UTSU and the Arts and Science Student Union are taking U of T to civil court to block the imposition of flat fees, alleging that administrators broke rules, disregarded the decisions of their own committees, and employed questionable procedures in an aggressive push to move the fee change proposal through the Faculty of Arts and Science Council. Without FASC approval, the proposal could not move forward to all-important votes at U of T’s Business Board and Governing Council—or so it was thought.
The university administration is trying to have the suit thrown out on the grounds that FASC has no real authority, making it a moot point whether the vote was properly conducted or even whether it passed. A six-page legal statement, filed by Governing Council secretary Louis Charpentier on behalf of the university, states that FASC’s vote on the issue—misconduct or no—did not matter one way or the other.
“My question is, if that’s the case, why did FASC vote on it?” said Arts and Science Student Union president Colum Grove-White.
Charpentier and a university media spokesperson both declined to comment further on the matter.
Grove-White sat on the Program Fee Implementation Committee struck in January to discuss imposing flat fees, also referred to in administrative documents as a “program fee.” Grove-White says that committee members agreed that the proposal should not be implemented in September 2009, but committee chairperson Scott Mabury overruled the recommendation and pushed the proposal through to a council vote. Grove-White’s affidavit quotes Mabury as wanting to fast-track the proposal before the tuition issue became, in Mabury’s words, “too political.”
Mabury’s decision may or may not have paid off. The Business Board will vote on the proposal this Monday, April 27. If the board votes in favour, the proposal goes to GC for what could be final approval, unless provincial courts intervene. ASSU and UTSU are holding a rally before the meeting, and Grove-White hopes to address the board before they vote.
“They could refuse me if they want. It’d look dodgy but whatever,” he said.
The Ontario Superior Court is not scheduled to hold its first hearing on the case until July 10.
FASC member Judith Taylor said that she and other council members were not told about the proposal until an email sent on March 25. They were sent copies of the proposal to review before they voted on it at the April 6 meeting. But at that meeting the Dean of Arts and Science, Meric Gertler, surprised council members by distributing a new, revised flat fees proposal, leaving little time for council members to review and discuss it.
“I felt that I was on the set of a movie about union politics gone awry,” said Taylor of the April 6 meeting. “I have never experienced anything quite like that in my history at U of T.”
The revised program fee proposal calls for a flat-fee threshold of four courses to be implemented starting September 2009. As of September 2011, the threshold will be lowered again: students taking three full course equivalents will pay the same fee as those taking five. Dissenters against the proposal argue that a threshold of three courses would leave students no option but to pay for five courses if they wanted to receive Ontario Student Assistance Program loans. Only those students taking three or more full course equivalents are eligible for OSAP loans.
FASC approved the new proposal 28 to 15, with as many as 10 members abstaining.
Taylor said she felt that discussion between FASC members was discouraged when the Dean presented new proposal to FASC for the first and only time.
“[Gertler] seemed to be dictating how FASC should vote, and people complied with that,” said Taylor. “When he was responding to faculty concerns, he would characterize them as foolish and then offer a counter-critique.”
Taylor acknowledged that Arts and Science is in “a crisis situation” financially and that she does not blame Gertler for what she called “mistakes” in how the flat fees proposal was handled.
The report that Provost Cheryl Misak has sent to the Business Board for approval asserts that switching to flat fees is “an administrative change to how tuition is assessed and is not a change in the tuition rate itself.”
Governing Council separately approved hikes in tuition rates on April 16, on average an increase of 4.3 per cent for domestic and 5.7 per cent for international students across all departments and faculties.
Misak declined to comment on flat fees after the court application had been filed.
U of T expects flat fees to “intensify” the average Arts and Science course load by between half a credit and one full credit, adding $8.9 to $14.7 million in net tuition dollars to the university’s budget. The university also anticipates that some students will choose to drop to part-time status to avoid flat fees, and that the overall “intensification” of course enrollment will cause a drop in summer course enrollment.
Additionally, the university has suggested that increasing tuition revenue through flat fees will allow it to cut down the number of undergraduates it accepts without losing revenue.
J’accuse!
The affidavits filed against U of T contain four main grievances with the committee process that first approved the flat fees proposal:
The Faculty of Arts & Science Council was not informed of the Program Fee Working Group, which was struck last summer to consider a flat fee structure. PFIG had no students on it.
Council voted on a revised implementation strategy that was different from the proposal circulated with the agenda. The chair maintained the motion was in order because its wording had not changed.
The members of the Program Fee Implementation Committee did not see drafts of the report until it had been presented to FASC, and the report missed members’ grievances. The ASSU president says the committee agreed that implementing flat fees in September 2009 would be “premature.”
At the FASC meeting the dean, Meric Gertler, was allowed to respond to criticism, but no follow-up questions were allowed.
–Naushad Ali Husein
