Dear Colleagues,

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has published the following advisory regarding travel to the United States. The Faculty Association is in discussion with the University regarding whether a similar advisory will be issued on our campuses and will provide updates when available.

Sincerely,
Dory Nason
President

After three months of negotiations, the University and the FA have come to an important agreement concerning the academic freedom of faculty members to issue public statements regarding matters which concern the membership, including political and social issues. Moving forward all academic units may continue to post statements to their websites so long as they are derived through collegial dialogue, do not purport to suggest unanimity of opinion where it does not exist, and do not purport to speak for the University at large.

On Tuesday, February 6^th, 2024, the Faculty Association Executive and Equity Committees sent a letter of support for the creation of a Disability Task Force to President & Vice Chancellor Benoit-Antoine Bacon. The letter received unanimous support from our Executive Committee and the Disability Working Group and we urge the University to establish this important initial step in creating a fair and equitable workplace for all our members.

The UBC Faculty Association Executive Committee is deeply saddened by the unimaginable suffering and innocent human loss in Israel and Gaza. The Executive would like to acknowledge that many of our members have family, kin and colleagues directly impacted by the ongoing conflict and violence. Many are worried for their loved ones or in deep distress for all those who are suffering, making it difficult to fulfill faculty duties. These members may need information and assistance on navigating work at this difficult time.

Please reach out to the Faculty Association if you need information on supports available to you through the Employee and Family Assistance Program or about personal leaves and other supports available to all faculty in distress.

We hope for peace and healing for all our relations in the days to come.

Dory Nason,
On behalf of the Executive Committee

For those members needing assistance, please email the Faculty Association at [email protected].

This will be at least the third round of collective bargaining in which we have beseeched UBC to act like a university, respect the overwhelming scholarly evidence, and stop using student survey data for purposes for which they are manifestly unfit.  Statistically unreliable, obviously not addressing the question at hand, and riddled with discriminatory, toxic, and uninformed opinion, anonymous student surveys (SEoT’s, or SEI’s) are deeply inappropriate for their intended purpose.

We are now on a summer break from bargaining with the UBC administration.  You have questions, we have answers:

We have now started table negotiations with UBC’s team representing the employer; you’ll see here posted both the Faculty Association’s and the University’s “Day One” proposals.  These catalogue the particular objectives that we and UBC plan to discuss in this bargaining round.  

Welcome to the start of a new collective-bargaining season!  As we start preparing for the next bargaining round, here are three ways we can collectively make this a powerful and successful set of negotiations.