CUEFA : Welcome

Response from Board of Governors re: expressed concerns

May 24 2023

We resent our letter on May 4 asking that our letter be distributed to the entire Board, as previously the Board Chair, John Acheson, had not distributed it to the Board members. A response was received after the May 19 Board meeting again denying our request to meet. The letter further stated that the Board did not consider the concerns we brought forward (see Concerns Bulletins link on the side) to be a Board responsibility and that the Board now "considers the matter closed". No mention was made of the recent membership No-Confidence Vote in the President and the Board Chair.

The letter, signed by the Board Chair, John Acheson, stated:
"It is the decision of the Board that it will not meet with the CUEFA to consider the expressed concerns of the CUEFA. It is the Board’s view that the Collective Agreement includes a full opportunity to address grievances and that the grievance procedures contained therein must be followed. Further, the Board takes the position that the organizational structure that is in place to administer CUE is sound and that matters such as communicated to the Board by the CUEFA are to be addressed by the Administration and not by the Board. To this end the CUEFA is encouraged to express their concerns directly with the President as the Board will not give them further attention. Further, and to reiterate, the Board is of the view that the issues contained in the several communications over the past weeks between the Board and CUEFA are not governance issues but administrative issues; given this the Board considers that the matter is now closed."

Please read the official response from the Board here.

CUEFA Members Vote NO-CONFIDENCE in President & Board Chair

May 3, 2023

The results of a faculty no-confidence vote held on May 3, 2023 have been confirmed by two non-Executive committee CUEFA members acting as returning officers.

Details of the results are as follows:

A total of 62 members (74%) voted (with a handful selecting to abstain from each vote). Given the time of year, and the number of faculty on leave, is represents a high voter turnout.
On Question 1: Do you have confidence in President Loreman’s ability to fulfill his duties and responsibilities to lead the university?
50 voted no (89.3%)
6 voted yes (10.7%)
On Question 2: Given the description of the role of Board Chair provided above, do you have confidence that Board Chair Dr. John Acheson is fulfilling his role and responsibilities as outlined in the CUE Board of Governors bylaws?
47 voted no (90.4%)
5 voted yes (9.6%)

These results repeat and extend the 90% no-confidence vote in President Loreman held by CUEFA in February 2022.

Concerns: Summary and Ongoing

April 26, 2023

We have shared five of the biggest concerns for the overall health of the University with you over the last 10 days. We hope these have demonstrated the depth and breadth of many of the issues that we currently face at Concordia. These concerns were: 1. Recent Staff Restructuring, 2. CAQC Requirements Not Being Met, 3. Excessive & Inconsistent Use of Disciplinary Measures, 4. Non-Collegial Governance, 5. Finances. (See links on side for details.)

In concluding our bulletins, we recognize that there are many other issues that are affecting different areas of the University that we did not get to, but are happy to share information with members on, such as:

The sessionals: There are ongoing issues with their certification process, retribution, and the limitation of courses being imposed.
The PsyD program: There are machinations underway to fundamentally change this program from its original purpose. Faculty and students are being targeted by the Administration. This is an ever-evolving situation, which is why we did not highlight it in our bulletins - we learn something new and disturbing each and every day.
Concerns with Performance Evaluations: In both Annual and Permanence evaluations, we are seeing targeted retribution, lines of questioning by Deans that violate Labour law in the province, laziness, and outright lies in the evaluations.
Gender pay equity: We are seeing gender pay disparity across numerous departments.
The new Academic Plan: Despite a recent email from the VPA about new "understanding sessions" (two 60 mins sessions for all Faculty and staff), many concerns remain about the robustness of the plan, its relevance to Faculty members, and its lack of rigorous discussion of academics. Most of these have been expressed in writing to the VPA but have not been addressed. This episode constitutes another instance of administration not following proper procedures for collegial governance.

If you have a concern, issue, or action item you would like to discuss, please contact CUEFA in confidence at: grievance@cuefa.ca or cuefapresident@concordia.ab.ca.

If you would prefer to submit an action item, issue, or concern anonymously, you can do so via our CUEFA Action Item & Concerns Form. Information you enter is completely anonymous, and will be passed to the CUEFA President with strict confidence.

mindset shift

We continue to work towards greater equity and transparency at CUE among faculty/ASOs, sessional instructors, students, and administration and CUE's Board of Governors.

In recognition that we are all CUE, we believe in moving forward as a collaborative community.

Only together can we truly carry out the mission and vision of Concordia University of Edmonton.

cuefa.ca 2.0

Our vision for the website is an information resource and a community portal. We also aim for cuefa.ca to become an additional resource for all things CUE (in combination with CUE's web). Where resources on this site overlap other sites, we'll try, at least, to offer a fresh perspective.

We're developing a team of gatherers, compilers, contributors, and code-writers. It's an ongoing project—but here's what you will find on this portal now:

ABOUT: all sorts of information about CUEFA—people, history, bylaws, current issues.

ACTION: news and reports, media releases and reports, current issues, advocacy and activism.

COMMUNITY: connection points for students, faculty, sessionals, local community-at-large, and even the Admin and Board. We are now collecting faculty and sessional member profiles for the page. (Check that section out for the form to contribute your profile.) Lots more to come; plenty of room to grow.

REPORTS: reports from the CUEFA Representative on the Board of Governors, and reports from CUEFA's various teams, working groups, and committees.

BARGAINING: current and past Collective Agreements, plus the archive of everything related to bargaining/2021-2022 and the strike. Over the long-term, we see private virtual spaces for raising and discussing collective issues. And more.

CUE: the University's identity and history, governance, who's who, committees and contacts, as well as events, research info, and notices. In this section we focus on supplementing, complementing, and helping to spread information found on CUE's institutional website.

BLOGS: nothing to see yet, but we're gathering material, thinking about frameworks, and in the future will post a call for contributors.

The communication loop

Timely and factual information is the root of building community.

The CUE community is students, faculty, sessional instructors, staff, and the community at large.

If you are part of the CUE community, please sign up for our "All Things CUE" e-list, and we'll share regular updates on All Things CUE.

Stay connected and informed because We Are All CUE!

Follow and Contact

@CUEfacultyassoc | cueassociation@gmail.com | cuefa.comms@gmail.com