Report on the Status of the Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations
30 March 2010
From the FNBFA Executive Committee, 2009-10
Linda Lequin, President
Dennis Desroches, Vice-President
Jack Vanderlinde, Secretary-Treasurer
Rick Hudson, Past President
Gilles Allain, Executive Director
Introduction
The following report, which will be circulated among all faculty associations in New Brunswick, originated in a motion adopted by members of AUNBT at their April 2009 Annual General Meeting. The motion asked that FNBFA undertake a review of its goals and operations and then report on that review prior to AUNBT’s 2010 meeting. In that same vein, the AUNBT Executive had already adopted a resolution of advice to FNBFA in the following terms:
Moved that given persistent concerns about the value of continuing membership in FNBFA, as assessed against the cost of membership, AUNBT recommends that FNBFA undertake a thorough, independent evaluation of its mandate, structure, and functioning, to be overseen by a Committee of representatives of the member associations and conducted over the coming year, with a view to reviewing all options for change and making recommendations in this regard for consideration by the FNBFA Board, the constituent associations, and their members.
This motion, in turn, was prompted in part by a report that Lee Chalmers submitted to the AUNBT Executive in February 2009, a report that at once supported the idea of a unified voice for NB faculty associations and questioned whether the FNBFA has been effective in being that voice. We cite from the Chalmers report:
I think it would be fair to say that there exists among the current AUNBT executive a general consensus that having a mechanism whereby the faculty associations of New Brunswick’s public universities can speak collectively and effectively, from both linguistic communities, on post-secondary education issues and provide support to each other on matters of mutual concern is potentially invaluable. Where there is less agreement is on the question of the extent to which FNBFA, as it is currently structured and as it currently operates, has been able to leverage the funding it receives to realize this potential. (pg. 1)
In response to concerns about FNBFA’s effectiveness in relation to its cost, which are by no means confined to members of AUNBT, the FNBFA Executive and Board for 2009-10 undertook an exercise of self-examination with the aim of changing the culture of FNBFA and thereby improving its efficacy for the two thousand or so faculty it now represents.
In reporting the initial results of this process, we want to be up-front. We are aware that the FNBFA went through two “independent evaluations” of its structure and mandate in the last 10 or so years, one in 1999 and one in 2005. Despite this, as the Chalmers report noted, little has changed. The reasons for this are many and varied, but none of them was acceptable to the current Executive. For this reason, the Executive felt that instead of commissioning yet one more report, whose cost would be significant, and whose results could end up once again being shelved depending on the vagaries of personnel turnover on the Executive, the political environment of the province, the flare-up of one more crisis, etc. ad. naus., action needed to be taken now on points that commanded a ready consensus. As will be seen from the report below, we have taken that action. We need to emphasize, however, that an organization cannot reinvent itself in six months (the effective time we’ve had so far). Even more, many of changes made this year have focused on governance of the Federation . For this reason, the feeling may be that little has changed at all. We hope that this report will dispel that feeling, and inspire confidence that the FNBFA is now on a path toward becoming the voice for NB faculty that the Chalmers report calls for.
Major Actions of the Board of FNBFA, 2009-2010
1. Budget Changes
The FNBFA made significant changes to its budget this year..
a. In April 2009, a new Executive was elected to the FNBFA. Under the new Executive’s leadership, the Board cut its budget by 20% (about $60,000), and communicated the savings to its member associations.
b. At the same time, the Board reduced the mil rate from 2.4 to 1.9.
c. Other actions this year by the Executive and Board have important implications for the budget, among them the elimination of the hard copy of Reflexions/Réflexions. They are discussed below.
These changes were made as a result of concern from some board members regarding the cost of supporting the FNBFA. Value for money is something that the current Executive also believes is important to sustaining the viability, and frankly, credibility, of the organization.
2. Communications
The Executive was aware that FNBFA activities in the provincial PSE landscape were little known to members of the constituent associations. We are responding as follows.
a. Website Redesign
Perhaps the most prominent problem with FNBFA communications strategy has been the ongoing failure of the FNBFA website to be current. This problem reflects the fact that the old website requires knowledge of code just to update it. The Executive established a Website Redesign Committee consisting of Dennis Desroches, FNBFA Vice-President (Chair), Peter Brown of MAFA, and Gilles Allain, Executive Director. The Committee solicited bids for redesigning the website, emphasising ease of access and updating, and a more professional presentation, and accepted the bid of Kiers Marketing Group. The new website, which is scheduled to go live in mid-April , satisfies these requirements.
b. Reflexions/Réflexions
The Newsletter of the FNBFA, Reflexions/Réflexions, was unsatisfactory in content and presentation. As a result, we have done away with the hard copy version of the newsletter. It will now be part of a larger strategy of electronic communication with the member associations, and will be found on the new website. It will also be sent to member associations for distribution electronically at the local level. While the newsletter will continue to report on events of interest to faculty around the province, there will be a renewed effort to focus on research concerning issues of importance to our member association. More on this under Personnel, below.
c. Communications Committee
One of the positive developments over the last ten years for the FNBFA was the creation of a Communications Committee; it was this committee, in fact, which first created the FNBFA website. However, with the departure of Ian Fraser from the committee (its first chair), the committee went fallow. This year, we have revived the committee, making it a standing committee of the Federation, drafting new, and more precise, terms of reference. The office of the Vice-President of FNBFA will now hold the chair of the committee, and members will be taken from the rank and file of the member associations. This committee is tasked specifically with maintaining contact with its member associations, as well as with responding in a timely manner to issues of the day, generating briefs, press releases, and other communications.
3. Personnel
The changes above reflect changing priorities for the FNBFA, and we must now orient ourselves more effectively toward communicating with our members. Two personnel changes have resulted from this shift.
a. With the move away from the hard copy of Reflexions/Réflexions, we have terminated the services of the Director of Communications. Given that our Executive Director possesses expertise in communications, the position of Director of Communications was revealed to be at once redundant and under-utilized.
b. With the move toward producing research relevant to faculty on the PSE situation in NB, we have replaced the Director of Communications position with a Research and Analysis position, whose task is to generate research on PSE issues for dissemination to the member associations.
4. Governance
At the heart of our attempts to re-imagine the FNBFA this year, we have given close scrutiny to the question of how the Federation functions. This has involved scrutinizing our place of work, as well as how we work; in other words, logistics and policy.
a. Logistics
This year, the Federation undertook some significant actions to make the job of the Executive Director more effective. We moved our offices from the Victoria Health Centre (hardly an appropriate place of business), to 361 Victoria Street, suite 204 (right above the Kwik Kopy) in Fredericton. This not only provides professional office space for the Executive Director and the Research and Analysis assistant, but also works well as a place of meeting for the various committees of the Federation. We’ve also streamlined our operation, doing everything from securing a laptop for the Executive Director, to securing a Federation credit card (in progress), to initializing direct deposit for paycheques. It should be clear by this that a lot of things needed changing in the day-to-day operation of the Federation, and we have acted on them.
b. Policy
Perhaps our most significant action this year, if also our least visible, has been the determined overhaul of the Federation’s governance practices. It was surprising to many members of the Board and the Executive that the FNBFA possesses no policy to govern its actions. As a means to correct this situation, the FNBFA last November invited Lori Morinville of the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations to facilitate a one and a half day retreat on governance for the FNBFA. The retreat assessed everything from the FNBFA’s mission statement to equity practices, and focused on how to develop policy for Operations, Finances, and other aspects of the Federation’s day-to-day functioning. At the moment, much of that policy is close to completion, and will likely be in place for the next Executive Committee.
5. Government Relations
The Executive Director has been extremely busy this year liaising with government on behalf of the Federation. Notable meetings include attendance by the Executive Director at the Premier’s State of the Province Address, where FNBFA was able to ask a direct question on PSE, to network with the Deputy and Assistant Deputy Ministers, as well as with a number of other ministers and CEOs. The Executive Director was also present at the Premier’s annual meeting with labour groups last December, has met with the Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Training, and Labour, the Minister of Finance and other Deputys more than once, and participated in the Liberal and Conservative Party Policy Conventions. He also organized a lobbying breakfast in Ottawa with the New Brunswick Federal Liberal Caucus, which resulted in an agreement to try to coordinate action on PSE at the Federal level.
This by no means exhausts the activities of the Executive Director, and there is strong evidence that his work has been very effective on behalf of the Federation. In the recent progress report on province’s Action Plan for PSE, Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Training, and Labour Donald Arsenault publicly acknowledged the contribution that the FNBFA has made in helping the province to improve Post-Secondary Education in the province.
Moving Forward
The Executive Committee of the FNBFA has taken seriously the concerns articulated by the its constituent associations, including notably AUNBT in 2009. The result has been a year of soul-searching and adoption of changes unquestionably needed.
And more needs to be done. This year’s changes will precipitate new challenges in terms of budgetary limitations, as well as certain inevitable constraints in sustaining some of the ambitious communications goals we’ve set for the Federation. We aim to meet these head on in as transparent a manner as possible. We must also keep before us the challenges in the PSE sector that loom ahead. Within two years, all of our associations will be, or will have been, involved in collective bargaining. The province’s Action Plan for PSE still presents enough uncertainty for us to remain vigilant about its implementation. And public funding of private institutions also remains high on the Federation’s list of concerns, as the situation at Crandall University (alias, Atlantic Baptist University) continues to unfold.
Finally, we wish to make clear that this document only touches the surface of the work in which the FNBFA has been engaged this year. After all, the political landscape of PSE has not been politely waiting for the FNBFA to get its house in order, and while we have been reflecting on ourselves, we have also been working hard to respond to the regular challenges that PSE in NB presents us. The President’s report (appended) details more closely the issues the FNBFA has been faced with this year, and the manner in which we’ve responded on behalf of our member associations.
It is our hope that this report makes clear the seriousness with which the current FNBFA executive has taken AUNBT’s concerns. The next few years promise significant challenges to PSE in New Brunswick, and we believe that they can best be met by an effective organization that reflects the solidarity of all of New Brunswick’s faculty associations.
In solidarity:
Linda Lequin, President
Dennis Desroches, Vice-President
Jack Vanderlinde, Secretary-Treasurer
Rick Hudson, Past President
Gilles Allain, Executive Director