Professors at Laval University in Quebec City have completed a historic strike. With a dazzling majority, these intellectuals and scientists rose up to defend the public interest mission of the university. With pride, we can say that our determination has paid off.
Beyond the specific and local stakes of this strike, it is a certain conception of the university which aroused the vast mobilization of the teaching staff for nearly five weeks. We fought hard to have certain principles essential to the achievement of the university’s mission be enshrined and reinforced in our collective agreement: the right to academic freedom, the fundamental principle of collegiality and the obligation of transparency of the ‘administration.
Since its creation in 1852, Université Laval, like many other universities, has had to face many perils to become and remain an institution at the service of all of Quebec society and to maintain its independence in the world. development and transmission of knowledge. The perils have been political and religious. Today, they are politico-economic and financial.
In the midst of the strike, on March 20, the speech of our rector, Sophie D’Amours, before the “leaders of the business world” of the Canadian Club of Montreal allowed us to take the measure of the centrality of her entrepreneurial and managerial approach that guides its vision of the university. However, it is this vision which has greatly weakened the independence of our institution and made the exercise of our work as academics more and more difficult by subjecting it to multiple constraints. We had to react. We have acted.
Academic freedom has always been fragile. Taking very broadly the definition of CAUT (Canadian Association of University Teachers, founded in 1951), our collective agreement enshrines our right to academic freedom, that is to say our right “to teach, of research, creation and criticism without any constraint, whether institutional or external […] without having to adhere to a prescribed doctrine […] “. However, it is this freedom that our administration seemed to seek to control, in particular by arrogating to itself the right to define the contents and the methods of our teachings. For what ?
Profitability quest
Teaching, increasingly dissociated from research, was undermined by the orientations of the D’Amours administration. This administration, like the previous ones over the past fifteen years, has gradually redefined it according to the logic of customer service subject to the ruthless law of competition in order to attract local, national and foreign students. Its quest for profitability has also led teachers to have to teach more and more students, while being fewer and fewer. After tough negotiations, we have obtained the minimum resources and the rules of governance to immediately improve the conditions of our teaching and ensure that it can no longer be reduced to a simple educational service. It’s a first step.
In terms of research, for several years, the main orientation of our administration has also been to favor fields of knowledge that transform discoveries into consumer goods in order to market them, abandoning those that are endlessly profitable. Such has been the fate of several departments, such as that of historical sciences or that of languages, linguistics and translation, which have been radically reduced by a continual policy of job attrition. During the strike, the professors therefore forcefully demanded greater collegiality in decisions ensuring the protection of all areas of knowledge. From now on, our collective agreement enshrines the character of Université Laval as a complete university as an asset to be preserved.
Finally, for several years, the D’Amours administration, like the previous ones, has been developing and imposing strategic plans that respond more and more to the economic demands and private interests of large corporations. These are also regularly solicited for targeted projects and funding partnerships with the collaboration of certain ministries. But who determines these choices? Why is the Université Laval Board of Directors discussing them more and more behind closed doors?
Transparency
Why, in its announcements of chairs or construction of buildings, does our administration not specify the amounts invested by Université Laval? Why have hundreds of millions of dollars been transferred from the operating fund to the capital fund over the past five years? In the name of transparency and good governance, wouldn’t it be time to give explanations to the university community, to the State and to Quebec society? Ultimately, wouldn’t a law governing private partnerships in universities also be necessary?
The rhetoric of the “right to manage” is now opposed, thanks to the strike by professors at Laval University, to the principle of collegial decision-making within an institution that must be transparent. Against the “university enterprise”, we can now claim the university, complete and pluralistic, whose vocation, through the ages, is to resist the assaults of various private and ideological interests.
Our university is a garden to be protected, an oasis of freedom, independence and complexity which, within society, creates, transmits and disseminates knowledge at the service of all. Through this historic strike, the professors of Université Laval have shown themselves ready to assume their responsibilities for the preservation of this mission of public interest. It is now up to our rector, Madame D’Amours, to take hers to protect her as well.
* Have also co-signed this text (all professors at Laval University):
1. Stéphanie Arsenault, School of Social Work and Criminology
2. Henri Assogba, Department of Information and Communication
3. Patrick Baker, Department of Historical Sciences
4. Kristin Bartenstein, Faculty of Law
5. Suzie Beaulieu, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Translation
6. André Bégin-Drolet, Department of Mechanical Engineering
7. Danièle Bélanger, Department of Geography
8. Marie-Claude Bernard, Department of Teaching and Learning Studies
9. Guillaume Blum, School of Design
10. Jocelyn Bouchard, Department of Chemical Engineering
11. Charlaine Bouchard, Faculty of Law
12. Laurent Bourdeau, Department of Geography
13. Colette Brin, Department of Information and Communication
14. Claudia Corriveau, Faculty of Education
15. Maxime Coulombe, Department of Historical Sciences
16. Buno Courbon, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Translation
17. Nolywé Delannon, Department of Management
18. Steve Déry, Department of Geography
19. Christian Desîlets, Department of Information and Communication
20. Julie Desrosiers, Faculty of Law
21. Francis Dubé, Faculty of Music
22. Charles Fleury, Industrial Relations Department
23. Caroline Gagnon, School of Design
24. Adèle Garnier, Department of Geography
25. Laurence Godin, Department of Food Economics and Consumer Sciences
26. Muriel Gomez-Perez, Department of Historical Sciences
27. Clément Gosselin, Department of Mechanical Engineering
28. Jean-Noël Grenier, Industrial Relations Department
29. Sylvette Guillemard, Faculty of Law
30. Vincent Joseph, Department of Pediatrics
31. Margot Kaszap, Department of Teaching and Learning Studies
32. Sylvie Lacombe, Department of Sociology
33. Louise Langevin, Faculty of Law
34. Jean-François Laniel, Department of Sociology
35. Gaëtan Laroche, Department of Materials Engineering
36. Simone Lemieux, School of Nutrition
37. Hélène Makdissi, Faculty of Education
38. Pascale Marcotte, Department of Geography
39. Patrick Martin, Faculty of Nursing
40. Josianne Millette, Department of Information and Communication
41. Sandria P. Bouliane, Faculty of Music
42. Simon Rainville, Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Optics
43. Pascale Roy-Léveillée, Department of Geography
44. Jean Ruel, Department of Mechanical Engineering
45. Martin Simard, Department of Geography
46. Sophie Stévance, Faculty of Music
47. Karine Taché, Department of Historical Sciences