Dr. Steven E. Noble reporting on the Rancourt wrongful dismissal hearings -- November 1st hearing

Critical pedagogue Dr. Steven E. Noble has been reporting on the binding arbitration tribunal hearings into the wrongful dismissal case of Denis Rancourt. His reports are HERE.

Concluding highlights of Dr. Noble's report about the most recent November 1, 2011, hearing day are as follows.

The points raised by the University group were unbelievable and showed how completely unarmed this side is. The first point regarding Dr. Rancourt somehow engaging in ‘radical’ or ‘experimental’ pedagogy (remember, according to the university the hearing is not about pedagogy!) and therefore comes under the purview of the University Ethics Review Process is completely and utterly absurd. Further, it shows that the University group are not even in the realm of being academics. I come from within Faculties of Education (University of BC and University of Ottawa) – and those faculties have at their core exploring and experimenting with pedagogical approaches and never, over my 15 years of teaching have I ever had to submit an ethics review form along with my syllabus or daily lessons…. With over 100 professors and instructors in the U of O Faculty of Education imagine the amount of ethics review processing that would have to go on every term?! Ignorant, ignorant, ignorant. And it’s not just the Faculty of Education – I know other faculties are, heaven forbid, experimenting and playing with pedagogical approaches and I am 99% sure none of them are submitting ethics review forms either! And further, the University side has had two and a half years to consider that Dr. Rancourt was introducing innovative teaching in an experimental or exploratory way – as he had done years prior to his dismissal. Further, the University characterizes the pedagogy of grading all students similarly as something approaching academic fraud. Really? Faculties of Education and others have been (the University of BC does this routinely) invoking “pass/fail” courses for year whereby if student complete work satisfactorily, they receive a pass and if not they receive a fail. I know at UBC the grade equivalent to a “pass” is B+ so everyone receiving above that level of work passes. How is this different from everyone completing A level work receiving an A? Also, critical pedagogy, which is the approach Dr. Rancourt was exploring has been around since Paulo Freire, in Brazil, created this approach – that’s almost 50 years ago! The K-12 system has dabbled with it for decades; community groups work with it and colleges/universities have explored it for decades… but all of a sudden because Dr. Rancourt is experimenting with it in physics that it must be something novel and new…. Please.

My experience, thus far, of the University side is that it is so focussed on Dr. Rancourt and the narrow context of what he was doing that it is not checking what the broader academic landscape is and the hypocrisy it regularly commits; so, to me, they come off as a complete ignoramuses and buffoons. On top of this, the University side continually highlights how retrograde the institution is without realizing it.

... Through the three days of preliminary motions I have been completed unimpressed by the University side. Highly reactionary , whiny, emotional, petulant – I’m still waiting to hear some serious facts. We didn’t hear a whole lot from the APUO today because much of it was the University and its continued stalling. The APUO is raring to go so they’re spinning their wheels as the University side continues its amateur hour. I’m left wondering how much in tax payer dollars and tuition money is being spent on all of this? How many profs could be hired, how many library books and journal subscriptions and software programs could be bought, how many bursaries could be awarded with all this money?

We, now have to await until January 23, 2012 for – hopefully – the main hearing to start – barring any further caterwauling, stalling, temper tantrums from the University.

All posts about the wrongful dismissal hearings: HERE.

See hearings schedule and reports: HERE.

Chronology of wrongful-dismissal background events: HERE.

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Submissions on video transparency to Arbitrator Foisy in Rancourt wrongful dismissal case

Following the latest hearing day of October 12, 2011, in the wrongful dismissal case of physics professor Denis Rancourt, the Arbitrator invited written submissions about video recording of the sessions, with a submission deadline of October 18, 2011.

A report about the October 12, 2011, arbitration session is HERE. Public records of the hearings are HERE. Nasty things done to Prof. Rancourt are listed HERE.

Two written submissions about video access were received by Arbitrator Claude Foisy, from Dr. Steve E. Noble and from the griever Dr. Denis Rancourt; HERE and HERE.


Excerpts from the submissions of Dr. Noble are as follows.

From the Summary:

"This is the first case of its kind in Canada – the (wrongful) dismissal of a tenured full professor because of academic reasons (which flies in the face of implicit full academic freedoms professors are supposed to enjoy within university settings). It is a landmark case that has national and arguably international repercussions for the Academy, more broadly."

"I demand that these hearings must be audio-visually recorded and that an air of openness, transparency, public accountability be presumed over that of confidentiality and restricting public access. This shouldn’t even be some belaboured discussion."

From the main text:

"... Yet, here we have an arbitration that was immediately cloaked in secrecy despite the public nature of the issue and the institution involved."

"... hiding this public good behind a constructed mantel of pervasive corporate managerialism undermines democracy, while disavowing the overwhelmingly public nature of “ownership” of these institutions."

"Priority – and the default - should be for openness, transparency, public accountability – because this relates to the running of a public institution, paid for by taxpayers and, increasingly through student tuition/ancillary fees: a university."

"University administrators, including legal counsel and President Rock are not shareholders, nor corporate owners; they are caretakers or custodians of the public good and investment in education paid for by citizens. And as caretakers, they should be operating with the presumption that everything they do, or documents they produce, will and should come under public scrutiny."

"Students are learners and stakeholders, not clientswho should not be privy to confidential commercial information and interests. Increasingly, university elites act like autocratic parents to increasingly infantilized students, rendered relatively powerless: unseen and unheard. Muzzling the recording of these hearings would be an extension of knowing what’s best for the academic community."

"The default position must be that these hearings must be audio-visually recorded because it’s in the public’s interest to do so. And that’s the first interest that should be protected."

"I find it deeply troubling that the union, for instance, has agreed that none of the hearings be transcribed. [...] To remove a layer of public record makes me very suspicious as to why this is being requested and why this is being agreed to."

"Publicly firing a 20+ year professor who is fully tenured under questionable processes is directly relevant to the broader Academic, Educational and General communities. This episode within the University of Ottawa will have direct effect upon academic freedom, freedoms of expression and tenure policy for years to come. Students and professors alike need to have all material arising from these hearings available to them to engage in debate and discourse as part of the much larger educational project."

-- Dr. Steve E. Noble

Dr. Rancourt's submissions are HERE.

The next hearing dates and places are listed HERE.

Featured comment by former U of O professor Steve E Noble -- "Land of Rock"

Dr. Steve E. Noble was a full-time professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa. Having left the U of O, he feels he has insights to share about the institution, such a this recent comment (below).

[Background posts HERE (label = APTPUO).]
[Recent related media articles: LINK, LINK.]

Steve E. Noble said...

More than anything, the part time prof crisis is being dealt with by an incredible level of unethical, iron-fisted sleaze...

1. The university is unilaterally imposing a cut to the part time union's membership by telling the union that it wants non-credit profs within the second language institute and the Faculty of Education to be removed from the bargaining unit. Why only those two areas - what about other faculties and programs? All part time non-credit profs do similar things - why not go after all non-credit profs? Could there be a Rock-Berger alliance?

2. Is this a manufactured financial crisis that is being used to "legitimize" the iron fist approach to repress part timers and gut the union contract?

3. Why are tenured faculty and administrators not facing compensation cuts? If, after all, the university is facing a "financial crisis"? Should the wealthiest and most secure not be the first to cut their compensation, rather than the poorest and most vulnerable frontline?

4. The most vulnerable employee group is facing a 66% pay cut, yet are expected to do the same or more work for less money? Is this reasonable? In the corporate world, a move like this would result in the corporation being faced with severe government sanctions. What is acceptable is salary freezes, not cuts.

5. And the MOST vulnerable of all -the very people the university SAYS is its focus, the students, face the greatest penalty. May 13 was the last day to withdraw from a summer course without financial penalty. So, if there is a lockout or strike the May 14 or May 17 makes students the biggest losers - but then, that's likely how the university wants it - keep student cash and make the part time profs the evil ones in the process by being constructed as "unreasonable" - a very old employer union strategy.

The more I read about U of O, the more I wish I had stayed out west teaching at university there - so much more progressive and where, heaven forbid, the success of the student-prof relationship is the focus. Something stinks in the Land of Rock.

May 14, 2011 9:00 AM

[Links added by UofOWatch.]

RELATED POSTS:
U of O a top employer?
Rock ethically challenged, media says
List of Rock ethical breaches
Dean of education Berger most ruthless administrator
Union busting of APTPUO

MEDIA UPDATE:
U of O gives in to public pressure - settlement reached, in principle

Former professor Steve E. Noble on the U of O presidency of Allan Rock

[Photo (uOttawa.ca) : Breakfast speaker Allan Rock "Canada’s University in the service of the world"]

Dr. Steve E. Noble, an expert in the global justice area of education, has recently provided his assessment of University of Ottawa president Allan Rock (LINK)*:

"The problem with Rock as president of the University of Ottawa are several.

First, he's being paid way too much. He's being paid more than the Prime Minister of Canada and about the same as the President of the United States.

Second, the University of Ottawa is, at best, a second ranked university (more comfortably sitting in the third tier of universities in this country); his salary should reflect that.

Third, he comes from outside academia. Most universities around the world select their presidents from within academia given that professors have a solid understanding of how universities work and the norms and culture that stems from the learning/teaching relationship. Rock simply does not.

There is a move afoot among universities to turn academia into corporations with a heavy managerialist approach whereby the teaching/learning relationship becomes thrown out for some research money measuring success approach.

Watching the Senate videos and it becomes clear that Rock has no understanding of how board meetings operate either. He makes the rules up as he goes along and whichever variation puts him in complete control is the one he goes with in that moment.

Rock is a lawyer and he will work from what he knows best -lawyers are about adversarial relationships and winning at all costs. A natural extension being their ego. And Rock is all about his ego.

Oh, I know when he was first hired we all held out great promise that because the story went that he was a student radical of the SFUO and apparently driving John Lennon around Ottawa makes him some sort of hip, anarchist, militant, student sensitive administrator. Rock is such a devotee of the establishment system that he demands everyone else fall in line.

Watch the Senate videos and you'll see the Senate behave like lemmings. Most inspiring, though, is the exception of Senator Hickey, the lone, elected graduate student challenging the senate and Rock repeatedly. He reminds me that not only do people like Rock, with their positional power and authority, feel it's their right to take away the individual agency and power of others (but individuals giving up their own power is also a key source of bullies' power).

Fourth, he's just not doing what he says he is going to do. Since arriving at the University of Ottawa the low student satisfaction ratings have slowly fallen to something approaching absolute lowest rating with regard to student satisfaction - IN THE COUNTRY!

Fifth, there is his approach to faculty and students that is simply appalling. I've listened to him at a General Assembly speak about part time and contract faculty (by far the majority of teaching staff in the university) as a necessary evil.

The Dean of the Faculty of Education also views contract and part time faculty as second classed employees. This group of faculty has as few protections as students. That works well for Rock - divide and conquer, while making up the rules as he goes along. And Rock expects (and encourages) Deans to behave as bullies. I've heard an associate dean describe how Deans rule their faculties like fiefdoms and the students and faculty within them are like their serfs.

The overarching feeling is that if students - and faculty - behave in subservient, group-thinking, conformist ways that they will "survive" university in order to get their credential. Their career of creative, innovative and radical thinking (if it hasn't been "educated" out of them) can only begin upon graduation.

When I saw a "student code of conduct" emerge at one point my fear was immense because that's the first step toward an explicit narrow-minded shutting down of expression sweeping over the campus. Students need to take back their power to take back their education, while fostering open dialogue, free thought and freedom of expression. If students are waiting for someone like Rock or the Senate to instill this, it won't happen. Perhaps Rock just needs to be reminded what student activism in his day was all about."

Dr. Noble has also recently commented on an article about the dean of the Faculty of Education, HERE.

*Links and formatting by blog editor.