In exchange for the furlough, AASUA has negotiated access to university financial information and to Board of Governors information. Appendix B of the Memorandum of Understanding establishes a Joint Committee on University Planning and Budgets and sets out terms of reference. These include a statement asserting that the five AASUA members of this committee may attend, as visitors, any open committee meetings of the Board Finance and Property Committee and of the Board when budgeting issues are addressed. Appendix C of the MoU deals with “formal AASUA input into university policy and procedure development.” It formally acknowledges AASUA as a stakeholder in the development, amendment and deletion of policies and procedures that fall under the authority of the Board of Governors.

The Non-Academic Staff Association has also been asked to vote on furlough days.

For more information, see the FAQ and other documents on the AASUA website. There is also an article in yesterday’s Edmonton Journal.

Carpe Diem, Nova Scotia

In an “unfortunate mistake,” this pension payout was not reported on the university’s books for six years.

Full story at the Calgary Herald.

“Could the same lethal mix of uncurbed expansion, colossal debt, arrogance, and mismanagement that ravaged Wall Street bring down America’s most famous university? And how much of the turmoil is the fault of former Harvard president Larry Summers, now a top economic adviser to President Obama?”

“Harvard University is facing the worst, most dangerous financial crisis in its 373-year history. Adding to the instability: the university is on its fourth president in eight years. And every few weeks, or so it seems, Harvard announces the departure of yet another administrator.”

“At some point in the last five years, the men and women who run Harvard convinced themselves that the endowment would grow at double-digit rates forever. If Harvard were a publicly traded company, those people would have been fired by now.”

” ‘Apparently nobody in our financial office has read the story in Genesis about Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dream—you know, during the seven good years you save for the seven lean years,’ remarked Alan Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School since 1967. ‘And now they’re coming hat in hand, pleading to the faculty and students to bear the burden of cutbacks. It’s a scandal! It’s an absolute scandal, the way Harvard has handled this financial crisis.’ ”

“Forbes magazine…concluded that the university was in a kind of death spiral…”

“If Harvard were a serious business facing a liquidity crisis, it would have done something drastic by now: fired senior employees, closed departments, sold off real estate. But Harvard, like most other leading universities, is stubborn and inflexible. ‘None of these schools has the ability to cut expenses fast enough’ is how a hedge-fund manager who counts Harvard among his investors explained the problem. Running the numbers for me, proving how impossible it is for a shrinking endowment to keep up with the university’s bloated, immovable costs, the hedge-fund manager concluded, ‘They are completely f**ked.’ ”

“…over the years, quietly, the university had been assembling and buying hundreds of acres…”

“Where were Harvard’s chief financial officer and treasurer while all this was going on?”

“Of course Harvard will endure—but in contrast to Keats’s Grecian urn, which is poetically frozen in time, Harvard must change. Aside from making speeches and releasing inspirational statements about the permanence of art, what is [President] Drew Faust doing to change things in Cambridge? What is her vision? According to Dershowitz, ‘Her vision at this point is preserving the university. She’s in a defensive posture.’ ”

The full article is available here.

CAUT has learned that Goodyear telephoned the president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to ask him to reconsider a peer-reviewed decision to fund an academic conference called “Israel/Palestine: Mapping models of statehood and prospects for peace” being held at York University later this month.

“It’s unprecedented for a minister – let alone a minister from the department that funds the granting councils – to intervene personally with a granting council president to suggest that he review funding for an academic conference,” said CAUT executive director James Turk. “This kind of direct political interference in a funding decision made through an independent, peer-reviewed process is unacceptable and sets a very dangerous precedent.”

Turk said that a principal role of universities in democratic societies is to allow a full, open debate of controversial issues.

“For a minister to intervene in an effort to derail an academic conference on behalf of special interest groups is simply unacceptable, and compromises the integrity and public purpose of universities,” said Turk.

“That’s precisely what happened here – when you are the minister from the department that funds the granting councils, and you call the president of a granting council to ask him to reconsider funding, the message is very clear.”

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For more information please contact James L. Turk, Executive Director, at (613) 726-5176 (office); or Kerry Pither, Communications Officer (613) 726-5186; mobile (613) 294-2203.

Workers around the world officially recognize April 28 as the National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed and Injured on the Job. The Canadian Labour Congress initiated the Day of Mourning in 1984; it was officially acknowledged by the government of Canada in 1991, and has been adopted by more than 80 countries around the world.

“Finance Minister Jamie Muir is not being straight with Nova Scotians when he characterizes this as ‘extra’ money for the sector,” says Moore. “This is not new money and should not be characterized as such. For them to try and use this as some kind of political wedge with the opposition parties is a sign of a government that is in its dying days.”

CUPE Local 3912 represents part-time academic staff at Dalhousie, Mount Saint Vincent and St. Mary’s universities.

Finance Minister Victor Boudreau is calling on universities, which ““receive significant financial support from New Brunswick taxpayers,” to “take the appropriate steps to manage their wage bills in a manner similar to the province.” He has warned that “grants to universities and municipalities will be adjusted in future years to reflect this expectation” and that his government is prepared to “introduce legislation limiting the wage increases that can be obtained through collective bargaining negotiation to zero per cent.”

UNITE HERE has recently launched “Will you stand with Diane?”, a campaign of support for Diane and for all workers’ rights to unionize. The website is www.istandwithdiane.ca. Apart from this article in the St. Catharines Standard, this story does not appear to have been covered by print news media or by bloggers.