Carole Pearson
The Peak
Monday, November 3, 1997
Page 6
The provincial government has shown no signs of amending the controversial legislation establishing B.C.'s newest university, the Technical University of British Columbia (Tech BC).
Bill 30, which outlines the mandate of the university and its governance structure includes the elimination of an academic senate and makes no provisions for a tenure system.
An international boycott launched this summer, the same day the legislation was approved, in protest by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia (CUFA/BC) and the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has received support from dozens of university faculty associations and professors across Canada.
Traditional universities have senates composed of faculty, student, alumni and community representatives who make decisions on curriculum and programming issues. Their authority is independent of the university board of governors.
Tech BC will have, instead, a University Council and Program Advisory Committee. This committee will operate with an equal number of elected faculty and industry advisors. The legislation establishing Tech BC says the committee will have "a role in academic decision-making" but would ultimately be under the control of the board of governors.
Education minister Paul Ramsey claims the new governance structure provides more flexibility to work with business and industry.
"This is critical if the new university is to become highly responsive to the needs of the labour market and to encourage partnerships with industry," Ramsey says.
But Robert Clift, executive director of CUFA/BC says, "The government seems to want business interests to dictate what the new university will offer, with little input from faculty members who have academic expertise."
CUFA/BC is concerned that a predominance of business representation, combined with a strong corporate presence on campus, will make the new university a training tool for the corporations which are expected to be a major source of funding.
Clift says, "We do not reject the idea that an applied institution can have ties to business. But it needs to have academic freedom measures."
An editorial in the Surrey Leader concurs. "The omnipotent board ... could tailor research towards business interests rather than society’sneeds. Teachers' hands could be tied by profit-minded corporations. Students could be primed for employers' desires rather than their own best interests."
A letter from the education minister states that "while the Tech BC Act is silent with regard to tenure, so is the University Act for our four traditional universities."
Clift says that Paul Ramsey has stated in the Legislature that "there would be no tenure." He says this means faculty members could be fired if "they tick somebody off." Instructors could all be hired as sessionals or signed to short term contracts which could result in less commitment to researching and a reluctance to approach controversial issues or new teaching methods.
Ramsey argues that faculty "must be responsive to advances in technologies and industrial innovation. It is also important that Tech BC has the capacity to retain faculty from industry partners, thus ensuring access to leading experts in emerging technologies in a cost-effective way."
Clift says this implies the other universities are not keeping up with innovation, something he rejects as untrue. "It a not necessarily good to adopt every new technology that comes along," he says.
This is another aspect which favours having a senate because, Clift says, their "decisions are not made based on technological fads."
CAUT president Bill Bruneau wants decisions made for educational, not economic reasons. He says. "A 'real' university guarantees that professors will be free to conduct research without interference, and that they, along with students, will have a major role in academic decisions. The Tech BC legislation does neither."