Just a year ago, professors at Laval University ended a historic four and a half week strike with, in hand, a renewed collective agreement, incorporating major gains aimed at solidly protecting essential characteristics of a modern University fully anchored in its environment: collegiality, which places professors at the heart of university governance; transparency, all the more relevant as the public funds granted to the University aim to prepare our collective future through teaching and research; and the democratic participation of faculty members in decisions that concern the present and future of the University.
With these provisions in mind, the professors dared to believe in a collaborative implementation of this new employment contract, signed in good faith by the Union of Professors of Laval University (SPUL) and Laval University. It is clear, a year later, that there is an impasse, and that the University administration does not want to admit that a new paradigm must be embodied at all levels of university management. university.
The statutes of the UL and non-compliance with the collective agreement
The main issue concerns the revision of the statutes of Laval University and its mode of governance, that is to say the distribution of power within the different decision-making bodies of our institution, in particular the University Council and the Council of ‘administration.
This involves incorporating the principles of collegiality, transparency and democratic participation of professors into the statutes of Laval University. This objective is legally defined by our collective agreement, which stipulates, for more than 40 years (!), that “The employer recognizes that the Statutes (of the University) cannot be incompatible with the agreement” and, where applicable , “that he undertakes to make the necessary modifications to the Statutes”. Faced with these legitimate requests, the University has remained completely silent, only deigning to demonstrate the most basic politeness by acknowledging receipt, sporadically, of the SPUL’s requests to apply these provisions without reservation.
Furthermore, since our administration relentlessly encourages teachers to be agile and daring… teachers have indeed been agile and daring! During the winter, the union council – the governance body of the SPUL, which brings together 70 union delegates from the university’s departments and faculties – conducted an in-depth reflection on two crucial subjects: 1) how “democratic participation » of teachers, as enshrined in our collective agreement, can be embodied in governance; 2) how the University is anchored in its environment.
Towards democratic university governance
Concerning governance, the most important event is the election of the rector, the highest representative of the University. It is therefore obvious that the democratic participation of professors implies a vote taking into account the vote of each professor. However, our current statutes are contrary to this principle, establishing an “electoral college”, which, with its reduced size of 146 members, is not immune from any suspicion of power games or influence peddling. How can we ensure that a small collective, placed at the heart of major issues, is strictly impervious to the various embezzlements that are likely to occur in this process?
The response of professors, based on the principles that guide our free and open societies, is the full democratic participation of professors in this election. This request, transmitted in due form to the administration, in direct application of the new collective agreement, was simply dismissed. The explanation provided by the senior administration of the University is contradictory to the expression of elementary democratic participation. This proposal would, we are told, be incompatible with the spirit of the electoral college, which would aim “to involve the community in the choice of their leader.” Governance by denial of democracy and concentration of power summarize the current position of the University’s senior administration.
As for the University’s anchoring in its community, it is currently ensured by the participation of 14 people – members from outside, most of whom sit on the Board of Directors – in the election of the rector. . These people represent the business, banking, insurance and construction communities. This group is in no way a representative sample of society. Faithful to their vocation to innovate through agility, the professors therefore proposed replacing this sample with a larger group of 260 citizens, who would be selected at random in the Capitale-Nationale region. These people would thus form the basis of our anchoring in the community and would allow the University to project itself towards the population it serves, without the distorting prism of the representation of the Board of Directors.
Once again, this bold proposal from the SPUL union council is absolutely not considered by the administration, under the pretext that it “dilutes” the power granted “to legitimate members of the college”. We regret that the University is thus ignoring a tremendous opportunity to establish a real dialogue with the public to discuss the issues structuring the future of the University, which, more than ever, determine the democratic, economic, cultural and scientific vitality of our society.
The observation is therefore that the senior administration of Laval University, rather than working to restore confidence seriously shaken by last year’s historic strike, prefers to remain stuck to the principles of hierarchical governance by neutralizing collegiality, transparency and democratic participation of professors, in complete contravention of the contract binding the administration to professors.
*Co-signed this text: Chantale Jeanrie, full professor, Faculty of Educational Sciences; Guillaume Blum, associate professor at the School of Design; Charlaine Bouchard, full professor, Faculty of Law; Richard Kinkead, full professor, Faculty of Medicine; Louise Langevin, full professor, Faculty of Law; Henri Assogba, full professor, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences; Chantal Desmarais, full professor, Faculty of Medicine; Jean-François Laniel, assistant professor, Department of Sociology; Sylvette Guillemard, full professor, Faculty of Law; Jocelyn Bouchard, full professor, Department of Chemical Engineering; Christelle Landheer-Cieslak, full professor, Faculty of Law; Charles Fleury, full professor, Department of Industrial Relations; Patrick Baker, full professor, Historical Sciences; Kristin Bartenstein, full professor, Faculty of Law; Simon Rainville, full professor, Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Optics; Karine Taché, associate professor, Department of Historical Sciences; Geneviève Baril-Gingras, full professor, Department of Industrial Relations; Muriel Gomez-Perez, full professor, Department of Historical Sciences; Gaétan Laroche, full professor, Department of Mining, Metallurgy and Materials Engineering; Sylvie Lacombe, full professor, Department of Sociology; Martin Simard, Department of Geography; Jean-François Gauvin, associate professor, Department of Historical Sciences; Laurent Bourdeau, full professor, Department of Geography; François Bolduc, associate professor, Department of Industrial Relations; Colette Brin, full professor, Department of Information and Communication; Francis Dubé, full professor, Faculty of Music; Serge Lacasse, full professor, Faculty of Music; Chantal Pouliot, full professor, Faculty of Education Sciences; Claudia Savard, full professor, Faculty of Educational Sciences; Yves Tremblay, full professor, Faculty of Medicine; Jacques J. Tremblay, full professor, Faculty of Medicine; Luc Audebrand, full professor, Faculty of Administrative Sciences; Dan Furukawa Marques, associate professor, Department of Sociology; Jean-Philippe Després, associate professor, Faculty of Music; Patrick Martin, associate professor, Faculty of Nursing; Suzie Beaulieu, full professor, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Translation; Sandria P. Bouliane, assistant professor, Faculty of Music; Alban Baudou, full professor, Department of Literature, Theater and Cinema.