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Investigating issues of university governance in Canada,University Commons Dividedanalyzes several major cases at the university level that have come to exemplify infringements on the freedom of expression

Selling Out demonstrates that the logics of value of the market and of universities are not only different but opposed to one another. By introducing the reader to a variety of cases, some well known and others not, Woodhouse explains how academic freedom and university autonomy are being subordinated to corporate demands and how faculty have attempted to resist this subjugation. He argues that the mechanistic discourse of corporate culture has replaced the language of education - subject-based disciplines and the professors who teach them have become \"resource units,\" students have become \"educational consumers,\" and curricula have become \"program packages.\" Graduates are now \"products\" and \"competing in the global economy\" has replaced the search for truth.

Although currently under attack from several directions, academic freedom is as important as it has ever been in enabling academics to teach, to carry out research, and to offer disinterested criticism and advice. Michiel Horn's new book accentuates the changing nature of academic freedom in English Canada and provides essential background to today's discussions. Based on extensive archival research in more than twenty universities across Canada and in six public archives, the book locates the idea of academic freedom in its institutional and social contexts and traces its conflict-ridden evolution from 1860 to the present. Providing detailed coverage and analysis, Academic Freedom in Canada exposes previously unpublished information on why selected academics were dismissed or forced to resign, and on how pressure was used, often successfully, to silence others. As well as focusing on individuals such as Frank Underhill (University of Toronto), George Hunter (University of Alberta), and Harry Crowe (United College, Winnipeg), the book covers issues including the resistance in universities to Darwinist thought; the influences of modern Biblical criticism, capitalism, and war on academic freedom; the experience of women and ethnic minorities; and the question of whether or not academics should be allowed to run for public office. One chapter addresses the contentious issue of tenure. Michiel Horn also identifies and analyses the challenges that have faced academic freedom in more recent years, most notably those of the economy and of 'political correctness'. He shows how the seeds of today's changing demands on universities can be found in the vicissitudes of the past, and contends that Canadian academics owe it to their fellow citizens to use their freedom for the common good.

Review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes at universities typically assess candidates along three dimensions: research, teaching, and service. In recent years, some have argued for the inclusion of a controversial fourth criterion: collegiality. While collegiality plays a role in the morale and effectiveness of academic departments, it is amorphic and difficult to assess, and could be misused to stifle dissent or enforce homogeneity. Despite this, some institutions have opted to include this additional element in their RPT documents and processes, but it is unknown the extent of this practice and how it varies across institution type and disciplinary units. This study is based on two sets of data: survey data collected as part of a project that explored the publishing decisions of faculty and how these related to perceived importance in RPT processes, and 864 RPT documents collected from 129 universities from the United States and Canada. We analysed these RPT documents to determine the degree to which collegiality and related terms are mentioned, if they are defined, and if and how they may be assessed during the RPT process. Results show that when collegiality and related terms appear in these documents they are most often just briefly mentioned . It is less common for collegiality and related terms to be defined or assessed in RPT documents. Although the terms are mentioned across all types of institutions, there is a statistically significant difference in how prevalent they are at each. Collegiality is more commonly mentioned in the documents of doctoral research-focused universities (60%), than of master’s universities and colleges (31%) or baccalaureate colleges (15%). Results from the accompanying survey of faculty also support this finding: individuals from R-Types were more likely to perceive collegiality to be a factor in their RPT processes. We conclude that collegiality likely plays an important role in RPT processes, whether it is explicitly acknowledged in policies and guidelines or not, and point to several strategies in how it might be best incorporated in the assessment of academic careers.

Sociological institutional theory views universities as model driven organizations. The world's stratification system promotes conformity, imitation and isomorphism towards the \"best\" university models. Accordingly, academic roles may be locally shaped in minor ways, but are defined and measured explicitly in global terms. We test this proposition using data on the allocation of working time between academic tasks at research universities in thirteen countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Malaysia, Norway, UK, and the USA. We find that working time patterns differ significantly across countries, suggesting that conditions of academic work remain heavily dependent on national higher education traditions. Faculty members holding the highest professorial rank share more in common, with generally stronger interests in research and a greater time dedication to research over teaching. However, in countries with comparably steep academic hierarchies, professor positions typically entail significantly fewer teaching hours and more administration. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

In Canada, universities are undergoing a process of corporatization where business interests, values and practices are assuming a more prominent place in higher education. A key feature of this process has been the changing composition of academic labor. While it is generally accepted that universities are relying more heavily on contract faculty, to date, there is a lack of data to substantiate it in the Canadian context. This paper addresses this gap through reporting on a unique longitudinal dataset I have created on academic staff for 18 universities in Ontario collected through access to information requests under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. I analyze these data to address two key questions. First, to what extent have there been changes in the composition of academic labor in arts-related disciplines within Ontario universities? Second, to what extent are past claims that administrators have been unable and/or unwilling to provide these kinds of data legitimate? I conclude that there has indeed been a significant increase in part-time and full-time contract appointments relative to tenure stream positions in Ontario universities. My research also suggests that the reluctance of universities to share data on contract faculty has been motivated by both political considerations as well as the nature of university data management, which has been made more problematic by the precarious relationship between universities and their contract employees.

This article aims at exploring the contribution that creative forms of research can make to the study of a little-known aspect of academic freedom in the Canadian context – academic freedom in curriculum development. It seeks to address the methodological challenge posed by research on academic freedom, that is, the fact that any academic writing on this topic necessarily draws initially, though not exclusively, from the researchers’ own experiences and perspectives. The article brings to life a fictional faculty meeting, during which questions about academic freedom in teaching are discussed. Although this meeting is the product of our imagination, its starting point is based on real-life events, that is, the implementation in some North American universities of a course developed and initially offered outside of academia by people closely related to a well-known personal development organization.

The importance of advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion for all members of the academic medical community has gained recent attention. Academic medical organizations have attempted to increase broader representation while seeking structural reforms consistent with the goal of enhancing equity and reducing disproportionality. However, efforts remain constrained while minority groups continue to experience discrimination. In this study, the authors sought to identify and understand the discursive effects of discrimination policies within medical education. The authors assembled an archive of 22 texts consisting of publicly available discrimination and harassment policy documents in 13 Canadian medical schools that were active as of November 2019. Each text was analysed to identify themes, rhetorical strategies, problematization, and power relations. Policies described truth statements that appear to idealize equity, yet there were discourses related to professionalism and neutrality that were in tension with these ideals. There was also tension between organizations’ framing of a shared responsibility for addressing discrimination and individual responsibility on complainants. Lastly, there were also competing discourses on promoting freedom from discrimination and the concept of academic freedom. Overall, findings reveal several areas of tension that shape how discrimination is addressed in policy versus practice. Existing discourses regarding self-protection and academic freedom suggest equity cannot be advanced through policy discourse alone and more substantive structural transformation may be necessary. Existing approaches may be inadequate to address discrimination unless academic medical organizations interrogate the source of these discursive tensions and consider asymmetries of power.

A senior pediatric endocrinologist at a leading medical school in Canada has for years provided the introductory lecture on Disorders of Sex Development/Intersexuality (DSD/I) in the standard second-year course. In 2020/2021, two students complained to medical school administrators about six specific issues of intersex theory and care that were addressed in the lecture (Polychronakos, 2021 ). Subsequently, the administration replaced the professor with a different lecturer, thus effectively censoring the dissemination of intersex science. An overview of the status of the clinical literature on intersexuality shows that the students’ critiques focus on concepts and facts that have been developed in extensive medical and sexological research over the past 50–60 years, as is shown for each of their points of critique. By censoring the professor’s teaching, the medical school not only violated academic freedom, but also suppressed well-established scientific facts, kept medical students uninformed about the diverse points of view in this area of clinical management, and likely undermined future evidence-based medical and psychosocial care by these students for individuals with this type of medical condition.

Universities have no legal rationale for restricting the content of speech. Laws that limit speech automatically apply to university campuses as they do everywhere else. Having more limitations on expression inside a lecture hall than on the sidewalk mocks the university's mission to facilitate the pursuit of truth and the education of its students. While universities have no legitimate reason to control the content of speech, time, place and manner rules protect expression by prohibiting students from disrupting speakers from speaking or audiences from listening. When public universities refuse to respect free speech, provincial governments could require them to do so with simple statutory directives. However, directives that call upon each university to develop its own policy invite policies that instead restrict speech. If public universities will not voluntarily protect speech and provincial governments will not require them to do so, does the Charter of Rights and Freedoms compel them? The answer is unclear and the jurisprudence inconsistent. In any event, in many scenarios the question is a red herring. Academic freedom provisions in collective agreements typically provide faculty with more robust rights than the Charter would provide. Freedom of expression under the Charter is a negative right and therefore of limited utility to students. Public universities have become ideological institutions prone to political correctness and conformity. Prospects for reform seem dim. Without a genuine commitment to free and open inquiry on contentious subjects, there is little reason for the university to exist.