Janis Foster
Langley Times
January 17, 1998
Page 3
Don't count your chickens just yet, Tech B.C.
Robert Clift, executive director of the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C., says the boycott of the Technical University of B.C. by university teachers may not have impacted administrative hiring, but it will be felt when the call goes out for instructors.
Comments this week by Dr. Jane Fee, academic assistant, president's office, and Ron Dickson, Tech B.C. chair, that the university had not had any problems at this point with the boycott are premature, said Clift.
"For them to say that the boycott is not having an effect is wrong on two points. The first is, they're not yet hiring the people we're aiming the boycott at, so to claim it's not having an effect simply can't be supported by the evidence."
"And if they're not worried about the boycott why are they meeting with us to have discussions to try and end the boycott? If their position is so solid, they'd simply try to ignore us and they're not."
Tech B.C. won't attract the best and the brightest, he claimed. There will be hirings. said Clift, but "not necessarily of the calibre of people found at UBC or the University of Waterloo."
With the huge demand for professors in the technical field, both at educational institutions and in the private sector, Clift foresees little job appeal to a university that doesn't guarantee academic freedom.
CUFA and the Canadian Association of University Teachers initiated the worldwide boycott in July because of the governing structure of the university.
Other B.C. universities are governed by both a board of governors and an academic senate. Bill 30, the legislation which established Tech B.C. places all of the responsibilities in the hands of one board of governors.
In "a real university" faculty members decide research projects and how and what they will teach, through representation on the academic senate, said Clift.
"It's the people who do the day-to-day teaching and day-to-day research who make the decisions as to how the program is structured."
"Academic freedom is treating a university professor as a professional teacher and researcher."
Clift says CUFA will continue to meet with university representatives to resolve its concerns.
"Our hope is we will find a way out of this. We don't want to continue the boycott -- it's a big drain on our limited resources. We'd much rather be working with them to make this a real university to create more university education in this province."