RRUFA minutes – April 2015

RRUFA 2015 AGM & April Monthly Meeting Minutes

April 14, 2015

Mews Lounge

Present:

Niels Agger-Gupta P Geoff Archer P Jo Axe   Brian Belcher  
Geoffrey Bird   David Black P Judith Blanchette   Tony Boydell P
Connie Carter   Elizabeth Childs P Kenneth Christie P Robin Cox  
Ann Dale   Audrey Dallimore   Matt Dodd P Juana Du  
Catherine Etmanski P Lois Fearon   Joshua Guilar   Doug Hamilton  
Brigitte Harris P Ingrid Kajzer-Mitchell   Julia Jahanzoosi   Frances Jorgensen P
Richard Kool P Charles Krusekopf P Zhenyi Li   Ron Lindstrom  
Leslie King   Chris Ling P Will Low   Eva Malisius  
Kathleen Manion P Virginia McKendry P Will Meredith P Robert Mittelman  
Jonathan Moran   Jessica Mussell P Mickie Noble   Eileen Piggot-Irvine  
Terry Power   Siomonn Pulla   Michael Real   Carolin Rekar Munro  
Chaseten Remillard   Wendy Rowe   Erich Schellhammer   Bernard Schissel  
Jean Slick   Marilyn Taylor   Eugene Thomlinson   Mike Thompson P
Phillip Vannini   George Veletsianos   Hassan Wafai   Jennifer Walinga  
Rebecca Wilson Mah   Michael Young   Amy Zidulka    

(Present: 18 of 59 total Active Members)

CONTENTS:

  1. April Monthly Meeting called to order: 12: 15pm (President Kenneth Christie) 2
  2. Approval of March minutes:…………………………………………………………… 2
  3. New Business:……………………………………………………………………………. 2

3.1 Welcome to new Member, Dr. Frances Jorgensen – (Faculty of Management)…….. 2

3.3. Capilano University Faculty Association Strike: (Ken)…………………………………………. 2

3.4 RRUFA involvement in RRU 75th Anniversary Celebrations (David & Rick)………… 2

3.5 United Way Spirit Awards Luncheon April 21 (Ken)…………………………………………….. 3

  1. Old Business:………………………………………………………………………………. 3

4.1. UNBC Strike (Ken)………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3

  1. Regular Reports:…………………………………………………………………………. 4

5.1 Bargaining: (Ken)………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4

5.3 Academic Council: (Rick)……………………………………………………………………………………… 4

5.4 CUFA-BC: (Rick)………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4

5.5 Website: (Will)…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5

5.6 Social: (The “Two Geoffs”)………………………………………………………………………………….. 5

5.7 Grievance Report: (David)………………………………………………………………………………….. 5

5.8 Health & Safety: (Rick)………………………………………………………………………………………… 5

5.2 Board of Governors: (Charles)…………………………………………………………………………….. 5

  1. Other Business:………………………………………………………………………….. 5
  2. Adjournment:…………………………………………………………………………….. 8

 

1.     April Monthly Meeting called to order: 12: 15pm (President Kenneth Christie)

2.     Approval of March minutes:

Moved by Will – seconded by Niels.

All in favour.

3.     New Business:

3.1 Welcome to new Member, Dr. Frances Jorgensen – (Faculty of Management).

 

3.3. Capilano University Faculty Association Strike: (Ken)

Ken sent a letter of support on behalf of RRUFA to the Capilano FA and to the University.

(Follow up: see: http://www.capilanou.ca/faculty-strike-updates/

 

3.4 RRUFA involvement in RRU 75th Anniversary Celebrations (David & Rick)

David: RRUFA has some ingredients in place – since 2016 is 10 Anniversary of the FA by projecting faculty and librarian presence on campus… It is notable that faculty are essentially absent from current plans for the 75th anniversary celebrations. But the FA is where faculty express who we are…

 

Rick: – We have talked about crystalizing faculty presence – via the Peace Garden. (It was Ann Dale’s idea to honour Paz Buttedahl. We are very good at creating a virtual space; we lavish attention on students there. But space (RRU grounds and gardens) frequently remains a beautiful footnote to our teaching and learning model. We could start a conversation into a living classroom – where each school contributes an idea to this concept: Ideas need to be low-cost and sustainable – creating ensemble when all taken together. (eg. Geo-caching as a teaching element). This works easily for Environment – but all schools might be able to bring some thinking about how we could use the gardens and physical space as a jumping off point in creating a living laboratory… This would also honour Paz and Ann’s ideas for the space… Could be something we develop and finesse, and that would pay dividends in long run…

 

David: Make 75th Anniversary as something we have a part in…   We currently teach here as though we are looking at the physical space through a window rather than teaching in it. We need to end this solitude…

 

David: RRUFA has a healthy bank account – it is not enough for a strike fund, but too much to spend in ordinary operations. Perhaps there is a way to develop teaching and learning model through incorporating our physical space…

 

Rick: there is a BSc group studying this right now.   This could lead to great student/faculty collaboration? Perhaps we could create an interesting guide for the use of campus – a manual for “teaching the campus”…

 

Elizabeth: MALAT program – blended program – students not typically here. We have been doing some work on telepresence and a telepresence robot (such as Botiful; Kubi from Revolve Robotics; the Double from Double Robotics; Teleme from MantaroBot; or the Ava 500 from iRobot) could work to bring the inside in and the outside out. A guest speaker could be part of place and space… Telepresence could cost somewhere around $300 (Botiful). Or simply combining a projector and an iPad – put up a simple screen – and do presentation everywhere… bring down boundaries and bring students into the garden with the presenter…

 

David: you had me at robot! But every school could do something…

 

Ken: The doctoral students – took a tour from with Paul Allison, our head gardener. This involved a tour and explanation of space in gardens…

Could we form a small committee to get suggestions and take to Executive – show we are committed to RRU and its development.

 

Chris: We need to add someone from CTET to this new Committee – we have already had discussions with Google – to add cultural features – to the Google Maps Streetview feature already in existence

 

Catherine – Paul Allison may be doing his tour again as part of our Leadership Conference (October 1-3) :

 

This RRUFA RRU 75th LEGS Committee (LEarning from Gardens and Spaces) will start with volunteers: David, Rick, Elizabeth, Will, Jessica, & Niels.

They should meet and report their progress for the next FA meeting.

 

3.5 United Way Spirit Awards Luncheon April 21 (Ken)

We are in the running for an award. Paul Allison (CUPE) will be there. Tony has agreed to represent RRUFA at the luncheon.

 

4. Old Business:

4.1. UNBC Strike (Ken)

Rick: Forced arbitration was invoked forcing UNBC faculty back to classrooms. This involved a clause in UNBC-FA’s first CA, similar to what RRUFA had (Section 54). But UNBC had no special change in what they wanted to offer and the provincial arbitrator was unimpressed with the university’s approach since they did not bring anything new to the table. (More detail is available on the UNBC-FA’s own website)

 

Ken: CUFA council was in Vancouver last week. RRUFA sent both a cheque and flying pickets. Rick and David, and Michael Young also went up.

 

Rick: the strike was a tremendous emotional burden – fighting with the administration to get an agreement. Faculty do not come out of a hard-ball negotiation background. The UNBC President, Jacquiline Hollar is a scholar of the Spanish Inquisition. Folks who take on this leadership get lots of respect but won’t get their lost sleep back.

 

Virginia: went to Grad School with Jacquiline – had talked with her and she said she is grateful to RRUFA.

 

5.     Regular Reports:

5.1 Bargaining: (Ken)

Ken: Things are slowly being put into place, including the new Committee on Scholarship Leave.

 

 

5.3 Academic Council: (Rick)

There is currently an issue with competency-based learning and learning outcomes – Rick sent out the following article that takes a critical perspective on learning outcomes:

See: Stoller, A. (2015). Taylorism and the logic of learning outcomes. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 47(3), 317–333. http://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2015.1018328 Retrieved from: http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/doi/abs/10.1080/00220272.2015.1018328

 

5.4 CUFA-BC: (Rick)

Rick: UVic Bargaining is an issue for CUFA because there seems to be opposition to unionization working at UVic. In particular the efforts in the Engineering faculty opposing the FA emboldens Employer to not deal with FA… UNBC was very different; even those opposed initially, got behind those on picket line. At UVic – 2% over next two years… there is also an issue about intellectual property with University Policy 81 – all teaching intellectual property reverts to university. UVic faculty have to opt out, vs opt in. This raises all kinds of questions as to who owns intellectual materials at the university. There is currently a grievance at Sauder School at SFU – faculty not publishing in top tier journals get a greater teaching load…

 

There is a whole other issue about the lack of attention from the provincial government to the post-secondary/ university sector, other than in the “Jobs Plan”

 

Comment: Minister Virk – universities exist to serve “taxpayers.”

 

Ken: gives RRUFA report at CUFA Council – We seem to be the only FA with good news… We had a great report on our CA settlement. RRU has come up a long way – our labour relations are pretty good in comparison to other universities…

 

5.5 Website: (Will)

(No new news)

 

5.6 Social: (The “Two Geoffs”)

(nothing new at the moment)

5.7 Grievance Report: (David)

(no news – things seem to be quiet)

 

5.8 Health & Safety: (Rick)

(Nothing to report)

 

5.2 Board of Governors: (Charles)

Charles: The issue of corporate social responsibilities for University as has been the case in a very public case at UBC about divesting from petroleum-based stocks. While RRU has not divested –there is less than $100K in fossil fuel stocks…

Ken: Was there not supposed to be a rotation of board members?

 

Charles: There is some confusion about terms for the Board members…Charles’s own term – half-way through… most other Board members are only on for one or two years.

 

6.     Other Business:

Special Guest: Dan Tulip, RRU VP Finance.

 

Dan: The new Minister is visiting – we are the last university on his tour – I had lunch with him, and he has now gone to LIC…

 

Matt: we had elementary school kids in the lab…

 

Dan: Allan is with him – Allan’s message is that we are quite different… he was interested in “blended programs for the working professional”… He wanted to see ‘blended learning…’

 

Dan: About this time last year – I received a call from the Ministry to say they had communication from Treasury Board for a new academic building at RRU. This has been “approved notionally” – we need to develop a concept plan, and then a business plan. We have $2M for detail planning subject to approvals. The projection is for a building construction start in 17/18.

We submitted our concept plan…

 

We have since had communications from the government – things are tight – they cut $50M from system. They introduced shared services… (to get paper clips as a group) This is modeled after health care changes. There are lots of non-labour costs. We lost about $600K so funding is now down to 29% of revenues. Too much invested in post-secondary… We have been told to “bear with us” they will be back to us by end of May… Treasury Board had approved…

In the meantime – Russ Chernoff – from Jenson/Chernoff/Thompson Architects – who designed the LIC (see website with photo of LIC!) – has now done lots of work on how the new Academic Building should be integrated into LIC. Stanley Quok, has also looked at this – with Allan, Pedro, me. The plan is for a 68,000 square foot (about same size as LIC) building alongside and slightly above the LIC. The initial design is that this is configured for more space for faculty – inside the building… The LIC was funded and designed to be all classrooms – this one – has more flexibility.

 

Rick: Anything to deal with lack of private offices would help… That IS classroom space. Currently we are doing this without any doors or privacy – (Rick gave a Duddy Kravitz quote:- “a man without land is nothing” to make the point that without doors we did not have the right space (or appropriate respect) for working with students.

 

Dan: when I joined RRU; the Grant building was 3/4 way through being renovated. Jim Bayer and John Rose (building guy) were involved in the design. Faculty had signed in blood what the design would be… From the time of that approval RRU has changed so drastically… Then President Gerry Kelly made this an edict to have an open plan, and air circulation requirements did not allow for offices to go to ceiling…

 

Tony: The developer (then) said white noise would prevent voices from carrying over to next offices in this open plan. This did not work from Day 1

 

Dan: Jaime Pitfield – ADM for DND infrastructure in Canada – told us, as we were redoing Cedars, that “RRU is jewel” – and he wanted to know how we have managed… We are trying to move forward on new building projects…

 

Dan: Cedars – DND – only care about core mission. We thought there was a minefield in RRU picking up the property if DND was divesting, with First Nations claims, etc. this is now on hold.

 

What was troubling about the footprint for Cedars – was that we had to do a capital plan alongside the business plan… We needed a 5 year plan – And Cedars was a routine plan – $60 M down to $15 now… Told Government we wanted to repurpose the buildings – The idea is that we would free up university core for faculty… We were told to prioritize our building plans. We heard nothing then – and quite suddenly we were told we had $1.4M and had to spend this in 6 months… either use or lose this funding… Our first thought was to simply rename the building… But, there were hazardous materials used in the Cedars, the seismic issues were not up to par; there were issues with electrical and mechanical. We only had DND approval for a heritage building. We could not touch the outside of a tall – dairy barn. We spent $2.5 Million on the building – which has now consolidated IT…

 

Next on re-building plan is to repurpose the Library – the idea is to prioritize our construction planning so we can immediately use any monies that show up when opportunity arises… if we get approval for this – we can do our other thinking about the academic building… Academic needs will be looked at very carefully…

 

Charles: What about the plan for residences at the top of the hill?

 

Dan: the Minister – told institutions, ‘they need to get out of business of real estate development’… Daryl Harker, our consultant, put forward a business case for residences… but we can’t get a sense of the needs of students – we have 100 – odd students in Homestay. We keep our residences available for the 3 week residencies. Our undergrads are not on campus… We have no way to treat this mix of students… What should we do in 3/4th year? We are down to 35% occupancy in our residences: is it because they are not desirable? We have a business case with a partner for 200 residences – 100+100 but we still don’t know what we should do…

 

Comment: vacancy has always been an issue: way we ran residencies – staggered residences – demand throughout year…

 

Dan: We characterized the developers – There have been lots of bankruptcies – all come to borrow money from bank based on our needs. Allan did some ‘fishing’ a while ago… interest in RFP – from consortiums – but all wanted guarantees for 100% room occupancy…

 

Charles: New residences would help international recruitment – that population of BComms and BScs would pay for this…

 

Ken: I am in the UK in January – in Edinburgh, accommodations are a huge revenue generator…

 

Dan: Canadian Business Equity have the data to show that universities don’t make money on student residencies. Universities put 25% of equity into buildings and 75% is debt… comprehensive study… 10% of student population… 2K-4K rooms – demand is greater than supply. Grad students only here for 3 weeks… but 2 months later – no one is here… Do students want to be on campus? Dan is under pressure from Allan to come up with a recommendation on this…

 

How are we doing financially? We just closed the books on last year today…We had a surplus of $4M dollars for year just closed… This is great news and our balance sheet is strong…

At Campus conversation yesterday – one of the questions was, “Has University listened that the scope of intended change was too fast?” We recalibrated the business plan in October – now more realistic.. Cost projections are in parallel with growth projections – costs came in under plan, with revenues of $500K and costs came in under – flat… Plan for next year costs back in – we have added 45 positions … added new positions but there is a recruitment lag of 12 positions… 19 into faculty… and another 9 in A/F positions… Overhead is flat… $2.8 M overhead – about $3M in growth; if not growth – about 2.2M is flow though from this year…. Reasonable revenue forecast… System is struggling with deficits…

 

Ken: thank you for coming and giving us a talk.

[Round of applause for Dan!]

 

7.     Adjournment:

Move to adjourn: 1:52 pm. Brigitte

 

Recorder: Niels Agger-Gupta