A meeting of the Governing Council had to be briefly adjourned on Thursday after a group of several student protestors staged a protest inside Council Chambers. The disturbance erupted near the end of the meeting, during a discussion of one of the items on the agenda having to do with the procedures for booking space on campus for events. The meeting also included other developments related to Faculty Association Arbitration and the Report on Task Force on Governance.
Temporary Use of Space on Campus
Council approved a new policy document on the temporary use of space on campus, which turned out to be the most controversial item of the evening. The new policy was widely publicized by several student groups before Thursday’s meeting. One student governor reported being bombarded with dozens of emails and phone calls from students in the lead-up to the vote.
An email from the French Club and the Muslim Students’ Association, for example, implored student governors to vote against the new space booking policy. “If ever there was an issue on which the voting should be 42–8 [with all eight student governors on Council voting against the measure], this is it!” the email reads, adding “our memberships will be notified of your votes.”
In terms of substance, the new policy document provides that “the university may, as a condition of booking, require that authorized security be made available during the use of the space […] at the cost of the user and to be arranged by the university.” In addition, it says that “the university at its discretion may assess additional security requirements and require that campus police be present at any event.”
Student groups said they worried that these provisions in particular would allow the university to impose burdensome conditions on the organizers of certain politically sensitive events like Israeli Apartheid Week, without outright cancelling these events. Several student leaders expressed their concern that this would allow the administration to essentially sidestep criticisms that it was stifling debate on campus.
Provost Cheryl Misak, whose office was responsible for drafting the new document, insisted that the new policy was little more than an update of an older set of guidelines dating back to 1988. “It’s not a new policy,” she said, urging that the new document was simply an articulation of current practices around space bookings.
Misak also responded to student concerns that the new document would result in higher charges for security costs. “My view is that we should do everything possible to not charge student groups, whether they be small student groups or large student groups, for security costs,” she said. “Of course the students eventually pay for them in some way because the money could be spent on other things, but we do not charge student groups for security costs,” she said. Misak said the university would really only charge external groups. She conceded however that some student groups, would be charged if the security costs were unusually high, but maintained that this was exceptionally rare and not a departure from current practice. “We’re working very very hard to not charge student groups with security costs.”
Faculty Association Arbitration
U of T President David Naylor addressed the recent arbitration between the university and the Faculty Association. The arbitrator awarded across-the-board salary increases of 2.25 per cent to university faculty and librarians for two years beginning in July 2009.
Naylor told Council that when other factors were included, the real cost of the award to the university would be 2.47 per cent per year and that together with the merit increases of 1.9 per cent, totaled 4.37 per cent per year. Naylor argued that this was well above the rate of inflation and “far outside the framework recommended by the province in its compensation restraint legislation.” Naylor also divulged that UTFA was actually arguing for a 3.5 per cent salary increase for both 2009 and 2010, slightly above the 3 per cent that UTFA had publicly stated it was seeking.
“This is an award that while moderate when compared to [UTFA’s] position, will put significant pressure on this institution,” said Naylor. “We have an absolutely outstanding group of faculty and librarians. In ordinary times I would not be as concerned about increases that moved ahead of inflation […] but the reality is these are not ordinary times. The marketplace has changed quite dramatically.”
Task Force on Governance Report
Council approved a major report from the Task Force on Governance, a body set up over two years ago, to identify potential problems with the current system of governance. The report tabled a number of recommendations which were hotly criticized by several student governors and student groups, as contributing to what they felt was an already harsh environment for student perspectives on Council.
The report made two main sets of recommendations: one to take effect immediately and another to be handled by an Implementation Committee, which would oversee and coordinate the longer term recommendations.
Joeita Gupta, a student governor representing part-time undergraduates, said that she was concerned that the Implementation Committee would be given overly broad powers. Gupta also drew attention to a recommendation granting the Executive Committee of the Governing Council sweeping powers to approve and terminate academic units, approve capital projects, and make recommendations for expulsion. She said this was further evidence of a clear trend towards a concentration of real authority in the Executive Committee, and the Implementation Committee, which reports back to the EC.
