Bargaining Bulletin #2

Updates & Developments

GMUFA’s negotiating team has had weekly meetings with the MacEwan Board of Governor’s team. These conversations have identified shared interests related to MacEwan’s Strategic Vision 2030, but they have also indicated some divergent ideas over how those goals can best be achieved. Who is best suited to make hiring decisions? Who should have the final say over tenure and promotion? How much capital should be spent on oversight and management of faculty compared to the investments needed to deliver exceptional undergraduate learning and valuable scholarly outputs? As pedagogical experts who dedicate our lives to mentoring students, scholars who work from labs to libraries performing industry-leading research, GMUFA’s view is that we, the faculty, are essential to the university. We must play a central role in steering our institution forward. We are what makes MacEwan the right place for the times.

Our most substantive conversations, so far, have engaged with the Annual Reporting Process.  There is broad consensus that improvements are necessary to reduce busywork, to streamline the many submission dates faculty work toward, and to ensure more timely, meaningful, and formative feedback—feedback that is tailored to individual faculty members at different stages of their career. Feedback that helps us be better scholars and teachers. But not feedback that pressures us to write ever longer, more time-consuming reports. We also want to ensure that regular review of the template, which is mandated in the Collective Agreement, is actually honored. Finally, we have yet to hear a reasonable defense for the flawed and cumbersome eCV. Multiple universities already have or are currently moving toward a more effective, streamlined, biennial reporting mechanism. We see no reason why MacEwan can’t do the same!

Bite-Size Surveys and Member Voices

We have started using very brief surveys to capture bits of data that inform collective bargaining in timely fashion. They are designed to be completed in 1-2 minutes as soon as you see the email, in order to encourage high participation rates. Here are a few insights they’ve revealed:

• Members’ annual report reflections are generally MUCH longer than the 500-word target that has been recommended
• Members' combined reflections on average are about 2800 words
• Members are divided in their preference for an annual report due date of Sept 15 or Oct 1

Please keep doing these as soon as we send them out, they are valuable. More substantive input can always be sent to FAOffice@macewan.ca.

Things to Note

The current Collective Agreement includes a definition of a working day that excludes Sunday. Yet, Sunday exams have been a recent appearance at MacEwan. Many faculty and students have complained, and the GMUFA has an active grievance with the Board about Sunday exams that is proceeding to arbitration. GMUFA surveyed 35 other Canadian universities about their practices. More than 70% of them do not schedule exams on Sundays, and instead manage to maintain academic schedules that include a 5-day Fall break by running three exam sittings on Mondays through Saturdays.

If you are a member who has gone through the Promotion process and had an unsuccessful dossier at the faculty or university level, FANC would like to better understand your experience. Please email FAOffice@macewan.ca if you’re willing to have a conversation.

FANC