A silent promise
As a condition of mediation, AUFA has agreed to a media blackout again. Our media team has been silenced. But, of course, we’re still on strike. And though our negotiating team has been removed to Halifax by the provincial mediator, we still want and need to show them — and undoubtedly, each other — how strong and unified we are.
We showed that strength with collective silence on this third Friday of our strike. Four abreast and silent but for the lone drummer marshalling us, some three hundred filed in unison through the streets of Wolfville. All carried signs with a simple phrase: “Broken Promises.”
We were protesting against the promises broken since our last strike. We were protesting the fact that we had to be on strike at all to force the BOG to honour those promises.
However, there was more to it than that. In our disciplined silence today, we were registering our determination and our power to withhold our services — the unique voices we bring to the classrooms and committees that enliven the institution– until the BOG fulfils its promises. Our silence emphasized the silence of a campus without us and our students. Even more importantly, I think, we were registering our determination to fulfil the promise that Acadia has represented and can represent again when we have a voice in its governance.
For too long now, the BOG executives, through the senior administration, have effectively silenced the academic sector on governance issues. Their decisions carry the power to strengthen or weaken the academic culture and integrity of Acadia University. Yet few of the people rendering those decisions have any discernible understanding of what a university is and should be. Few, indeed, have any basis for that understanding because so few have worked as academics in academic settings.
So, in light of our march today and in light of so many conversations on the line this week, I think we need to promise ourselves something at this point. And we cannot break this promise. We need to promise ourselves that when this strike ends and we have won — and, make no mistake, we have to win — we will not be silent. We must first take it upon ourselves to teach the BOG what a university is and should be. We are teachers, after all. This should not be impossible. But we must also begin the process of taking over the BOG itself, particularly through its executive. Only when we have educated BOG members in this way and only when we have real executive power over academic issues at the university will Acadia truly fulfil its own promise.Below is a video of our silent march against broken promises to remind us of a promise that we must keep.
Sad Goodbye replied:
Dear John, (Ironically, this is a “Dear John” letter.)
As an academic spouse, I admire your passion and commitment to Acadia. The administration doesn’t deserve any of you.
However, I do not see the professors retaking the university. It isn’t just that the Board is in the strangle grip of a bunch of anti-intellectual ideologues or that the senior management is riddled with bumbling, self-interested toadies. That’s all abundantly true. My pessimism comes from the kid glove treatment AUFA has afforded these dreadful people. I suspect that this is an extension of your laudable efforts for the past three years to shield your students from a lot of ugliness. Unfortunately, it’s the highroad to nowhere. Your students are adults: they need to know what kind of people are collecting and abusing their tuition money and trust.
I feel confident that the mediator will recognize the merit and modesty of your wage proposal and pressure the university to accept it. However, this isn’t really about the money, is it? It’s about the future of an institution you all care for deeply. A salary increase is needed and justified – but it isn’t enough. Your cage will be (ever so slightly more) gilded, but the same bully master will be poking sharp sticks through the bars with one hand and thumbing her nose at the students with the other.
Gail Dinter-Gottlieb is, at best, incompetent. Many people, both faculty and admin, have been subjected to her unprofessional tirades. Rumours of much worse swirl around campus like the autumn leaves. Acadia can’t survive eighteen more months of her “leadership.” Yet AUFA, to my knowledge, has never called publicly for her ouster. Having countenanced her ineptitude and followed her into a second unnecessary strike, the BOG is not going to admit they made a mistake. Let’s face it, they’re slow learners. Gail lacks the honour and self-reflective capacity to resign. So it’s up to you. However, if you’re afraid to take her on now, when is that going to happen?
There is no wisdom in just waiting for better days. When the time comes, the Board will just replace her with a Gail clone. Remember, things weren’t exactly perfect before her arrival.
My partner treasures Acadia’s students and professors. I enjoy my (non Acadia) job and our family loves this community. However, I will do everything in my power to convince my spouse that, for the sake of our family and our self-respect, we should move on. We didn’t spend ten years living miles below the poverty line to get a PhD so my partner could be under-compensated, lied to and treated with contempt.
For the first time in ages there are plenty of academic jobs at other universities. They all pay much better and none could be worse employers than Acadia. I predict that a large number of the faculty will join us in a stampede for the exits. I’m sure the Board is rubbing its hands in glee at the prospect of filling those posts with cheap, All But Doctorate candidates from marginal schools. Well even if the BOG finds them, they will lack the experience to teach and the academic prestige to attract research dollars or write effective letters of recommendation for Acadia students applying to graduate and professional schools. At that point, an Acadia degree won’t be anywhere near worth the highest tuition in Canada.
What would convince us to stay?
1. Gail must go – immediately!!!
2. She must be succeeded as President by a person of irreproachable integrity and established executive ability who will put the students and faculty first.
3. The Board must be reconstituted to be representative of the broader Acadia community, not just a business cliché.
4. An independent auditor must be brought in to thoroughly – and publicly – examine Acadia’s books with an eye to reining in unbridled administrative spending and establishing transparent oversight mechanisms.
5. The university, in consultation with the faculty, must quickly formulate and implement a coherent plan to address declining enrollment and other problems exasperated by Acadia’s chronic mismanagement.
Does this all make sense? Will it happen? Only if students, parents and AUFA demand it. We love Acadia, but I’m not going to hold my breath while I hammer the “for sale” sign into the front lawn.
November 3, 2007 at 10:06 am. Permalink.
Lee Reid replied:
Dr. Eustace, I am the parent of a first year student at Acadia. The following is a comment I posted to FreeAgent U on October 26th, 2007. My comment was made in response to a suggestion (from another comment at that website) that, as parents, we send emails to various levels of administration including Gail Gottlieb:
Having just made my morning visit to ACEAcadia Youtube, I am asking myself if an email to Pres Gottlieb would not be an exercise in futility.
I watched and listened to her being interviewed for the October 25th, ‘Day 9 of the Strike’ video. I listened again. I was allowing for the fact that this Acadia Mom has seen a tad more than a half century of life, and the onset of some slight hearing impairment while I slept last night was not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Whoa, I did hear right the first time. So I listened a third time and took notes.
Throughout her interview, Pres Gottleib is quite easily “fascinated” and “puzzled”. Yes, those sorts of responses amused me. What does not amuse me is the overall impression I have been left with after listening to her.
Throughout the interview, Pres Gottleib offers absolutely no gesture of respect whatsoever to the students or parents of Acadia University. Her statements include the following: “It hadn’t occurred to me to have to explain myself (with a letter or explanation to the student body explaining her points of view on the importance of the trip) before the trip.” and “…but it was an awfully narrow point of view I thought to expect me to cancel the trip.” Also, “…I don’t understand why people think my sitting here would have made a difference when I’ve been in constant contact with the team.” I assume she is referring to the elusive negotiating team. The Pres also offers up that she visited four cities in China and “met people of extraordinary rank and impact in China”.
My viewpoint? I am deeply disappointed to have witnessed such displays of self-absorbtion and entitlement from leadership of the post-secondary institution I played an active role in encouraging my child to go to. Also, Pres Gottleib didn’t have to go to China to experience people of extraordinary rank…there are 3000+ of those people going to school at Acadia, and as for meeting people of impact…there’s lots of those associated with Acadia University too, they are the ones “whose hands rock the cradles.”
November 3, 2007 at 11:30 am. Permalink.
A letter of commitment « AUFA Strike 2007 replied:
[...] my posts. But I just can’t bring myself to remain silent about your comment (see comments on A silent promise). I want to respond first by thanking you for your [...]
November 3, 2007 at 7:42 pm. Permalink.
Heather replied:
Dear Mrs. Link,
Dear Mrs. Reid,
Thank you for your post – and welcome to the wierd, disturbing world of Dr. Gail Dinter-Gottlieb’s brain.
I’m impressed by how you were able to take the full measure of her character after carefully watching a few minutes of video. If your daughter has half of your critical skills, she’s just the kind of young person all the professors at Acadia love to teach.
November 4, 2007 at 12:52 am. Permalink.