OCUFA: Fall 2011 Ontario Economic Outlook and Fiscal Review for Ontario: No News is No News (24 November 2011)

OCUFA Briefing Summary; email attachment sent to Faculty Associations on 24 November 2011.

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan offered no more insight into the government’s plans for post-secondary education than could be found in Budget 2011 or Tuesday’s Speech from the Throne. The commitment to 60,000 more student places by fall 2015 was repeated. Although the Throne Speech alluded to the tuition rebate promised during the election campaign, no mention was made in this Fall Economic Statement.

OCUFA: Update on Ontario Government’s Directions for Higher Education (23 November 2011)

As emailed by Mark Rosenfeld, Executive Director, Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), to Faculty Association Presidents on 23 November 2011:

Dear colleagues:

A number of faculty associations are hearing from university administrators that the Ontario government is set to embark on a significant “reform” of the higher education sector - therefore institutions need to be pro-active and position themselves to take advantage of anticipated government directions.  And it would appear that some administrations are using these assumptions to re-orient their institutions into directions they would like to pursue.  While it is assumed that the Ontario government has a fully-developed plan for a “more cost-effective model for delivering university education”  ready to be implemented,  this is simply not the case.

Constance Adamson, No Quick Fix for Universities (Star, 15 November 2011)

Op/Ed in The Star, Tuesday, 15 November 2011:

Among Ontario’s thousands of professors and academic librarians, there are scholars who specialize in irony.

We are grateful for their expertise; at times like these, their guidance is sorely needed. For it is certainly a sublime irony that, after decades of sounding the alarm bell over declining quality at our universities, university faculty are now being singled out as the cause of this decline.

Are Bloated Bureaucracies Undermining Higher Education?

Book excerpt and interview with Benjamin Ginsberg, political science professor at Johns Hopkins University and author “The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters.”

From 1975 to 2005, the cost of attending public universities in the U.S. tripled. Benjamin Ginsberg argues that much of the increased cost can be attributed to administrative bloat.

Since the 1970s, Ginsberg notes, the number of administrative staffers has risen  by 235 percent, while the number of faculty and students has increased by only about 50 percent.

Some research rankings

Taken from the London Free Press, Nov 2 article “Western bouncing back”, by John Miner.

The total research income of ­Canada’s top 50 universities was $6.5 billion in 2010, up 3.6% from the previous year. Thirty-three universities had increases in research income, while 17 saw a decline.

It’s time to move beyond rankings — Chronicle

Article in the Chronicle of Higher Education

October 24, 2011

It’s Time to Move Beyond Rankings 

In a guest post, Ellen Hazelkorn calls for a public campaign to make governments aware of the dangers of using university rankings as a basis for policy making.

Data Check: R & D — from OCUFA Reports

Data Check: Ottawa’s support for business R&D rises, but at what cost?
The Expert Panel appointed for the federal government’s Review of Federal Support for Research and Development estimates that federal support for business R&D rose to almost $5 billion in 2010, an increase of 13 per cent since 2007 (after inflation). Meantime, according to Statistics Canada, inflation-adjusted business support for R&D fell by more than 15 per cent in the same period.

New Minister post-secondary — OCUFA Reports

Glen Murray appointed new Minister of Training, Colleges, & Universities

Glen Murray, MPP for Toronto Centre and former Minister of Research and Innovation, has been appointed Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities for the Government of Ontario.

Murray, who served as mayor of Winnipeg, was a member of the Toronto Gay Patrol in 1983, was the co-chair of Canadians for Equal Marriage, and chair of the Big City Mayors Caucus. He won the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and the 2003 “Fight for LGBT Justice and Equality” award from Égale Canada. For his work with the aboriginal community he was given the highest honour, an Eagle Feather.

UOITFA achieves key goals, ratifies by 95%, Windsor ratification Nov. 1 – from OCUFA Reports Oct 26

UOITFA achieves key goals, ratifies by 95%, Windsor ratification Nov. 1 Members of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Faculty Association have ratified their new, five-year agreement with a 95 per cent vote in favour. The tentative agreement was reached October 13 and ratified Wednesday of last week. The agreement is retroactive to July 2010.Though the negotiations were drawn out and often difficult, faculty association negotiators were able to meet the key goal of establishing a salary structure whose sizeable steps (starting at $3,000 in the first year) will ensure the gap between UOIT’s faculty salaries and provincial comparators will close. Faculty negotiators were also able fight off an employer proposal to re-introduce merit as a main component of compensation.

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