scholarly journals This Is Contract Faculty Time

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Hanke
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Job Security ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Faculty Time ◽  
The University ◽  
Fonction Publique ◽  
Bargaining Table ◽  
Faculty Employment

This article argues that Maurizio Lazzarato’s (2014) book Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity is useful for apprehending the employment of contract faculty. After setting the scene of the university, I examine the mixed semiotics of the York University budget. I then look inside CUPE Local 3903’s history and politics, and focus on the video This Is Contract Faculty Time: York Faculty in Support of Contract Faculty. In the next section I describe how mixed semiotics operates at the bargaining table. Finally, I review the outcome of collective bargaining with respect to job security, political action, and truth-telling. This case of academic labour struggle shows that semiotization and subjectivation need to be better understood. I conclude with some remarks on challenges, academic freedom, and ways of reforming the faculty employment system.Cet article soutient que Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity (« Signes et machines : le capitalisme et la production de la subjectivité », 2014) de Maurizio Lazzarato est utile pour comprendre le travail des enseignants intérimaires. Après avoir décrit la situation actuelle à l’université, je considère la sémiotique mixte du budget de York University. J’examine ensuite l’histoire et la politique du Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique, section locale 3903, ainsi que le vidéo This Is Contract Faculty Time: York Faculty in Support of Contract Faculty (« C’est le moment de parler des enseignants intérimaires : le corps professoral de York à leur appui »). Dans la section suivante, je montre comment la sémiotique mixte peut aider à mieux comprendre la table de négociation. Enfin, j’évalue les résultats de la négociation collective par rapport à la sécurité d’emploi, l’action politique et l’honnêteté. Cette lutte pour le travail académique montre qu’on a besoin de mieux comprendre la sémiotisation et la subjectivation. Je conclus par quelques remarques sur les défis, la liberté académique et quelques façons de réformer le système d’emploi pour le corps professoral.

scholarly journals Tenure, Faculty Contracts and Bargaining Conflict

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-70
Author(s):  
Derek Hum
Keyword(s):  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Job Security ◽  
University Administrators ◽  
Government Grants ◽  
Faculty Unions ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Academic Employment ◽  
The University ◽  
Better Than

Tenure is sometimes charged as giving faculty lifetime job security, with little accountability and sporadic monitoring of performance. Scholars have traditionally defended tenure as necessary for academic freedom. This paper takes a different approach by examining the academic "employment contract relationship," and explaining how tenure can lead to bargaining conflict. Tenure is costly to the university but extremely valued by the faculty member. The opportunity cost of granting tenure to someone is the lost teaching and research output of younger people who cannot be hired in future. Tenure is necessary because without it, incumbents would never recommend hiring people who might be better than they are, for fear of being replaced. Tenure is also efficient because faculty have better information about incumbents than either university administrators or outside consultants. Tenure is therefore necessary to motivate older faculty to hire the best. With staff budget dollars able to be shifted back or forwards across time periods, tenure secures the truthful revelation of who are the good candidates over all periods, and the university is guaranteed that those who are in the best position to judge (namely, faculty rather than administrators) have every incentive to make the best decisions. It follows, then, that the naive suggestion to get rid of tenure so that older, expensive professors can be fired and replaced with younger, cheaper professors would be disastrous in the long run. A simple model is presented explaining why (a) recent cutbacks in government grants, (b) cost pressures on university budgets, (c) limits to tuition increases, and (d) declining interests in attending a less "excellent" university have all resulted in pressure on tenure. Because there is no previously agreed-to mechanism in place to adjust staff, university administrations and faculty unions are not so much bargaining over an acceptable contract outcome as they are contesting the very rules of the bargaining game. Accordingly, unless tenure is reconsidered, universities may increasingly face bargaining conflict. Tenure could be reformed by making the term of tenure limited but related to rank, and establishing a maximum eligibility period during which a faculty may apply for promotion.

scholarly journals The Academic Freedom among the Students at the Hashemite University: الحرية الأكاديمية لدى طلبة الجامعة الهاشمية

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (30) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abd AlKhaleq Muhammad Al-Zyoud
Keyword(s):  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Academic Level ◽  
Study Results ◽  
High Level ◽  
The University ◽  
Hashemite University ◽  
Senior Students ◽  
Academic Year

This study aimed at exploring the level of academic freedom at the Hashemite University in Jordan from the perspective of the undergraduate students, and whether there are impacts of the students’ gender, academic level, or specialization. The sample consisted of (376) undergraduate students (111 male, 265 female), who are registered at the university for the first semester of the academic year 2019/2020, from all faculties of the Hashemite University. The results showed that 25.5% of participants perceived a high level of academic freedom, 57.2% of participants perceived a moderate level, and 17.3% of them perceived a low level. Significant differences were found due to academic level; academic freedom perceived level among senior students was higher than all other years (freshmen, sophomores and juniors), but no significant differences were found due to students’ gender, or specialization. In light of the study results, the researcher recommends a number of recommendations such as: raising the awareness about the academic freedom among the students, faculty members, and the staff the Jordanian universities, conducting survey studies that measure the level of academic freedom among the students at various Jordanian universities, Supporting the academic freedom of the students at the institutions of higher education through deliberate and planned initiatives.

scholarly journals Défis D’une Orthodoxie Éthique Et Académique Chez Les Universitaires Congolais (RDC)

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Salomon Mampeta Wabasa ◽  
Fraternel Amuri Misako
Keyword(s):  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Awareness Campaign ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Cumulative Process ◽  
Main Observation ◽  
Professional Codes ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
The University

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the huge gap clearly observed today, but which in fact is the result of a cumulative process of recent decades between what is expected and what is done on academic freedom, is a cause for concern for African learned community and beyond. Trying to impose orthodoxy as reference, both ethically and academically in the Congolese changing university space, presupposes to consider the governance (nature/quality) of Congolese society in which the university is only seen as one of the main observation windows. As a prerequisite for successful reimplementation of the professional codes of ethics among scholars, we believe that any awareness campaign would not cause the breakup of disreputable practices dominating the Congo’s higher education if courageous, even unpopular but salutary reforms are not undertaken upstream. Even if scholars are to be questioned on their duties (Social Responsibility), it remains that their material conditions of living and working are not conducive to the rigorous application of ethical and professional principles for an effective exercise of academic freedom as a right. Material misery would induce moral misery and intellectual poverty, thus trapping academic freedom.

Faculty Are Not Employees

2018 ◽  
pp. 60-71
Author(s):  
Holden Thorp ◽  
Buck Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Patient Care ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Shared Governance ◽  
Tenured Faculty ◽  
The Public ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

The role of faculty forms the heart of the university in terms of its scholarship, patient care, and teaching. It is important that the university and the faculty rededicate themselves to outstanding teaching; the erosion of teaching by tenured faculty is contributing to the strain in the relationship with the public. Tenure, academic freedom, and shared governance are all indispensable concepts in the functioning of a great university that are mysterious to those outside the academy. Communicating the importance of these concepts is a critical need for higher education.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Joel Zogry
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Student Newspaper ◽  
Research Institution ◽  
The University

The introduction explains the role of the Daily Tar Heel, the UNC student newspaper, in the broader context of the university and the state of North Carolina. It outlines the key arguments and themes in the book: academic freedom, freedom of speech and press; the ideological evolution of the university; the political push-pull over progressivism and conservatism in the state; and the role of big-time athletics at a top-tier research institution.

The Fundamentalist Menace

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-254
Author(s):  
George M. Marsden
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Scopes Trial ◽  
The Bible ◽  
William Jennings Bryan ◽  
The University

Nothing did more to strengthen determination for academic freedom than the fundamentalist attacks of the 1920s. In opposition to Darwinian evolution, fundamentalists found an issue that combined their alarm over the secular direction of modern culture, their reverence for the Bible, and populist appeals. William Jennings Bryan was especially effective in promoting these concerns. A number of states, especially in the South, adopted legislation banning teaching of evolution in schools. States became focal points for controversy. That is illustrated at the University of North Carolina, where, after a major controversy, antievolution forces did not prevail. Bryan helped trivialize the issue with his populist appeals at the Scopes Trial. The antievolutionist argument that if Christianity was not taught in schools, then neither should anti-Christianity be, effective earlier against Jefferson, pointed to the problem in the twentieth century of maintaining a bland blend of Christian and secular thought.

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