Committees, Committees, and more Committees

In many ways, universities are run by committees. Committees approve new academic programs, hire all senior administration and department chairs, and oversee new campus services. UVIC even has a committee on committees!

Living in residence? Got a child in the UVIC daycare? You might be interested in some of our committee vacancies.

Love to reward great teaching? Seats on the Gillian Sherwin Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Andy Farquarson Teaching Excellence Award for Graduate Studentscommittees are now seeking graduate students.

Interested in UVIC fudraising, art galleries, and government relations? You could be on the appointment committee for the new AVP External Relations, who is responsible for all these things.

While we are at it, you  might be interested in the vacancies on grad council or some of the GSS committees like the Health and Dental Appeals Committee, Events Committee or various campaign committees (which are looking at grad student housing, creating a grad student advocate office, looking at GSS relationships with UVSS clubs and advocacy groups (and grad student fees for these groups), or examining our means of allocating seats on grad council) – email me at gssmgr[at]uvic.ca if you are interested in these committees.

oil company funding for university energy research comes under scrutiny

BP and nine other major oil companies's funding for research into alternative energy has come under scrutiny in a report by Jennifer Washburn at thinktank the Centre for American Progress.

What makes the report particularly interesting is the detailed analysis of the contracts between the universities and the oil companies, and the amount of control given to the companies in the contracts.

The contracts characteristics are highlighted in the report:

"• In nine of the 10 energy-research agreements we analyzed, the university partners failed to retain majority academic control over the central governing body charged with directing the university-industry alliance. Four of the 10 alliances actually give the industry sponsors full governance control.
• Eight of the 10 agreements permit the corporate sponsor or sponsors to fully control both the evaluation and selection of faculty research proposals in each new grant cycle.
• None of the 10 agreements requires faculty research proposals to be evaluated and awarded funding based on independent expert peer review, the traditional method for awarding academic and scientific research grants fairly and impartially based on scientific merit.
• Eight of the 10 alliance agreements fail to specify transparently, in advance, how faculty may apply for alliance funding, and what the specific evaluation and selection criteria will be.
• Nine of the 10 agreements call for no specific management of financial conflicts of interest related to the alliance and its research functions. None of these agreements, for example, specifies that committee members charged with evaluating and selecting faculty research proposals must be impartial, and may not award corporate funding to themselves." (Washburn, October 2o10, p 6)

The author was interviewed on Democracy Now about the study October 18.

Washburn, Jennifer. October 2010. Big Oil Goes Back to College. Centre for American Progress. found October 15, 2910 at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/10/pdf/big_oil_lf.pdf

Has UVIC just elected its last chancellor?

Murray Farmer was just elected as UVIC's new chancellor in July.
According to the Ring, 3838 members of convocation voted. Convocation includes UVic alumni, current and former Board of Governor and Senate members, UVic current and retired faculty, staff who have worked at UVIC for 12 months and hold a university degree,

But if the BC government gets its way, Farmer will be the last UVIC chancellor who is elected by convocation. Deep in the University Amendment Act 2008, bundled in with the creation of about a billion new universities all at once, lies the amendment to make the Chancellor appointed rather than elected.

The Chancellor will be appointed thus:

(1) There must be a chancellor of each university, who is to be appointed by the board on nomination by the alumni association and after consultation with the senate or, in the case of the University of British Columbia, after consultation with the council.

(1.1) The chancellor holds office for 3 years and after that until a successor is appointed.

Granted, you could argue the Chancellor is a figure head. But he or she also represents the University all around the world, confers degrees, and is an ex-officio member of BOG and Senate. The right to elect the person who plays that role gives the convocation the ability to decide the "face" of UVic.

I do wonder what the motivaton is. It's not as if no one participates--3838 people just voted at UVIC at the peak of summer holidays! And it certainly seems like we have had excellent people elected in past. So what exactly needs fixing?

Grad Students: Run for Senate!

If you are a graduate student in Business, Human Social Development or Law, consider running for a seat on the UVIC Senate!

It is my humble opinion that we need more graduate students on the Senate! Check out the call for candidates at this link. And you can learn more about the Senate here.

The Senate has many standing committees--including committees on planning, academic standards, libraries, continuing studies--and they all report back to the Senate for approval. So if you are interested in a wide range of issues in how the university is managed, this might be the election for you!