Dear Senators,
We welcome the opportunity to have our voices heard at this extraordinary Senate meeting. Our collective voice has spoken through our picket lines and our rallies. In that voice we have been expressing our determination to ensure an ongoing commitment to overall academic integrity at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Many individual CAS members desired to share their observations and insights with you. What will be read to you today is only a portion of the abridged versions of what was prepared for Senators to consider. (A longer document has been prepared and circulated to you.)
Let us now attend to their observations and insights.
One member asks: What does Dr. Blouw really believe?
In an interview published in the Cord Weekly, soon after he arrived on campus in Fall 2007, President Blouw stated: "Here I hope to create environments where people can excel - its faculty members, students and staff members. Because if you can create an environment where the greatest human potential can be realized, then you're really serving society well." We could not agree more: the hundreds of Laurier classrooms now sitting empty confirm the cost of ignoring Dr. Blouw's own advice.
Another member wants to reflect on how the administration hiring of Ph.D.s for CAS work, brings WLU credit in the Maclean's annual survey, but then the administration publicly dismisses the research work of these Ph.D.s. This tension calls into question how exactly the administration views the contribution of CAS members to the academic strength of Wilfrid Laurier's programs.
Regarding the difficulty of maintaining high academic standards in teaching when academic staff are under-resourced, one member remarks that:
The lack of proper office space and other facilities shows the administration's disregard for our well being. Having a 'space' ensures that one can carry out one's academic work to the best of one's ability. The general perception is that we are transient workers who move on to other jobs. In fact, some of us have been part of the Laurier community for years. Our poor salaries and work conditions are a reflection of the administration's perception of who they think we are, and what our contribution to academic quality really is.
Another member speaks of the unpaid work that so many CAS members do, so as to develop strong and effective courses, through syllabus preparation and external research saying:
What I want to say here is that my work as a 'part-time' faculty member is in fact very demanding. Before my contract even begins I design the courses I am going to teach and produce a course syllabus for each while making sure that I've got the course web page designed. Oh yes, I will also review and decide on textbooks for the course and order them.
I also think about my next research project. Will it be a comparative study of various forms of 'de-linking' currently being practiced in Latin America? I might have to travel to the region to collect data although I doubt the $100.00 expense account the university provides me will get me beyond Toronto, so I will ahve to apply for a research grant.
Still another member echoes this last thought about the amount of unpaid work we undertake in our commitment to the quality of education at Wilfrid Laurier University, pointing out that:
Like any competent professor, full- or part-time, I spend months preparing to teach a course and creating, honing, and refining my course outline. Months before a course starts, I'm doing data base searches and reading the most up-to-date literature. I examine myriad textbooks to determine which one will best suit the learning objectives of the course and the needs of students. I create relevant and informative course packages which can take many months even years to perfect.
And yet I cannot call myself a professor. According to my university, I am an instructor and what I do is absolutely and easily replicable. Apparently, in the eyes of the institution, I am credited with doing little more than standing at the front of the room reading from a textbook.
A member from Music offers a unique perspective for your attention saying:
Most CAS studio instructors in the Faculty of Music are nationally and internationally renowned orchestral and solo performers, composers, and music therapists. We are professionals at the top of our respective fields, with extensive training at the highest level. Our students rely on our years of training and experience to help them achieve the highest level of performance.
In that respect, it is extremely distressing to see our students face the possibility of having to perform their final juries, graduation reciatals, chamber concerts, and major ensemble performances without the benefit of the coaching they deserve as students of Wilfrid Laurier University. For the University to be proceeding with these events sends a clear signal to us as CAS instructors that they do not value the skills we bring to their students, and believe that the students are capable of completing the requirements of these courses on their own. It calls into question the Musical integrity of our students' work - and thsu the academic integrity of their program.
Our final speaker for today reflects a vision of WLU that remains committed to the highest quality educational experience.
We have heard about President Blouw's plea for a vision for Laurier. The vision of CAS members and of the students and full-time faculty that support our strike, embraces not intellectual division, but intellectual unity. Our vision seeks a university that provides a forum in which all scholars, full-time and part-time, are treated equally to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge. Our vision includes a full acknowledgment of our value to the Laurier community. Good academic work, excellence in teaching, commitment to the advancement of knowledge, is not the monopoly of a particular group of instructors.
We thanks you for listening to just a few individual voices of the CAS. We hope you keep them in mind as you deliberate today, and as you continue to contribute to the life of this academic community - to which we are all so deeply committed.Contract Academic Staff, Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association
For more contributions from the CAS to Senate, please
check our website at: http://www.wlufa.ca
This letter was passed around before the Senate meeting and, while not read, was referenced in a comment made by Dr. Judy Bates. The meeting itself was enjoyable, many voices both from students and full-time faculty were raised in concern for the senior administrators by passing the power of the Senate in allowing students to drop their courses (taught both by part- and full=time faculty).
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