New Role on Board of Governors

At any other time this kind of news would be something good, something to feel pleased about.

As of today I am the chair of the Learning and Research Committee of UBC's Board of Governors. I acknowledge the trust placed in me to take on this role. I acknowledge fellow faculty who have held this role before me. I also acknowledge the unhappy path that leads to my new found position.

Several times since being elected I made requests to be a member of specific committees (former Chair S. Belkin consistently ignored those requests). Since becoming chair Michael Korenberg has worked to accommodate diverse, and even highly critical, perspectives. He has shown a willingness to trust the democratic process and work with those who have been elected and with whom he may  fundamentally disagree with.  I admire the frankness of a person who will say what they plan to do and then do it as they said they would without subterfuge. That has been my experience working with the chair of UBC's Board of Governors.

I did not ask to be chair at any point in the past or present; in fact I have several times suggested other colleagues as appropriate candidates for chairing committees. Given my disagreement with certain categories of practices (like tuition fees, privatizing the university functions, or the amount of attention given to commoditizing research in consort with industry partners) it has not seemed appropriate to me to accept a position as a chair of a standing committee of the Board.

Then came Thursday.

I felt compelled to interject on a point of procedure during the Learning and Research Committee. A dialogue had developed between the chair of the committee and the chair of the board. This was an interaction that excluded the majority of the committee. People seemed to be uncomfortable with the dynamic. Yet the interaction continued with no apparent end.  I finally interjected on a point of order. This was a conversation best held, I thought (and still do) between the two men off stage.  To continue the dialogue would necessitate, I suggested, a vote of non-confidence in the committee chair.  After a brief moment the committee chair proceeded to the next agenda item.

I wasn't able to stay to the end of that meeting - I had a prior engagement for my father's 90th birthday. I learned later via social media that the chair of the learning and research committee had tended their resignation effective immediately at the close of the meeting. I felt saddened when I learned the news. Irrespective of any disagreements over process, tactics, or perspective, there is nothing to celebrate when a person feels their only recourse is to resign.   I have been in that place myself and, at least my sense of it is, it is not a happy place to be.

So today I take up the mantle of chair of the learning and research committee of UBC's Board of Governors.

I will be working with my UBC-O colleague John Klironomos (co-chair of the committee) to effect the business of the board through this committee.  I look forward to continuing the work that has been set in play and to build on it by ensuring that we hear the voices of faculty and staff representatives in our discussions.  There is already a strong consultative role established with student stakeholders - we have more work to do to ensure that faculty, beyond the management circle, are heard in the workings of board decision making processes.

I also make a procedural commitment to this committee and our public.  I intend that all committee members will have an equal and fair opportunity to be heard. Many of us teach in ways that enables all voices to participate; it is the least I can do to ensure the same consideration is applied in this committee.  In practical terms this will mean that each person will have an opportunity to speak before any other committee member speaks twice.  In addition, in the event that there is any issue in which I hold a strong view of, I will cede the chair to Dr. Klironomos at that moment so there is no confusion as to the proper role of the chair in the proceedings.

I look forward to continuing to work on behalf of my colleagues. You have placed your trust in me. I have an obligation to carry out this role to the best of my ability.

Why isn't my Professor Indigenous?

WHY ISN'T MY PROFESSOR MĀORI?

 [original post: Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga]

[Editor's note: this same question and analysis could be applied to Canada and UBC. As UBC's Board and senior leadership work toward faculty renewal it is more important than ever to ensure that our complement of Indigenous faculty (First Nations, Inuit, and Metis) is increased. As the legacy of colonialism has disproportionately effected Indigenous peoples, the remedy for lack of representation is a disproportionate response - it is not sufficient to use demographic distributions to determine how many Indigenous faculty there should be, we need to go beyond that number. This blog post is taken from the Maori Centre of Reserach Excellence Nga Pae o te Maramatangal] 

An important issue gaining a great deal of profile and traction online and in the media over the past week has been the ethnic makeup of professors and academics at New Zealand Universities. 

This interest originated out of a study and consequent papers published in the most recent issue of NPM's MAI Journal: A New Zealand Journal of Indigenous Scholarship - written by Dr Sereana Naepi and Dr Tara McAllister, along with her co-authors Associate Professor Joanna Kidman and Drs' Reremoana Theodore and Olivia Rowley.

In the papers, Why isn't my professor Māori? and Why isn't my professor Pasifika?, Tara and Sereana respectively reported that in recent years Māori made up only 5% of academics in our Universities, whilst Pasifika representation was as low at 1.7%.

In an interview last week on TVNZ's Breakfast Tara described how in her 8 years at university, from her undergraduate bachelors degree through to the completion of her doctorate, she never experienced a Māori academic in her science papers.

Sereana commented in another interview that, “When you have a different world view, you see the world differently, you ask questions differently, you come up with solutions differently and if New Zealand wants to be a leader in research and in innovation, they really need diverse research teams.

“When we consider our place in the world, we’re Aotearoa, we’re in the middle of the South Pacific, why wouldn’t we hire people who reflect our space in the world?"

The importance of seeing 'yourself' represented in the academic system cannot be understated, and the impact of these MAI Journal papers has been felt widely. NPM was acknowledged by the authors as having made a strong and important contribution to Māori academic scholarship and Indigenous academic success over the past 17 years, but much more effort is required by NZ's institutions to address the imbalance that continues to exist.

Link to:

• MAI Journal: A New Zealand Journal of Indigenous Scholarship
• Why isn’t my professor Māori? and Why isn’t my professor Pasifika?
• TVNZ - Breakfast (video)
• Radio NZ - Nine to Noon
• Noted
• E-Tangata

From 2013 to 2015, article co-author NPM Principal Investigator Associate Professor Joanna Kidman (Victoria University of Wellington) and her team conducted a qualitative, ethnographic study on senior Māori and Pacific academics based across a range of disciplines in the sciences, humanities, social sciences and professional and applied disciplines.

The project, Māori Academic Socialisation and the University explored the ways that Māori and Pacific senior scholars became academics; how they shaped their interactions and relationships with their institutions of higher learning; how they engaged with their disciplines; and, how they transformed academic knowledge in ways that support and sustain their cultural and tribal communities as well as contribute to national development. The project also investigated the institutional challenges experienced by Māori and Pacific faculty who work within universities and Wānanga. A final report on this project can be accessed here.

The Point of Complaint

Complaint defines a great deal of social media interactions. We are all implicated. We all decry other people's 'excessive' complaining while justifying our own. Even this post is a form of complaint (and I am going to righteously justify it!). 

My complaint isn't that we need to stop complaining. Complaints are important. They address faults, frauds, and (can. sometimes) lead to better things. My issue is with the wholesale totalizing negativity that our social media world of complaint has produced.

My personal political paradigm is one that is fundamentally critical of the totality of how our society is organized. So allow me to assure you, I have a lot to complain about.  Given that, a strategic approach to complaint is called for. In addition, it means that one has to try and find ways to work with the majority of people who seem to think everything is mostly okay. It also means determining how to take seriously the multitude of complaints that my political paradigm considers inconsequential. No small order.

I've sat on many adjudication panels over the years. This requires a strategic approach toward complaint. I have observed how some reviewers will run every proposal through their own personal theoretical paradigm. They will find the proposals all lacking because they don't mesh with the reviewer's personal paradigm.  Such reviewers are unable to extend a benefit of the doubt to applicants operating in different theoretical paradigms.  They find fault with everything. If I were to do that I would likely find about 95% of proposals I review deficient. 

My solution is to identify the applicant's paradigm, consider the extent that they meet the expectations within that paradigm, suffer the small faults, and look to the big picture issues. I also consider to what extent the applicant could hear any critical comment from me, would they alter anything in response to my complaints, can I prioritize my complaints and just focus on one or two key ones?  This seems like a reasonable approach to wider political issues.

It would be nice to see a winnowing of complaint within social media, a prioritization of complaint in which each of us commit to only laying out our most important complaints. Maybe salted with some positive, complementary, hopeful commentary? It’s unlikely, but I can hope.

The pervasiveness of complaint, unrestrained by prioritization or strategic considerations, contributes to a nihilistic political environment.  Nothing is to be trusted. Hyperbole is the norm. Bullies claim they have been bullied. Liars call truth makers frauds. Everyone gets into the action.

I suppose those who think our world is running just fine find solace in the cacophony of complaint – they can shrug off complaints with impunity. In the morass of undifferentiated complaint there is no way to separate critical from frivolous.  Power remains in place and the complainers, whether they like it or not, are perpetuating the system. Their complaints don’t fall on deaf ears; they drown the few voices calling for needed fundamental social change. The litany of complainers becomes the shock troops of authoritarian capitalism and is encouraged to keep going under the guise of free expression.

Complaint is ultimately easy; especially when one doesn’t suffer the small things. Harder to do is strategize and focus on big points and to ignore the encouragement to complain that social media proffers.  Working in contexts where most people not only disagree, but often dismiss, my political perspective one has to figure out what’s worth arguing over, what little details to agree with for the sake of hitting harder on the big issues. One only wishes more folks in social media might try the same.