Looking back and looking forward
In 2014, Academic Matters marked the 50th anniversary of its publisher, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), with an issue dedicated to “The Future of Faculty Associations.” The issue highlighted some of the challenges, successes, and lessons learned from a half-century of work to promote, preserve, and push forward the public postsecondary education system in this province.
This year, we’re marking another milestone for OCUFA: the organization’s 60th anniversary. To celebrate the occasion, this issue of Academic Matters looks back at the last decade in the higher education sector and asks: what has changed? What remains the same? And how can we move forward for a stronger and sustainable university system in this province?
These questions drive much of OCUFA’s work as a provincial organization that provides support to member organizations for campus-based collective bargaining and works with the provincial government to ensure that our world-class higher education system is adequately funded for the next generation of learners and teachers. But the work is not easy, and it is often a fight.
This issue celebrates OCUFA’s work over the past decade and explores some of the major issues—old and new—facing faculty, academic librarians, academic professionals, students, and staff at Ontario universities.
Researcher Carol Anderson—who first wrote about OCUFA’s history in these pages ten years ago on the organization’s 50th anniversary—looks back on the last decade of challenges and changes in Ontario’s postsecondary education system and how OCUFA has met the moment each and every time.
Building on this historical framework, OCUFA President Nigmendra Narain examines the state of university funding and support for faculty, academic librarians, and academic professionals in Ontario, and how OCUFA and its member organizations across the province have worked to improve student learning conditions, faculty working conditions, and the strength of universities for future generations.
OCUFA’s commitment to tackling issues regarding equity inside the organization and on Ontario campuses has been an integral component of the organization’s recent work. In an interview, Lydia Kapiriri, professor of health, aging, and society at McMaster University, reflects on her personal and institutional experiences with equity work and envisions a future where equity is built into the fabric of a university.
Three years on, the reverberations of the crisis at Laurentian University can still be felt in Sudbury and on the national stage. As the federal government commits to exempting public universities from corporate restructuring processes, James Harnum, a lawyer at Koskie Minsky LLP speaks to this unprecedented moment in our history and what comes next for universities facing financial challenges.
Finally, the 2023-2024 recipient of the doctoral OCUFA Henry Mandelbaum Graduate Fellowship for Excellence in Social Sciences, Humanities, or Arts, Mohit Dudeja, contributes a piece on his research into the lives of queer international students in small Canadian cities. This is the second such publication by a Mandelbaum Fellowship recipient, and it highlights the vital and new research being done by the next generation of scholars in this province.
This issue of Academic Matters also features an original commemorative poster by artist Yaffa Husseini. Yaffa is a young artist who graduated from Algonquin College in Animation and Illustration and holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Ottawa. She is passionate about social justice and hopes to continue to use her art to support and promote human rights. Yaffa’s poster celebrates OCUFA’s work over the past 60 years and showcases the collective action required to push our sector in new and exciting directions.
Academic Matters is pleased to continue to highlight the research, teaching, advocacy, and learning that fuel the innovations that will lead to a robust, equitable, and sustainable future for public universities. We hope you enjoy these reflections on the past ten years, and stay engaged with our work as we build towards that future.
All articles in this issue are available on our website: www.academicmatters.ca.
Thank you,
Manisha
