Letter to Member Associations

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Dear Member Associations,

I write to you as the new President of the Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations. I was elected to the position on the 29th of April, 2010, and it has been a very busy time for the Federation since then. I want to brief you on the Federation’s activities, and some of the plans we have for the months to come. But first, I would like to provide a bit of background to bring you up to date on how the Federation has changed over the past year.

The year 2009-2010 was year of significant upheaval for the Federation, in which the Executive and the Board spent much of their time working to re-imagine the Federation’s role on the PSE landscape in New Brunswick. This resulted in a host of changes, some of the biggest of which include:

i) the lowering of the mil rate, and the cutting of $60,000 in expenditures, which were redistributed back to the member associations through reduced dues.
ii) the discontinuation of the hard-copy newsletter, which also resulted in signification cost reduction. It will be replaced this year by electronic communiqués, as well as “fact sheets” concerning the state of PSE in the province. These will begin to appear this fall, with help from our newly hired Research Analyst.
iii) a concerted process of self-analysis, which has resulted in the development of policies to guide operations, finances, etc. In fact, the Federation had no policy governing these crucial aspects of its existence until now. We have Gilles Allain, our Executive Director, to thank for prodding the Federation in this important direction.

With these and other changes in the process of being implemented, I took up the Presidency of the Federation with one overriding concern—to make the Federation more visible on the New Brunswick PSE landscape. We are an association of some 2000 full and part-time faculty whose voice has been systematically excluded from debates about the state of PSE in the province—witness the 2008 announcement of the PSE Action Plan, where both students and administrators each had separate briefing rooms prior to the press conference. Faculty were not even acknowledged.
But it is also the case that we, as a Federation, have to be more proactive. To this end, I initiated the first ever Federation “retreat” in June. The purpose of this retreat was twofold. First, I felt it important to inoculate the organization against the end-

of-term malaise that hits all of us after the hectic exam period. Until now, the Federation had its AGM in April, and then dispersed until late August, by and large without any coherent direction. Second, following upon this, the retreat was used to establish key priorities for the Federation, but even more importantly, to direct the Executive and President to specific actions to advance the cause of the Federation’s membership.

There have already been very concrete results. I want to point specifically to the meetings we’ve had in June with PETL Minister Donald Arsenault, as well as with three of the four NB Univeristy Presidents: Dennis Cochrane (STU), Eddy Campbell (UNB), and Robert Campbell (MtA). We are also working on getting a meeting with Yvon Fontaine (UdeM). You can find reports from the meetings with the Minister, as well as with the Presidents of UNB and MtA, on the homepage of the Federation website: (http://fnbfa.ca/wp/). What all of these meetings have had in common has been the concerted attempt to get faculty concerns “on the radar.” In fact, in every case, the Federation has been collegially welcomed and listened to, with further meetings and consultation suggested by both sides. I think this bodes well for the important role the Federation can and must play in the evolution of PSE in the province.

As we look forward, a number of priorities emerge. Most obviously, the election in the Fall will be an important opportunity for the Federation to make the concerns of the province’s faculty heard. We are also working, more long term, to create a symposium on PSE that will involve all stakeholders in the province, and have already initiated the planning for it. And I cannot conclude without mentioning that this year marks the Federation’s 40th Anniversary—we have already begun discussing how best to recognize this important milestone.

I am looking forward to facing the challenges posed by PSE in the province, and to making sure that our voices are heard. I hope that you will take every opportunity to make your voice heard too; please feel free to contact me at fnbfapresident@nb.aibn.com, or our Executive Director at fnbfa@nb.aibn.com, with your ideas and concerns about PSE in the province.

Sincerely,

Dennis Desroches, President
Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations