Is there any good reason for tuition fees?

I suppose it depends upon one’s perspective.  University administrators have long argued that, due to the inadequacies of government funding, there is no choice but to charge tuition fees. These administrators have phrase their support of fees and fee increases as a reluctant necessity of life; something that any reasonable person would understand. But there is something more important that tuition fees allow these same administrators: it allows them a form of flexibility that they would not have if they relied directly upon government funding.  This fiscal flexibility is, it would seem, the more fundamental reason that administrators have long supported tuition fees. With regular increases.

Tuition fees are not the only non-government funding that university administrators seek out. Large dollar donors are also high the list of admin wants. The plus 5 - that is, more than 5 million dollar donor- is especially valued. Donors, rather like governments (but without the political oversight) come with wishes and desires. They have their own pet projects and their own vanity that requires being assuaged.  Donors create a climate in which the university can both break free from a democratic government’s policy framework and create a culture of venerating people for their wealth, not their merit.  But this takes us away from the question, “is there any good reason for tuition fees?”

There must be other, better, reasons for tuition beyond simply making up for a lack of government funding.  

There is the market idea that a student is purchasing a commodity - an educational certificate and the accompanying experience. This argument translates education into a transaction between the university as vendor and the student as client mediated by a cash for certificate exchange.  If we were to follow this Milton Friedmanesque logic to it’s end tuition should be allowed to float to the level the market can bear. Advocates of this argument say criticism of tuition is misplaced. They argue that by allowing tuition to rise to it’s appropriate market price a social decision can be made to allocate some of the surplus toward funding meritorious students who lack their own resources. The contemporary variant of this argument says that this way diversity can encouraged (wherein they assume people of colour more likely to be impoverished than the supposedly non-diverse white student). This view combines a paternalizing idea of charity with market moralism - that is those with more deserve more, the unfortunate bright student should be helped up so that they might also become a ‘success’ and join the ranks of the deserving wealthy.

While the Freidmanesque view provides the underlying logic of tuition fees, in actual practice fees have long been tied to a mid-range compromise between market ideals and social expectations.  That is, tying a belief that a student (as a user or consumer) is obligated to pay some portion of their education to the expectation that post secondary should be reasonably accessible to any citizen. This is what justifies holding fees for a category of insider lower than for a category of outsider. This is what justifies the current NDP governments waiving of fees for youth who were wards of the state.  But is this pragmatic balance between a users obligation to contribute with a societies expectation of accessibility really a good reason for keeping tuition fees?  What is the principle that we, as a society, demonstrate in this model of paying for post secondary education?

Contemporary society, more than at any time in the past, expects productive members of society to have some degree of post secondary education. Rare is the job that does not require a certificate or degree be it trades, technical, academic, or professional.  We live within a certificated society and our transforming workforce requires highly educated participants.  Is there not a societal obligation and responsibility to provide our youth and young adults with the appropriate educational background in a way that will not beggar them? I think there is. 

It’s time that we simply abolish tuition fees across the post secondary sector.  Our university leadership can play an important role in facilitating this transformation. They are the ones -from BCIT to Emily Carr to UBC- who have been loudly announcing the benefit, the need for a highly educated workforce ready to move bravely into a new wave of economic transformations.  Post secondary education is now, more than even a necessity.  We no longer expect people to pay for public K-12 education. That argument was settled long ago when it became clear that a high school education was a requirement for an effective labour force; today the first level of post secondary is ever bit as necessary as high school graduation was for our parents.

I will be doing my part of December 5th by voting against tuition increases at UBC. I will also be advocating that our Board of Governors and our university’s president, Santa Ono, explicitly, publicly, and loudly, calls on the government to begin the process of abolishing tuition fees across our post secondary system.

Assistant Professor, Tenure Track in Indigenous Fisheries

FYI:

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The Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) in the Faculty of Science invites applications from outstanding new investigators for a faculty position in the area of Indigenous Fisheries with expertise in social or biological fisheries sciences who have significant experience with Indigenous fisheries’ communities and territories, practices, issues, perspectives, and cultures. This will be a tenure track appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor.

A successful candidate with expertise in biological fisheries sciences (ecosystem and fisheries resource management) will be expected to develop an independent research program and engage in issues related to habitat, stock assessment, quantitative ecology, fisheries management, conservation, resource development, and the attainment of biological knowledge that is relevant to Indigenous communities.

A successful candidate with expertise in social fisheries sciences will be expected to develop an independent research program and engage in issues related to Indigenous food systems, Indigenous food security, Indigenous fisheries policies and co-management, pre-contact knowledge related to ecosystems, fish, shellfish and marine mammals, and ethnozoological investigations of aquatic resources in traditional territories.

The successful candidate should have demonstrated knowledge and experience engaging and working with Indigenous communities in British Columbia and Canada. They will be expected to participate in community-based research, and train students to collect and analyze data related to aquatic resources in traditional territories. As a faculty member within the IOF, the successful candidate will also be expected to effectively participate in undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate teaching and supervisory activities, collaborate with other faculty members, secure external funding and make academic service contributions.

Candidates must have a Ph.D. in fisheries sciences or a related field. Applicants must also demonstrate excellence or potential for excellence in both teaching and research.

The IOF (oceans.ubc.ca) is home to a world-leading multidisciplinary research team with particular strength in innovative marine conservation and ecosystem-based management approaches and tools. It promotes and integrates research on fish and fisheries, including ecology, fisheries assessment, oceanography, community-based management, marine protected areas, fisheries policy and ethics, interactions with marine mammals, and aspects of fisheries that draw on economics, law, sociology, history, anthropology, and other disciplines.

The position is subject to final budgetary approval. The anticipated start date is July 1, 2019 or upon a mutually agreeable date.

Applications

Applicants should send a detailed curriculum vitae, a statement of vision for their research program, and a statement of teaching and training philosophy, to search@oceans.ubc.ca by January 15, 2019. Applicants must also arrange for three confidential letters of reference to be sent directly to the same address by this date.

Questions can be directed to the search committee co-chair Dr. Andrew Trites at a.trites@oceans.ubc.ca.

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and status as a First Nation, Metis, Inuit, or Indigenous person. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply, however Canadians and permanent residents of Canada will be given priority.

UBC’s strategic plan identifies inclusion as one of our key priorities. We welcome colleagues with the experiences and competencies that can contribute to our principles of inclusion, equity, and diversity throughout campus life. In your application, please include a statement describing your experience working with a diverse student body and your contributions to creating/advancing a culture of equity and inclusion on campus or within your discipline.




The tactic of silencing.

There's a lot of virtual ink spilt these days about silencing conservative voices and the tyranny of a radical-feminist-postmodern-neomarxist-SJW conspiracy on campus. Apparently people like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Milo Yiannopoulos, and other voices of the conservative elite aren't getting their fair chance to share their views.  Yet, these individuals continue to speak out, to have platforms on university campuses, and (by all media accounts) to make a decent penny doing so. I'm willing to bet most people reading this recognize those names and have no trouble figuring out where they stand on the important issues of today.

The campus reality is different than what conservative elites claim. The people who are being silenced and threatened are far more likely to be progressives than conservative speakers.  The people who run our campuses have their social roots in the boardrooms of major corporations: they are, in fact, often members themselves of  the conservative elite. Take a real look at who actually makes the decisions on campuses.

Who is really being silenced on campus?

The evidence suggest the story is not as the conservative elite believes.  Over the past few years we have seen vocal attacks on Sunera Thobani for her comments on US Imperialism,  the wrongful withdrawal of a job offer to Steven Salaita for daring to compare the situation of Palestinians to the genocide perpetrated on Native Americans, to a myriad of little threats of litigation against outspoken faculty. There are many more who face the same targeting. What we see is that progressive faculty who criticize social inequality and oppression are the ones most often targeted.

The campaigns against individuals like Peterson, Shapiro, Yiannopoulus, involve mass movements, political mobilization, and public demonstrations. They engage wider publics in debate and discussion. The debates can at times be raucous, even intemperate, but they are discussions nonetheless that allow people to examine the arguments against them and for them. Rarely are such conservative voices silenced in any meaningful way.  If anything, they are encouraged and supported to continue. Some even urge their follows to actually attack faculty they disagree with.

Attacks from the right, from the conservative elites, however, often deploy instruments of class rule - legal threats to economic wellbeing through litigation (which pulls a secrecy blanket over details and is expensive), threats of criminal investigation (as in Thobani's case), and challenges to a person's fitness for employment (as in Salaita's case). These are not tactics of engagement or discussion. These are the tactics of power being deployed to silence and create fear and anxiety. Alongside the formal tactics of silence is an accompanying storm of violent threats against individual faculty members.

These tactics shutdown debate.  They quiet discussion.  They are about maintaining social power in a few hands.  There is nothing in the tactic of silencing that in any way encourages authentic democratic engagement.  What we are witnessing is a descent into authoritarianism.

The only way to confront these tactics is through the longstanding tactic of mass action and solidarity. We need to honour the old slogan "an injury to one is an injury to all."  In the face of the power of conservative elites the only way truth and justice will ever be achieved is by standing up to them.