Carleton may face a rare censure from a nationwide academic professional’s union if it does not rewrite parts of a $15-million donor agreement that funds the university’s two-year-old graduate program in political management.
The first-in-Canada program that was launched with a donation from Calgary oil baron Clayton Riddell’s foundation, and the support of former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, has continued to haunt Carleton after its donor agreement was made public.
The agreement gave Riddell’s representatives a place on the program’s steering committee, with some say over aspects of the program.
“No program should have a steering committee with anybody from the donor on it, full stop, let alone the steering committee’s powers are to approve the budget, to have a voice in hiring, in the awarding of graduate fellowships. All that’s currently in the agreement is unacceptable,” said James Turk, executive president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT).
CAUT is a national organization that represents professors and other academic staff at universities across the country, including Carleton.
Carleton has defended the program and said the agreement has been revised to reflect concerns raised about the steering committee’s role.
“I went back to the donor, and said, ‘Look, this agreement is not making people happy. Let’s revise it.’ So we revised the agreement,” Carleton president Roseann Runte said.
Runte said the university revised the process for approving donor agreements, making it so that each has to be approved by the department, the dean, the provost, the president, and the board.
“So we have a tighter system than any other university in the country,” she said.
The article in the agreement dealing with the program’s steering committee, which originally gave the committee power to approve adjunct faculty and staff, was revised to say the committee can only give “advice” on staffing.
The revision left the committee with the approval of the budget, but only relating to the “funds provided by the donor” and “ensuring that it is aligned with the original proposal and/or mutually agreed-upon changes.”
The CAUT had considered a rare censure against Carleton over the donor agreement, but decided to put it off and negotiate with the university instead, Turk said.
Turk said he last met with Carleton officials in November 2012, and said there was some indication the university was ready to negotiate with CAUT. They met again in March 2013, when CAUT decided again to put off a censure motion in hopes Carleton would co-operate.
“Since then they have made no contact with us,” Turk said.
A censure would mean CAUT would actively discourage professors from Canada and around the world from taking jobs and attending conferences at Carleton. The CAUT has done this only once since 1979, according to Turk.
“They claim that they aren’t going to give non-academics any role in academic matters,” Turk said. “If that’s the case, it should be easy to change the agreement.”
CAUT holds a council meeting every six months, and will hold its next meeting at the end of November.
If Carleton has not revised the agreement by then, Turk said members will vote to censure the university at the subsequent meeting, giving Carleton another six months to respond.
After six months, if Carleton has not resolved issues, CAUT may decide to censure it.
“We haven’t begun that process, we don’t have to begin that process,” he said. “We want to get the problem fixed.”
Runte said she thinks the university has addressed the issue, and changes now would be unfair to the students and faculty, now in their third year of the program.
“I think we did a lot, and we did what you’re supposed to do, take things seriously and try and make them better,” Runte said.
