An Athabasca University ‘rescue plan’ proposed by the Athabasca University Faculty Association (AUFA) has been rejected by AU’s board of governors.
AUFA recommended that the board of governors appoint an interim internal president, chosen from the university’s senior staff.
“This plan would save the university about $1 million in executive pay and other headhunter fees earmarked for a presidential search over the next two years,” a release from AUFA read.
“AUFA’s plan demonstrates fiscal responsibility and leadership: replacing the current president would improve morale and employee confidence in senior administration, which has been sorely lacking since April 2012, when AUFA and CUPE Local 3911 held a vote of non-confidence in the president,” the release reads.
“AUFA’s plan for an interim internal president would assign AU staff and faculty increasing responsibility and accountability for the university’s governance and strategic direction.”
The university issued its own press release in response to AUFA’s.
“Today, the board of governors of Athabasca University respectfully notified AUFA that they would not accept their May 8 recommendation to appoint a faculty member nominated by AUFA as interim president of the institution,” it read.
“The board is presently in the process of recruiting a replacement for current president Dr. Frits Pannekoek, who announced in March 2013 that he would be retiring.”
Late last Friday afternoon, AUFA sent out yet another press release, this time in response to the university disregarding their request for an interim president.
“AUFA is disappointed the AU board of governors has so quickly rejected AUFA’s proposal for the board to exercise its legal power to appoint an interim internal president, thus saving money and boosting morale at AU,” the release states.
“Why is the board of a university that’s supposedly in financial crisis not interested in saving the estimated one million dollars this proposal would save?” asked AUFA president Mark McCutcheon.
AUFA also has an issue with the way the university is conducting their layoffs.
“The layoffs began in late March and have not yet ended; the administration has dragged out the process of notifying employees they are being laid off over a period of some two months now,” the AUFA release states. “As of this writing, on May 7, the administration has not yet finished delivering notifications to employees to be laid off.”
AU spokesperson John O’Brien rebutted AUFA’s argument.
“AUFA doesn’t accept that the layoffs were necessary, and we would like to stress that the layoffs were necessary. They were a last resort,” he said. “We followed the process as outlined in the collective agreement to the letter. Several of the people who were facing layoffs were on vacations or sick leave to research and study leave.”
O’Brien said the university cannot call someone in from sick leave and lay them off.
“We simply couldn’t lay them off in those circumstances,” he said.
“We regret that it has taken so long, but the situation is really out of our hands.”
McCutcheon rebutted, “The process of this is more demoralizing on top of an already low morale situation.”
AUFA also stated, “AUFA continues to lack confidence in senior executive management,” and thinks that replacing the president would improve morale.
AUFA’s proposal is available at www.aufa.ab.ca.
