Lessons from last Friday

The March Break Open House on Saturday attracted hundreds of prospective Carleton students and their parents, many of whom were using their break from high school classes to compare the different universities which have extended offers of admission.  Most of those with whom I spoke seemed to hail from the north or east sides of Toronto, including an extraordinary number from the Pickering-Whitby-Oshawa corridor.  It was also good to see such an impressive turnout of our faculty, staff, and students, all engaged in the worthy cause of providing program information and answering questions.  This truly does make a difference, as many of the students who end up choosing Carleton later relate.

By contrast, the previous day’s attendance at the March meeting of the FASS Faculty Board was rather underwhelming.  Indeed, it fell far short of achieving the nominal quorum of 30, required by the existing FASS Constitution, which made for an interesting discussion of the recent rejection by the Board of Governors of the constitutional changes which FASS had proposed, and primarily the proposal to reduce the quorum from 30 to 20.  It is apparently the view of the Board that 20 faculty members (out of the roughly 300+ who are eligible to attend and vote) is far too small a number to be truly representative of the range of interests and disciplines included under the broad umbrella of “Arts and Social Sciences”… and it is very difficult to disagree.  Was the low attendance the result of an agenda singularly lacking in contentious items at what is an exceptionally busy time of year?  Or is it a symptom of a larger malaise, namely a more general reluctance to engage with the processes of collegial governance?

I am hoping for the former, as the latter rationale, if true, would be most discouraging.  In my view, one of the best features of academic life is the freedom which faculty members have, individually and collectively, to control much if not most of what they do, from the number of hours spent “at the office” to the specifics of what is taught and how they teach it.  In many respects this reflects time-honoured traditions dating back to the foundation of universities as institutions in the central Middle Ages.  But rights which are not exercised may ultimately disappear, not with a bang but a whimper.

During my days at the University of Victoria, a VP Academic who shall remain nameless once opined that faculty members were much too busy with teaching and research to serve on the multitude of committees and boards that governed the institution, and suggested that these activities could perhaps be left to non-academic professional administrators.  The intense negative reaction quickly led her to back away from that view … but the threat remains ever present.  If we are not willing to invest the time and energy required to manage our own affairs, then someone else will happily step forward and do it for us.  And that would be an enormous setback for the principle of collegial governance, already broadly under threat across the planet.

Fortunately the FASS Board meeting was rescued by two remarkable students, who had come to speak of their experiences with the Centre for Initiatives in Education.  Frankly, their eloquent testimonials saved my day, by serving as a useful reminder of why we are all here, doing what we do.  And at another meeting on Friday I derived similar comfort from the reports of students who had participated in the Alternative Spring Break trips to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Vancouver’s downtown east side, trips that were not only hugely memorable but which indeed will serve to change their lives, in the short term providing them with a much better sense of their place in the world and what they want to do with their future.  Perhaps we also need an ASB program for faculty members!

To be frank, we are at war: against those would like universities to teach only the skills required for specific jobs, and see no value either in the “liberal arts” or in our having a research mission; against those who see universities in much the same terms as other commercial enterprises and wish to manage them in a similar fashion; and against those who view faculty members as merely one of roughly half a dozen employee groups.  And while I would argue that we must be pragmatic, and pay very close attention to issues such as the financial sustainability of our enterprise, I also despair when colleagues seem more concerned about their personal circumstances than the state of the institution writ large, seemingly unaware of the millennium of struggle which has led to the evolution of the institutions that we value so much today.

It is not only students who could benefit from greater engagement with the university.  I do hope that in 20 years time we won’t be looking back and saying “If only we had paid more attention to what truly matters!”