact her and she does not answer your email.) That's why I feel free to post the link ... there will be no repercussions for her. But if the link goes dead in the next few days, I would not be surprised, as her page is still posted on the college server. (Suggestion ... if you want it, save it quickly!)

So a question for our college administrators --- who were you talking to that led you to believe that we were happy with the quality we can deliver, and therefore why were you so "surprised" that we voted for a strike for more full-time teachers and smaller class sizes and, generally, for better quality? Anyone in touch with these daily issues that we have struggled with over the last 4 or 5 years especially would have known that we would have to take a stand over quality, and the Rae report supported it. What were we supposed to do? Trust you to make it magically better? After years of reductions in teaching time and growth in class sizes and all the other issues that have faced us with technology issues and a changing "intake" profile, I don't think so.

For All You Monty Python Fans Out There

You just have to sing along with Wendi on her blog of March 29th. I sure wish we had this one to sing at our campus. Thanks, Wendi, it is great fun.