Kim Bolan
Vancouver Sun Education Reporter
Wednesday, October 29, 1997
Page B3
American university professors have written to Education Minister Paul Ramsey urging him to reconsider the structure at the new Technical University of B.C., which has been condemned by Canadian professors for stifling academic freedom.
"I write you to urge you to find a way to avoid the grave error of setting up your new technical university without providing for the essential structures of faculty governance and tenure," says the Oct.17 letter from Mary Burgan, general-secretary of the 45,000-member American Association of University Professors.
"If such an experiment were tried, the Technical University of B.C. would begin with a deficit of acceptance by other universities and university faculties in North America."
The new university, due to start offering classes in south Surrey next September, is already being boycotted by the Canadian Association of University Teachers and the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C. because they say professors are not assured a role in academic decision-making at the university.
Burgan said leading U.S. science universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology have the same guarantees of academic freedom that other universities have.
"The freedom of scientific and technical faculty to pursue questions in their disciplines is an essential element of training the next generation of scientists," Burgan says.
"It would be most unfortunate to teach students, by example, to limit their curiosity and their investigations to a dogged pursuit of commercially acceptable results."
The Canadian associations say the problem with Tech B.C. is that it will not have an academic senate and that its board has extraordinary power to establish, change, or discontinue programs without provision for the fair treatment of employees.
Professors also say the board is set up to be dominated by non-academic appointees without the usual requirements of the University Act regarding quorums, the removal of non-attending members, or the exclusion of politicians and bureaucrats from the board.
CAUT president Bill Bruneau, who teaches at the University of B.C., said Tuesday that the structure of Tech BC is "authoritarian," with the president, Bernie Sheehan, having all the power.
Bruneau said the support from U.S. colleagues is "an important event in our campaign."
"It's an enormous country and an important source of influence and funding for Canadian universities," he said.
Ramsey was unavailable for comment Tuesday but has previously said he was "concerned and disappointed" by the boycott.
Ramsey has said that Tech B.C. needed legislation different from the University Act, which governs other B.C. universities, because of its unique partnership with business.
Sheehan said Tuesday there are plenty of mechanisms in place to assure academic freedom and applications pouring in from professors interested in working at Tech B.C. are proof of that.
He said the U.S. professors "have not really studied the act" based on the content of their letter.
"There is more than one way to structure a university," he said.
"For Tech B.C. there will be a lot of industry, labor and community input, balanced with input from faculty and students."
"I don't think that is such a bad thing."
Board chair Ron Dickson said he would be happy to meet with the professors to talk about their concerns, which he called premature.
University professors now have the power to unionize and could in fact negotiate conditions above anything that exists at other B.C. universities, Dickson said.
While the U.S. letter does not formally join the boycott, Bruneau said the American group would not do so until being formally requested to, which will happen in the near future.
Canadian professors will ask their American counterparts not to accept jobs at Tech B.C., not to co-publish with Tech B.C., and not to participate in research with the new university.