Canada’s most expensive U-Pass has become more expensive just as service is being cut. As a result, Ottawa’s municipal politicians run the risk of undermining the entire strategy.

For the second consecutive year, post-secondary students in Ottawa are piloting the U-Pass. They’ve joined with more than 30 other universities and colleges in Canada that have similar programs.

Through the program, full-time students get unlimited use of Ottawa’s public transit system. Here are three factors that make it a great deal for the city.

1. Savings on Road Repair: In February 2011, the City of Ottawa’s Transportation Committee estimated that a single car trip costs the city $2.50, versus $1.76 for a public transit trip. This is due largely to costs involved with road infrastructure and repair. Based on recent surveys conducted by OC Transpo—the city’s urban transit service—the U-Pass is believed to have eliminated 2,500 car trips a day, which means taxpayers see a direct benefit.

2. Elimination of the Middle Man: Thanks to the U-Pass, OC Transpo now saves tens of thousands of dollars a year on commissions. Students used to buy their transit tickets and monthly passes from private retail outlets, which charged OC Transpo a commission fee. The Carleton University Students’ Association alone used to take in $10,000 in annual commissions from pass and ticket sales at their retail outlets on campus. But there’s no foregone commission when students pick up their U-Pass at their university.  The middle man is sidestepped entirely.

3. Sustained Ridership: The City of Ottawa is home to 120,000 post-secondary students. Encouraging them to use public transit, rather than using a car, offers an important long-term payoff: it creates a ‘culture of ridership’—post-graduation, these young adults continue to use public transit, in large part due to their positive public-transit experience as students. The City of Edmonton has calculated that the sustained ridership created through its U-Pass results in more than $2 million a year in additional revenue.

Last year, student groups at Carleton and the University of Ottawa commissioned research assessing the costs and benefits of the U-Pass. That research found that the U-Pass, at its current cost of $145 per semester, results in net positive revenue for the City of Ottawa.

But in passing its most recent budget in November, Ottawa City Councillors voted to up the price of the U-Pass to $180 per semester, representing an increase of almost 25 percent. Even the original price made Ottawa’s U-Pass the most expensive in Canada. Now, Ottawa is the clear outlier.

The City justifies the increase by claiming it would lose money if the U-Pass continued to be offered at the original rate. But this contradicts the research commissioned by student groups, which found that OC Transpo’s own methodology overstates the losses from cash fares, doesn’t properly account for the use of transfers, and doesn’t provide a full accounting of long-term benefits arising from increased ridership after graduation. And when pressed, the City Treasurer concedes her own analysis was indeed “very simple.”

This is happening at a time when City Council’s approach to governance has grown increasingly heavy-handed. For example, in April, the City stopped producing detailed written minutes of committee meetings, meaning citizens now have to listen to hours of audio recordings in order to find vital information.

Likewise, when the new U-Pass price was recently debated at a meeting of the City’s Transit Commission, Councillor Steve Desroches asked students: “Why do you think you have the privilege to argue on what we deem is the price?” This left many students speechless. It even prompted the Ottawa Citizen’s David Reevely to tweet: “The students are getting a really, really rough ride from the commissioners. Downright hostile.”

By its own admission, OC Transpo is also trying to push student groups to accept the new price by taking away other options in the lead-up to this year’s student referenda, which must yield positive results in order for the newly-priced U-Pass to take effect. For years, students had the option of purchasing monthly and annual student passes (which remain beneficial for students without the U-Pass at Algonquin College, St. Paul’s University, and La Cité Collégiale). But City Council has just voted to remove those options, rendering the U-Pass—at its new price— the only show in town. In short, Council is pushing students to vote under pressure.

Last year, students lost the 117 bus, which provided critical service to Carleton students in the Ottawa South area. OC Transpo has also cut direct routes between Ottawa U and the academic building of the General hospital campus where both nursing and medical students regularly attend classes. Further, thanks in part to the City’s $22 million cut to OC Transpo’s operating budget last year, students report that ‘student routes’ now have considerably more jam-packed buses than before. More buses aren’t stopping to pick up passengers at designated stops; rather, students frequently watch as two or three consecutive buses drive right past them.

When students on Canadian campuses get good service in exchange for what they deem to be a fair price, positive outcomes—namely, savings on road repair and sustained ridership—can be realized. But if they feel gouged on price and screwed on service, the opposite can just as easily happen.

When the price of a service increases by almost 25 percent, that increase should be justified. What makes Steve Desroches and fellow Councillors think they have the privilege to do otherwise?

Nick Falvo is a PhD Candidate at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration.

 Level 1
YouTube has become a noted repository of high quality academic content from renowned universities. With the creation of YouTube Education, which aggregates the thousands of available videos into academic disciplines, finding informative videos to share online has become considerably easier. Including video that elaborates on concepts covered in the textbook or lecture can provide students with remedial support or enrichment opportunities without becoming a burdensome venture for the instructor.

Many of the institutionally created videos on YouTube Education often include captions or interactive transcripts. These interactive transcripts allow users to click on a specific line in the transcript, which will then sync the video to a corresponding portion of the video. By using the ‘find’ feature built into most Internet browsers, users can even search for specific terms used in the video. Here is an example video for a MIT Physics course that includes an interactive transcript (Look for the interactive transcript icon below the video beside the ‘share’ and ‘flag’ icons).

 Level 2
Asynchronous online discussion tools have been around for some time. Unlike traditional text-based discussion forums, Voice Thread is a multi-modal online discussion tool that allows users to contribute to discussion threads using text, audio or even video. Whether you choose to host your discussion on the Voice Thread website or embed the discussion into your course management system, this tool provides students with an opportunity to choose their medium of communication.

 Level 3
You can now annotate your own YouTube videos to include an interactive commentary that students can click on when needed. The annotations can include supplementary information about the video, links to other videos or websites or even create video with multiple possibilities as viewers can click to determine what they will see next.

 For an even greater level of student engagement, instructors can have students create annotations that pose questions or contribute comments regarding what is taking place in the video. Student created annotations could also be used as a means of assessment by providing learners with an opportunity to create annotations that highlight their analysis of the video content. In addition to facilitating professional reflection, having students provide annotations to their own performance videos could provide instructors with valuable insight into the student’s cognitive process.

Image by Swisscan on Flickr.

Here’s an easy question: Should professors have romantic or sexual relationships with their students?

I thought that was a no-brainer if ever there was one. But obviously, I’m naive. Michelle Miller, a doctoral student in education at York University in Toronto, has written an article called “Hot for Teacher: Rethinking Education’s Sexual Harassment Policies.” In it she defends the rights of students and teachers to seduce one another. Because, after all, one can get quite passionate when one is thirsting for knowledge.

“That scholarly relationships might become erotic, between students and teachers or passionate thinkers and learners of any position, seems natural — even unavoidable — to me,” she writes in the latest edition of Academic Matters, a magazine published by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.

Miller says that eroticism is “inherent in learning” and confesses: “I usually fall head over heels in a class, whether my infatuation is for a teacher, a classmate, a text or an idea. It’s these infatuations that make me a passionate student.

Miller says it’s “insulting” to an intelligent student to say that he or she has no right to consent to a relationship. She is “troubled by anti-harassment policies that seek to limit the ways adult thinkers and learners can relate to one another.”

These policies, she says, are “seeking to control the delicious, frightening, unruly relationships that often arise in teaching and learning encounters.”

Oh, my.

Because this magazine reaches 17,000 professors and other higher-education professionals in the province, many of them here in Waterloo, I feel the need to push back.

Here is one more sad example of today’s feminists — or should I say “post-feminists,” whatever that means — turning on earlier generations of women who struggled to be taken seriously at work, without being either trivialized or sexualized.

Any casual observer of campus life knows that the balance of power in classrooms is completely skewed. Professors have it, students don’t. Students are vulnerable, completely dependent on profs for everything from a good grade in a course to a letter of recommendation that could get them a prized spot in graduate school.

On top of that, the passionate, charismatic professors have an additional kind of power, because their young, idealistic students will admire and revere them, maybe even have a crush. Few students in that situation will complain about romantic attention. And, I am sorry to say, some professors have taken advantage of the easy and sometimes willing prey in front of them.

Of course, there are many responsible professors, too, who know to draw a line between the joy of learning and the joy of sex, even if Ms. Miller doesn’t. They are protective of their students’ integrity. They understand that a fling with one student corrupts the learning environment for everyone in that classroom. And that an intimate adult relationship in which one partner has a lot more power than the other will usually end in disaster.

Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo have policies on sexual harassment, but they centre on the sexual advances being unwelcome. I give Laurier credit for warning that “even genuinely consensual relationships between faculty members and students may be problematic and result in favouritism or perceptions of favouritism that may adversely affect the learning or work environment.” But still, it’s a warning, not a policy. We need something more to protect star-struck students from their powerful predators. Thanks to the Michelle Millers of the world, we need it more than we ever did.

Read the original article.

The fine folks at RDV Productions shot some video of the conference, and have recently unveiled the result. It’s a great summary of the event and the insights it delivered.

Worldviews Conference 2011 from RDV Productions on Vimeo.

Look for the next version of Worldviews in 2011.

Universities are knowledge-based organizations that bear a challenging and complex relationship to copyright and intellectual property issues. The university represents a diverse community of creators, owners, and users of copyrighted materials. An intensive use of information resources and research materials to create new knowledge is a hallmark of the university, as both faculty and students spend their time in reading, sharing, and analyzing knowledge in multiple formats and containers. This leads to the creation of new works of scholarship and a diversity of student assignments based on learning goals in the curriculum. Equally significant is the scale and scope of collaboration with individuals and researchers outside the institution; this has intensified in recent years as universities have become much more global in their reach. A greater emphasis on sponsored grants, international research projects, exchange programs,  research team activities, and public-private partnerships are related indicators of this cultural shift in the generation and dissemination of knowledge.

In this context, copyright discourse exists at the crossroads of several key dimensions in academia:  values, policies, and technology. An analysis of these dimensions can lead to an informed understanding of how copyright discourse can play an effective role in supporting the mission of the academy. Technology provides the infrastructure tools for using and creating intellectual works as well as the means for copyright enforcement; values represent the ethical foundation for the range of intellectual activity in the institution; and policies are the collective and tangible embodiment of institutional goals and directions. These three dimensions fit together in an intricate and multi-layered manner, much like the pieces of a 3D jigsaw puzzle. I would like to muse upon this puzzle and provide a few reflections in regards to the copyright challenges that we face in academia.

Information abundance and university responses

In this era of information abundance, the need to strike a delicate balance between the interests of creators, owners, and users of copyrighted materials has never been greater. The university needs to recognize the importance of these separate interests. Most university members are creators, owners, and users of copyrighted knowledge in the daily course of their activities, and the wearing of multiple hats creates significant complexity in the areas of intellectual property and copyright. University members such as faculty are intensively using copyrighted materials (e.g., text, video, audio, data formats) as well as public domain materials to carry out their activities. Knowledge production in the discipline-based communities of practice can assume many modes of formal scholarly communication (i.e., articles, books, conference proceedings, and reports) and informal modes of communication (blogs, wikis, websites, videos, media mash-ups). The breathtaking speed and scale of knowledge production and the elasticity of forms of expression today are a reflection of the interdisciplinary, global marketplace of ideas in the digital era. Creating, owning, using, sharing, citing, and ultimately building upon intellectual works to create new knowledge is the lifeblood of the university environment. Students look upon remixing and mashing of content from a broad range of online sources as a standard process for problem solving and for developing their own creations to reflect a collaborative and highly personal approach to learning. Questions of ownership and permissions are often not considered. Faculty  pursue  multimedia research projects that involve data mining and primary source analysis of texts, manuscripts, and multimedia cultural objects that reflect new methods of inquiry enabled by the  age of hyper-connectivity.

Therefore, developing an effective strategy to delineate rights and obligations is very daunting for the typical university. Margaret Ann Wilkinson, in her 1999 article “Copyright in the Context of Intellectual Property: A Survey of Canadian University Policies,” notes that, “Perhaps because of the complexity of the rights involved, and also because of the nature of the works involved, the university’s position with respect to the acquisition of copyrighted material is more difficult to analyze perhaps than that with respect to the acquisition of inventive know-how.” Along with the complexity of rights is the equal challenge of ensuring adequate awareness of the basic responsibilities involved in using copyrighted materials; the media’s extensive coverage of recent copyright reform attempts in Canada (in 2005, 2008, and 2009-10) have raised general awareness of these issues. However, this has led to a polarized and emotionally-charged public discourse that makes copyright education all the more important and problematic for universities and their communities.

There have been several significant regulatory responses within the university to the rapid swell of intellectual property in the digital age. Universities have developed policy frameworks articulating the use of copyrighted materials and the obligation to respect copyright law. Secure network infrastructures and codes of conduct for the use of computing systems have been widely implemented. Copyright officers have been hired and tasked with ensuring that the use of works requiring permission and the payment of royalties to rights holders takes place efficiently and legally. Copyright officers have also taken on an important coordination and teaching function. A web presence for copyright issues has been firmly established in most universities for educational, communication, and due diligence purposes. University-wide copyright committees can also play an important role in shaping the collective strategy.

Libraries, as organizations that select, acquire, manage, make accessible, preserve, and teach the use of information resources, are critical partners in this conversation. The more libraries can do to embrace and lead this campus dialogue, the better will be the quality of the outcome. Often seen as the heart of the campus, the library has the expertise and the resources for managing and making information accessible for multiple audiences and for teaching students and faculty in the responsible uses of information. Print and electronic reserve systems, interlibrary loans, document delivery, and licensing of digital resources are some of the major services that require libraries to manage information responsibly and effectively for the university community. Acquiring and delivering  information resources of many types to the university  community – such as books, journals, maps, films, musical works, dissertations, and rare collections, whether in print or online – means that the library is on the frontline of the copyright challenges we face every day.

Technological issues

The relationship between technology and copyright has always been an uneasy one. Today’s wider distribution and market potential for an intellectual work is inevitably associated with a greater opportunity for infringement of copyright. Christopher Jensen, in a 2003 article in the Stanford Law Review entitled “The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same,” notes that “As technologies change, the statutory injunction against copying remains the same: not quite ‘Thou shalt never copy,’ but rather ‘Thou shalt never copy under certain circumstances and conditions.’ But when a new technology arrives on the scene, it rarely comes packaged with a clear-cut definition of what a ‘copy’ is or what these ‘certain circumstances and conditions’ ought to be.”  New technologies that have emerged in the past century, whether they are piano rolls, microfilm readers, photocopiers, CDs, DVDs, or digital files, bring new possibilities and uncertainties that re-ignite the quest for a copyright balance between rights holders and users of copyrighted materials. The mass advent of ubiquitous and simple copying technologies, such as the photocopier and the Web browser, has publicized and ratcheted the debate in a highly visible manner. The issues of balancing the rights of ownership with the claims of public and cultural interest have become much more visceral and personal. Copyright owners fear loss of control and loss of revenue of their intellectual works. However, many individuals and groups have come to perceive the broad flow of digital objects in the non-commercial public space as critical to how culture is created, disseminated, and remixed. Everyone has a stake, and the university is not immune to this large-scale public debate. One need look no further than the US DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) or the unsuccessful Bill C-32 to recognize the importance and complexity of access and use of copyrighted works that are controlled by various technological protection measures.  Many would argue that the balance of rights has swung clearly in the direction of copyright holders, to the detriment of users. The explosion in information availability online has been matched in many cases by control mechanisms that unduly limit user rights. New communication technologies add to the complexity and uncertainty of rights and uses, particularly in knowledge-based organizations such as universities.

In academia, technology serves as the agile enabler of new forms of learning, teaching, and scholarship. The university faces a steep challenge in providing basic education to its community on these copyright issues, which go to the heart of the teaching and scholarly enterprise of the institution. Information technology is a Janus-faced phenomenon: on the one hand, it throws  open an infinity of possibilities in intellectual expression and innovative methods of inquiry and on the other hand, creates subtle and not-so-subtle walls of constraint around our ability to use information resources for learning and scholarship. The transformation in how post-secondary education is conceived, prepared, and delivered is driven by many factors, the principal one of which is the digital technology landscape. Our digital tools, services, and platforms are profoundly shaping our forms of communication, our methods of learning, our formulation of problems for inquiry, and the varied dissemination and formats of scholarship today. Our very thinking is mediated and channeled by these tools that we employ on a daily basis.  Marshall McLuhan noted in The Medium is the Massage that, “…electric technology is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and re-evaluate practically every thought, every action, and every institution formerly taken for granted.” The remarkably malleable human brain has allowed us to profoundly change our habits of work and thought in the short space of a decade or so. The push and pull of digital technologies affects our daily lives and habits in a thorough manner – including the intellectual property and copyright dimensions that are inherent to this tidal flow of information.

Values

Values represent the set of ideas or beliefs that express themselves in our actions. As such, they govern the hundreds of large and small decisions in the educational enterprise. There are several core values in academia that can be highlighted: freedom of inquiry, or the ability to create new knowledge in an autonomous fashion, regardless of how controversial the criticism may be; a democratic emphasis on equity of learning; confidentiality of research and the respect for individual privacy; and an altruistic service ethic in regards to the broader community, as seen in the partnership with cultural, economic, and scientific organizations. Interwoven with the above is a common understanding of the “gift economy”, whereby new scholarship and knowledge production in general is freely shared with the global academic community in order for others to use and build upon for their own creativity and problem-solving. A 2008 Canadian Association of University Teachers Intellectual Property Advisory notes that, “When academic staff do assert their copyright, it is often to protect academic freedom, scholarly integrity and open communication rather than for personal economic gain.”  These values inform the DNA of the university, whether spoken or unspoken. They have been developed and shaped over the course of generations, particularly since the Second World War. It is not surprising that the above values surface with geyser-like intensity in the landscape of copyright discourse, both within the university and in the broader public policy arena. 

There are various approaches that universities and their faculty can adopt to further the goals of more open communication of research outputs, within the constraints of copyright law. Promoting Creative Commons licensing and publication in open access journals is one approach. The Directory of Open Access Journals lists over 6,100 free, peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly journals in all subject areas and languages. Self-archiving one’s journal articles on an institutional repository or subject repository (where permitted by the publisher) is another important means of disseminating and preserving one’s research. The importance of negotiating and retaining various authors’ rights when publishing in a commercial journal is an important strategy to maximize the distribution of research in a teaching and scholarly environment. The SPARC Canadian Author Addendum is a valuable instrument in this regard. Books, software, video, primary research data, and other media outputs are being made available under licensing that permits sharing and re-use, within prescribed limits. All of the above approaches are rapidly transforming the ways in which research are carried out. They speak to the scholars’ ability to use these resources without any permission being required, thus furthering the educational goals of the institution while disseminating scholarship more broadly than before.  

Policy issues

Policies are courses of action or broad statements based on core principles. They point to what is seen as valuable, desirable, and practical from an institutional perspective.  Whether focused on governance, information technology, or use of physical resources on campus, they embody implicit or explicit principles that are associated with values.   Copyright discourse in the academy is profoundly affected by the political currents swirling around us. As Michael Geist has described in his introduction to From “Radical Extremism” to “Balanced Copyright”, “Copyright has long been viewed as one of the government’s most difficult and least rewarding policy issues. It attracts passionate views from a wide range of stakeholders, including creators, consumers, businesses, and educators and it is the source of significant political pressure from the United States. Opinions are so polarized that legislative reform is seemingly always the last resort, arriving only after months of delays.” The mainstream media has shown an intense interest in the impacts of copyright legislation on consumers living in a digital world that is saturated with new communication technologies and user-generated content in a rich multi-media environment. The complexities of copyright, however, are what bedevil the public dialogue – there are numerous caveats, rules, and interpretive grey zones in law that are not well-suited to the media’s short attention span.  A basic familiarity with the jurisprudence is very important in this regard, and again this is not suited to the media’s approach.

National educational organizations have addressed the challenges of copyright reform. The Canadian Association of Research Libraries indicated in its November 2008 brief regarding Bill C-61 that, “Adapting to the digital age requires a range of amendments to allow Canadians to take full advantage of digital technology and use the Internet to learn, research, teach, create, and provide services that enable further discovery and innovation while respecting the legitimate rights of copyright holders.”  This is a balanced approach to copyright and reflects the enormous potential of the Internet to drive the transformation of core university functions, while reflecting a keen awareness of the need to protect intellectual property and uphold copyright provisions. However, the scope and application of fair dealing is of critical importance to the smooth functioning of the academy in the digital age – and remains a very contentious issue in the current legal and political climate.

Copyright today in the educational sector is a high stakes game involving politics, advocacy, risk analysis, legal maneuvering, and lots of money. And the academy is intensely grappling with the issues. The broad question of how to manage the relationship with copyright collectives (particularly the rights management organizations such as Access Copyright) is of critical importance as this will shape the delivery of post-secondary education in Canada in the 21st century in profound ways and affect the balance sheets of universities in a very significant manner. Influencing the public debate regarding copyright reform to reflect educational interests (e.g. expanding the scope of fair dealing for educational purposes, as well as library exceptions, and technological neutrality) will remain a paramount concern for the foreseeable future, as well as monitoring the impact of any new legislation.  In this context, the importance of creating, sharing and disseminating information resources as broadly as the law will permit is an integral policy for universities. In our information economy, this underpins  knowledge production and innovation that informs all of the research, teaching, and learning activities of the institution. 

Conclusion

Simon Marginson points to the basic tension underlying the role of the university. In an article published in this magazine in 2010 entitled, “The University: Punctuated by Paradox,” he writes, “The paradox is that [the university] serves private capital by producing public goods, and in a manner which is not itself commercial-capitalist, or at least not predominantly so. The university may be business-like, but it is not a business. It is of the gift economy in that its ‘goods’, i.e., knowledge, is given to society, in the main, without an explicit promise in return of immediate, or even future, reward.”

In recognizing this public-private paradox, it is important that universities understand the implications for their value assumptions and technology decisions and how these reflect upon policies that affect the whole university community. The nexus of issues around fair dealing, technological neutrality, educational and library exceptions, copyright protection, and copyright education, needs to be framed in this broader perspective. By broadening the discourse of this complex matter, universities are more likely to arrive at a multi-faceted strategy that its community can understand and support, while maintaining its unique and paradoxical socio-economic position in society. In so doing, the university needs to appreciate better the intertwined relationship between values, policies, and technologies with respect to copyright issues. These are three ‘siblings’ that are inseparable from each other: they are bound together in ways that are easy to overlook.  Do we recognize and discuss the values implicit in our policy decisions, and in our technology choices? Do we integrate this thinking into a more holistic framework with other legal concerns? Silo thinking is not to our advantage. A wider discussion of these implications would be of benefit in helping to understand the issues and develop a cohesive approach as we navigate the difficult waters ahead, particularly in regards to the litigious tariff environment in which we now find ourselves, namely the Access Copyright Post-Secondary Interim Tariff, 2011-13.  This year we have witnessed many legal developments, including the pivotal decision by many universities (and colleges) to opt out of the Interim Tariff. Apart from issues such as risk analysis and mitigation, best practices, and educational strategies, the questions around values, policies, and technology are important as well. All of our institutions are grappling with these challenges, whether they are opting out or not, and there is no doubt that the financial and legal ramifications are huge indeed (depending on the outcome).  The public-private paradox will colour how universities react and adapt to the great uncertainty of our times, i.e. the tariff case before the Copyright Board.

As we certainly can’t expect ‘copyright peace’ in the coming years, we live in an era filled with challenges, opportunities, and strategizing.
 
Tony Horava is Associate University Librarian (Collections) at the University of Ottawa and is a cross-appointed professor at the School of Information Studies.

Founded as a non-profit “collective” in the late 1980s, it worked as an agent for publishers and authors in administering copyright licences for a collection of copyrighted works. Canadian colleges and universities paid Access Copyright annual fees in exchange for the right to copy material from a collection of journals, textbooks, and other sources, without having to get direct permission from the copyright holder.

Access Copyright, meanwhile, secured copyright permission for those institutions both to  photocopy material and post the material to course web sites. Traditionally, this consisted of print material,  but, as of December 2010, it included some digital material. Access Copyright  also indemnified universities and colleges against litigation, meaning that it insured them against liability in the event that copyright was violated.

Access Copyright paid the copyright holder every time an article from its collection got photocopied for “coursepacks” used by postsecondary students. It also enforced the copyright on sources from its collection so that individual journals didn’t have to. (For sources not part of Access Copyright’s collection, universities had to seek direct permission from copyright holders.)

Put differently, Access Copyright acted as a middleman. On the one hand, it helped commercial publishers turn a profit. It also helped academic publishers, most of whom are non-profit, have very few employees, and struggle to stay afloat. Further, it helped protect colleges and universities from being sued for copyright infractions.

But, as University of Toronto Law Professor Martin Friedland argued in a February 2007 report, the inner-workings of the organization were never clear. Worse, he alleged, its methods of allocating funds were disorganized, outdated, and arbitrary.

And it was  not a neutral go-between. Of the 18 positions on its board, nine are for publishers and nine are for authors. None are for universities or colleges.

In spite of the collective’s internal disorder, it managed to bring in a respectable amount of cash. By 2008, Access Copyright was even able put aside three  million dollars to set up its own charitable foundation.

For years, universities and colleges paid Access Copyright an annual, per-student fee of just under four dollars  per full-time university student (in addition to 10 cents per page of coursepack material, a charge that was passed on to students when they purchased coursepacks from the university).

But times have changed, and over the years many authors have challenged the traditional approach to copyright, electing instead to use the Internet and distribute material they produce free of charge (known as the “open access” model). Many organizations funding research are also requiring that published results of research be open access. Along similar lines, a growing number of universities have created their own “institutional repositories” that store—and make available—publications by their faculty members and students.

Further, the Internet has cleared the way for the proliferation of journal databases, and many academic libraries have purchased access to them directly (including the copyright permission for their use). It’s also cleared the way for universities to get more permissions than Access Copyright could provide. For example, universities are now able to purchase entire runs of journals from major academic publishers in digital format; they are also able to store them on their own servers, providing perpetual access to journals to both students and faculty.

Thus, in many cases, universities were paying for copyright twice: once through the publisher directly and then again through Access Copyright. The writing was on the wall.

In effect, Access Copyright no longer had the firm grip on academic copyright that it once had, which raises a fundamental question: how would it make up the revenue shortfall?

In March 2010, Access Copyright, apparently reacting to these trends, made bold proposals to the Copyright Board of Canada. First, it sought to change the rules, proposing among other things to undertake more monitoring of copyright on campuses.

Second, it sought to increase its per-student fee, making it one flat fee of $45 per full-time university student (while proposing to eliminate its “by-the-page” charge). For many universities, this amounted to an increase over more than 1000 percent. Even the original rate was substantially higher than the amount being paid by American universities to the equivalent body south of the border.

This went over like a lead balloon with the universities, and in short order, they fought back. .

The Canadian Association of University Teachers and the Canadian Federation of Students filed a joint objection. And by July 2011, 14 of Canada’s 25 largest universities had terminated their contracts with Access Copyright. Instead, they’ve announced, they’ll try to cut out any  go-between like Access Copyright and seek copyright permissions directly from publishers. And with a growing body of open access material, there is also the potential to obtain copyright permission on more sources free of charge.

A year from now, it’s possible that no Canadian university will  have dealings with Access Copyright.

Many universities that parted ways with Access Copyright have hired additional staff to seek copyright permissions directly from publishers. Eventually, universities could join forces, possibly to merge their institutional repositories, possibly to start a brand new collective.

But all of this has created as many problems as it solved. After all, a go-between  can save a lot of people a lot of time. And for all its faults, Access Copyright served a function.

For publishers, the loss of Access Copyright (all other things equal) means one less revenue stream,  though direct licensing of electronic material to universities helps compensate, in some cases.

The situation is particularly worrisome for academic publishers. Though they have regular subscriptions, royalties, and grants from government and private sources, no longer will they get royalties from Access Copyright. If academic publishers see less revenue, they may have to cut corners; some might have to print books with fewer words.

Publishers are also losing their long-time copyright watchdog. Who will undertake the laborious task of giving copyright permissions? This involves looking at the contract, confirming the percentage of royalties to be paid to the author, determining the amount to be charged and—get this—confirming that permission does not conflict with another permission. Who will stop photocopy shops from allowing entire textbooks to be photocopied? Some already-stretched publishers may have to hire new staff to fill these gaps.

A small, independent journal that relied on Access Copyright for revenue might not be able to handle the shortfall. If it was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy to begin with, losing the 10 per cent of annual revenue provided by Access Copyright could be the last straw.

Academic libraries are also faced with multiple challenges. Some publishers, reluctant to see Access Copyright circumvented, have brazenly refused to grant universities direct permission for use (i.e., to copy, provide a limited distribution to students, etc.).

And without the go-between protecting universities and colleges from copyright infraction, there is more pressure on course instructors to assess what constitutes “fair dealing” (i.e., an exception to the Copyright Act for educational purposes).

At universities that no longer use Access Copyright, the wheels turn a wee bit slower these days. Course instructors are no longer able to post entire articles on their course web sites without first seeking and receiving permission from the copyright owner (a process that usually takes less than a week). Though they often get help with this from library staff, some instructors won’t bother. Instead, they’ll direct students to access articles directly from the library. This is hardly the end of the world, but extra steps have the undesired effect of placing barriers between students and knowledge.

Universities and colleges believe in copyright, but they felt shortchanged by a go-between who no longer seemed  neutral.

In making their pitch to the Copyright Board, Access Copyright thought it could leverage more funds from academic libraries. The gamble backfired. Both universities and colleges believe they can find a better way.

Nick Falvo is a Ph.D. Candidate at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration. He is also Vice-President Finance of Carleton’s Graduate Students’ Association (Local 78 of the Canadian Federation of Students).

Now would seem a good time to reflect on what has transpired since Academic Matters began publication six years ago and what the future might hold.

Academic Matters began in 2005 as an idea. The intention was to create a journal offering thoughtful reflections on academia, written in an accessible style and reaching a broad audience in universities and beyond. While published by OCUFA, it was never intended to be the official voice of the organization. We have other publications which meet that need. The perspectives expressed could span the ideological spectrum—and sometimes these views have contradicted those of the publisher. We weren’t looking for ideological consistency or purity. It was hoped that articles would be provocative in the best sense of the term—to provoke thought and informed response. And the topics covered were to be wide ranging.

Our conceit was to be the Harper’s or The Walrus of academia—with commentaries, research articles, review essays, fiction, and humour. We felt there was a void in higher education coverage in Canada and envisioned a journal where each issue focused on a theme that was covered in some depth and could be easily understood by someone unfamiliar with the topic.

We wished to attract high-profile contributors as well as those who were not as well-known but had interesting things to say. And we wanted to give academics—and those outside academia—the opportunity to reflect on the academic world and write about it.

I believe on a number of counts the journal has been successful.

Contributors have included Michael Ignatieff (just before he entered politics), the philosopher Mark Kingwell, Giller-prize finalists Camilla Gibb and Kim Echlin, political scientists Tom Flanagan, James Laxer, and Janice Stein, ethicist Margaret Somerville, environmentalist David Suzuki, poet and novelist George Elliot Clarke, Islamic studies professor Tariq Ramadan, historian Michael Bliss, Nobel Prize physicist Carl Wieman, economist Richard Lipsey, and education reformer Bill Ayers. There is certainly no ideological consistency here.

The range of issues covered so far have included religion on campus, gender and equity in academe, tenure, marketing the academy, today’s generation of students and faculty, the impact of technology on campus, academic restructuring, ethics, internationalization, the green campus, and the relationship between media and academia.

Articles in the journal have been cited or reprinted in a range of Canadian and international publications, including the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed and University World News.

And the journal has thrived in no small measure due to the expertise, wisdom, and support of many. These include OCUFA’s former executive director, Henry Mandelbaum, former associate editors Trish Hennessy and Wendy Cuthbertson, OCUFA’s Executive and Board, the Academic Matters Editorial Board, and the innovative team at Neglia Design.

As a small journal, Academic Matters also faces challenges. It cannot survive by advertising revenue alone and will likely always need a subsidy from its publisher. The journal relies for articles on the academic culture of unpaid contributions, in the name of service to the “community”. This is an important strength, but also a vulnerability. We now receive more unsolicited contributions than we can publish. But as the academic culture becomes more infused with a commercial ethos, there is the question of how long a publication can rely on unpaid contributions. A host of practical as well as ethical considerations come into play.

A journal like Academic Matters must innovate and change in order to maintain its readers’ interest. We continue to look for different ways of putting together the journal and its website. This issue is a new venture, a joint partnership between Academic Matters and guest editor, University of Western Ontario professor of education Rebecca Coulter, who suggested its theme, “Policing Relations on Campus,” and who recruited most of the contributors.

What of the future? Academe is a fascinating place, in some ways unlike other work worlds and in others ways subject to the wrenching currents that pervade elsewhere. Under a new editor, and through some soon-to-be announced innovations, the journal will maintain a lively debate about the issues that matter to the academic community.

Mark Rosenfeld is Editor-in-Chief of Academic Matters and Executive Director of OCUFA.

In March of 2003, anthropologist Nicholas de Genova spoke out in protest of the Iraq War. His comments sparked massive criticism and calls for his resignation. In 2009, Columbia University denied his promotion. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Ward Churchill, a tenured professor at the University of Colorado, wrote an op ed about the attacks, which invited serious reflection on their origins. In 2005, his op ed was at the centre of a controversy that led to his facing harassment and death threats when invited to give a lecture at Hamilton College in upstate New York. In 2007, the University of Colorado fired Churchill; while the university denied that his firing was connected to his political views, its investigation into him began immediately after the widespread circulation of his 9/11 op ed six years earlier.

For those of us in the academy who are overtly on the left, resistant to the commodification of our labor or students’ education, or are otherwise progressive, the last few years have held a number of cautionary tales. If you are too challenging to established norms, too critical of government policy or in/action, or simply too loud, you may be subject to sanction. Penalties may include queries about the scholarly quality or “objectivity” of one’s work, harassment by right-wing activists, or the denial of tenure or failure to renew one’s contract. For those of us who are contingently employed or untenured, the repercussions of these sanctions can be particularly strong. While the cases of Nicholas de Genova and Ward Churchhill are two sharp reminders of what can happen, more subtle forms of everyday sanction can wear on one’s mind and sense of hope and possibility.

What do those of us who believe that knowledge, and its transmission, are deeply imbricated in power do in this context? Do we wait until we are tenured, and then say, write, and teach everything we were too afraid to do before? Do we throw up our hands at the students who remind us—directly or indirectly—that their tuition pays our salaries and so we should award them the high grade that they are entitled to receive? Do we walk away from the university in protest of the quantification of our intellectual value by tallying how many peer-reviewed articles and books we have written per calendar year? Or is there another option?

These questions were on my mind as I reread Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. An activist mentor gave me Freire’s book when I was seventeen and was spending the North American summer working on welfare rights in Washington, DC. Much of my time was spent observing landlord-tenant court, where residents were summarily evicted from their homes for not paying amounts of money likely miniscule in comparison to the fees the spotlessly dressed lawyers for the landlords collected. Freire’s analysis of the inseparability of the oppressor and the oppressed was a sober accompaniment to my time at the courthouse. His analysis made me reflect about how I could have grown up in the middle-class DC suburbs without realizing the profound struggle for material survival taking place a few miles away. Since then—through undergraduate years when I wanted to dismantle the university, before and during graduate school when I began studying Thai politics and read two translations of Freire, and in the last five years that I have taught in the United States and Australia—Pedagogy of the Oppressed has continued to challenge me.

In the introduction to the 1970 English translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Richard Shaull, wrote:

There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes “the practice of freedom,” the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.(16)

Shaull captured one of the key insights of Freire’s work among the illiterate residents of Brazilian favelas: teachers can either work collectively with students to be critical of what we are told in the service of building a new consciousness— or teachers can instruct students to become compliant participants in the status quo. The comfort of compliance, Freire explains, comes at a cost. Even if one is relatively comfortable within the status quo, the costs of the suffering and injustice faced by others will soon reach everyone. My latest reading of Pedagogy of the Oppressed seems to be teaching me that Freire’s insights about teaching and learning as liberating practices, born out of years working as a literacy educator in Brazilian favelas, are not only relevant to ending oppression, but also to surviving in today’s changing university. With this in mind, in response to my questions above, I trace three points on my own journey, as an academic and activist, through Freire.

Solidarity and Complexity

Between my second and third years of university, I spent three months working with EMPOWER, a Thai sex workers’ rights organization in Bangkok. I was interested in feminist labour solidarity—or how North American activists could be in solidarity with Southeast Asian women workers and activists. My trip was funded by a university program, and the proposal focused on women working in the sex tourism industry in Thailand and existing at the pinnacle of racialized, sexualized, capitalist oppression.

The reality on the ground was far more nuanced. EMPOWER, which was established in 1985, works to support sex workers through health education, language classes, and non-formal education [the Thai equivalent of the U.S. General Education Diploma]. I taught sexual-negotiation-focused English to women working in Patpong and Soi Cowboy, two parts of the city frequented by sex tourists from North America, Europe, and Australia. We focused on vocabulary useful in sexual negotiation. Even though I was meant to be the teacher, I was actually the student, and not only because my ability to teach English is spotty, at best. What I learned was that sex workers were not simply women living at the pinnacle of globalized repression. They are individuals negotiating a panoply of potentially dangerous, difficult, and marginalized spaces of labor.

Writing about solidarity, Freire notes:

Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture. The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor—when he stops making pious, sentimental and individualist gestures and risks an act of love. (31-32)

Solidarity is messy, and complex. What I struggle to do is to teach in a way that encourages students both to recognize the lived materiality of suffering in the world and to recognize that amidst suffering, individuals and communities are surviving, dreaming, and working for a different future. Sex workers are individuals working to improve their lives and those of the people for whom they care. In order to honour this, I also push students to see the difference between different forms of labour in the sex industry. In the Thai context, a Thai woman w­­­­­­orking in sex tourism in Bangkok faces a dramatically different situation and set of risks than a Burmese girl who is trafficked to work in a hidden brothel just inside the Thai border. Often, students see all of these different experiences as forms of unspeakable violence and are angry that I insist on the difference. To argue that every form of commodified sexual labour is the same masks the depths of potential repression and the possible spaces and forms of autonomy. It is through the recognition of complexity—and the power that each of us has—that solidarity becomes possible and oppression can be directly challenged. I would also argue that in the struggle to speak and write with this level of complexity—and often discomfort—learning occurs as well.

Against Dehumanization

The complexity of writing and teaching about oppression in a way that attempts to dismantle it challenges me at unexpected times. Although I continued to research and write about Thailand in graduate school, my focus shifted to tenancy struggles in between October 1973 and October 1976, a remarkable period of political openness sandwiched between long-running dictatorships. The use of the law by dissident farmers caused a panic so deep and wide that this, rather than the armed insurgency of the Communist Party of Thailand, constituted revolutionary change. Although Thailand transitioned from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy in June 1932, 40 years later the law was still largely in the hands of the elite. I tracked the courageous actions of farmers and their student allies, as well as the reactionary, violent backlash with which their actions were met by state and landholding elites.

Sympathetic to the struggle of the farmers—and how they had been written out of dominant histories—I assumed that the only way to write about the landlords was to portray them as capitalist oppressors. This would be the best way both to criticize the history of repression and clearly illustrate it, right? As it turns out, no. In the margins of one of my early draft dissertation chapters, one of my advisors challenged me to think more deeply about the landlords as human. She queried why I did not write about their lives with the same specificity as I did the farmers’ lives. It took me many months to figure out how, and why, to respond to her criticism.

As I did so, and worked to write about the landlords as complex figures, I realized that when landlords responded with anger to the farmers’ accusation of their actions as unjust, it was not simply a cynical attempt to retain power. While it may have been this in some cases, in others it was a defensive response born out of the fear of loss of power and revenue, and also the loss of the beneficent fiction of themselves as the kind patrons of the farmers.

Paulo Freire argues that oppression hurts everyone—the oppressor as well as the oppressed—involved in a given relationship of domination. He writes:

As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves become dehumanized. As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors’ power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression. (38)

Choosing to think carefully about oppressors refuses them the dehumanization their power rests on, and it makes one’s analysis deeper. In the case of Thai landlords in the mid-1970s, counterinsurgency inside and outside Thailand ultimately crushed the farmers’ movement—and the possibility of justice and radical humanization for everyone. In refusing to repeat dehumanization in the writing of this and other resonant histories, scholars are able to both unmask the long roots of oppression and glimpse what liberation might have looked like.

Everyday Liberation in the Classroom

Making individual decisions about how to act and how to write in the context of ongoing inequality is consistently difficult. Yet it is in the university classrooms of the United States and Australia where I have found that it is most challenging to take Freire to heart. What does it mean to teach with a consciousness about oppression? And recalling Richard Shaull’s assessment of why Freire’s book was significant when it was translated into English—how might one teach the practice of freedom in 2011?

It is in the classroom—not when I am writing at my computer or doing fieldwork—that I most often feel a deep sense of possibility and the urgency of not consolidating the ruling order. This means, first of all, teaching students as co-collaborators and co-investigators in a shared project. Writing about Freire’s effect on her teaching in Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, bell hooks notes:

Early on it was Freire’s insistence that education could be the practice of freedom that encouraged me to create strategies for what he called “conscientization” in the classroom. Translating the term to critical awareness and engagement, I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer. (14)

What does this look like in practice? When I teach about human security in Asia and the Pacific, I try to unsettle students’ ideas about the sex industry and other forms of labour, not out of an insistence that I am right but because being challenged makes most of us into more careful thinkers. When students come into class bursting with passion to challenge injustice and oppression around them, I urge them to struggle armed with ironclad evidence behind them.

Perhaps most sobering, though, I am honest with them about the risks—overt, implicit, and entirely unseen—that thinkers inside and outside the university take in the service of developing ideas and analyses which challenge the status quo. What I find most concerning about the ongoing constriction of academic freedom is how it reverberates in the classroom. As a teacher, my goal is to teach students to discern that they can stake a claim based on their ideas—whatever those may be—and then develop an argument in their support. Whether I agree with a stance taken by a given student is immaterial. In other words, my job is to teach students how to take a stand and then defend it. This is true regardless of whether I am teaching a course on the lived experience of war or an introduction to gender studies and would hold even if I were teaching mathematics or physics. One learns by taking the chance to articulate what one thinks—and subjecting it to the scrutiny of one’s peers. Yet if academics cannot ourselves take a stand without risking formal or subtle censure, and so choose not to risk, how can we ask students to do so? I suspect that Paulo Freire, who died in 1997, after over 50 years of being an educator, including several months in prison and over 15 years in exile, would tell us that we cannot.

Tyrell Haberkorn teaches and writes about state violence and human rights in Southeast Asia at the Australian National University. Her book, Revolution Interrupted: Farmers, Students, Law, and Violence was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2011.

The penetration of social media into every corner of daily life is a given. The question for many academics now is how are personal and professional relationships (within the university) being reshaped as a result?

Within popular discourse, social media are credited with a range of contradictory effects, from creating a distracted, update-obsessed generation, to enabling progressive uprisings in dictatorial states, to facilitating rioting and looting among disaffected youth. The list goes on.

The spread of social media on campus has occurred through a number of avenues. Students arrive “tethered” to devices and systems almost continually. Universities seek to re-brand themselves and manage their reputations using digital media. The long-term, systemic problems posed by the underfunding of universities and the, arguably mythical, problems of student disengagement and disconnection have become problems for which many see social media as the solution.

But what makes social media use special? And what difference does it actually make?

There are two interrelated aspects of sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr that are genuinely novel. First, ordinary conversation, throwaway comments, photos, social connections, and the like become available for public reflection and scrutiny. Second, much of this previously somewhat ephemeral material remains permanent, in spite of all efforts to remove it. There is a further twist. While these digital traces are easy to access, the context in which they were made is not. Your past is both completely retrievable and potentially entirely misleading.

These observations raise important questions about the public and private domains of the university, about the moral and ethical quandaries concerning the status these traces have, and about the practical and legal issues of individual and academic freedom in relation to professional and personal conduct.

It is instructive to think through the different relationships on campus that are increasingly mediated by social media and to recognize that not all social media are the same (Twitter has arguably little in common with Facebook, if we think about the micro details). Two simple questions might usefully frame our thinking. What are the implications of a particular relationship becoming public or at least visible to others? What are the practical, legal, and ethical implications of attempts to police the visibility of that relationship?

Social media use on the campus is relatively high among faculty in the U.K. (around 70 per cent) and somewhat lower in North America (around 50 per cent). While some academics feel that online communications take valuable time away from intellectual reflection, others view the emerging culture of informality as essential in engaging with all members of the university community. University professors are increasingly expected by students to appear “accessible” or at least ”human”. Faculty-student relations are conducted 24/7 because of online communication. Faculty and administrators often use social media as a means to engage with students and promote transparency. Even for the enthusiasts, the line between developing meaningful forms of engagement between faculty, administrators, and students, as well as publicly sharing banalities (Tweeting what one had for lunch today, for example, in the belief this revelation constitutes a connection) is difficult to navigate.

The visibility of faculty online has raised two issues of interest here. Older problems of harassment or generally un-collegial behaviour are potentially more intense if they take a quasi-public form. The more difficult issue is how faculty should present themselves online and to what extent their self-presentation should conform to university guidelines. Is an online persona public or private, and can the two be sensibly demarcated any longer? Should the private life of faculty become subject to institutional scrutiny because of the potential visibility of a Facebook profile? 

Should faculty be “friends’” with students? Does it matter which students? Should faculty differentiate between those with whom they have a supervisory or teaching relationship and those with whom they don’t? Crossing previously marked professional and personal boundaries is all too easy in social media, where informal comments take the form of permanent records. This is an issue that has become particularly stark within high schools. Countless examples abound of inappropriate images of teachers finding their way onto student cellphones, or obscene, defamatory postings about teachers becoming viral. Many schools have developed policies that strongly discourage teachers and students from having “virtual relationships” through social media.

What are the implications at university? As it currently stands, the debate revolves around how social media might, on the one hand, help build relationships between faculty and students or might, on the other hand, lead to an excessive informality that would compromise the mentoring and teaching capacity of faculty. Should faculty be left to make their own professional judgement, or should there be a more stringent set of institutional policies?

There are some relatively obvious situations that breach existing guidelines on faculty-student relations, such as harassment, displaying or circulating inappropriate or offensive material, and conducting malapropos relationships. The prohibition of these activities, while subject to a degree of interpretation, is well established in university policy.

But what of the greyer areas? If the guidelines concern any compromising of the ability to teach, then the line between inappropriate behaviour and individual freedom is not straightforward. What should students know and write about faculty and vice versa? High school complaints made about teachers’ behaviour often cite online images of teachers using alcohol or ”dressing inappropriately.” If either behaviour had occurred privately, however, it would be entirely acceptable. 

The debate is also muddled by the fact that faculty-student relations online are increasingly encouraged, as such relationships can be useful in the classroom. Somewhat curiously, faculty are expected to ”go where the students are,” rather than the other way around. The use of Facebook, in particular, is controversial as it necessarily blurs the line between the classroom and friendship because of how it is generally used. At Ryerson University, a student faced charges of academic misconduct for setting up a study group on Facebook for a course where individual work was required. As the saying goes, in the outside world we call it “collaboration,” in the university we call it “cheating.” Allowing Facebook and similar sites in the classroom while maintaining clear public and private boundaries is, of course, possible but it requires enormous amounts of knowledge, labour, and technical support.

For students, social media have become all but essential components for belonging, friendship, conversation, and learning at all levels. Friendships and other relationships between students are public. An interesting thing about this phenomenon is that, while much of the text is permanent, there is no guarantee that the context in which they were created is; namely, when, for example, pictures were taken, tagged, circulated and commented upon. This is a key difference between social media and older forms of relationship mediation (the photo collection, the diary), which maintain their context to some degree, can remain private, and exist within individual control as a unique record of the past.

For students, policing social media is an unavoidable aspect of using it. One of the peculiarities of social media use is how students are not only policing social relations in the present but those in the past, and those not yet formed. Several U.S. universities have noted the huge increase in the number of requests for room reassignments from new students, as they use social media to check out their prospective roommates in advance. One problems arising with this usage is students making assumptions about sexual orientation, leading Florida Atlantic University to ban requests based on Facebook “face-offs.”

Technology companies tell consumers that personal relationships created in social media are issues of brand management, and they provide apps to manage profiles (Reputation.com) and (in a somewhat Stalinist fashion) to delete all references to those people in one’s past who are to be un-friended (BlockYourEx.com; EraseUrX for the iPhone). The issue of permanent digital traces has become of major interest to university administrators concerned about their brand image but also to students, once they leave the university. Corporate recruiters routinely scour social media for traces of dubious behaviour among prospective employees. Not having any online presence or “Klout’” is for some careers equally prohibitive, as the ubiquity of social media demands that your virtual self broadcast your offline self’s potential.

In terms of their current relationships, students speak of the dangers of ”over-sharing,” which is the posting of material that, in retrospect, probably shouldn’t have been. Perhaps some students may not yet have fully grasped the potentially public nature of what sometimes feels like private exchanges. Or perhaps, the younger generations may simply be accustomed to living publicly in ways that most faculty do not understand.

Sometimes unflattering posts have far more serious consequences, ones which raise a concern about how well university harassment policies, counseling, and outreach programs are evolving to keep up with social media use. Tragic occurrences of students taking their own lives after roommates have posted inappropriate and damaging material about them over social media, alongside incidences of identity theft and harassment, have focused attention on social media as making visible and permanent conversations, and forms of bullying that were formerly private.

These issues speak to individuals and to their personal relationships, but there are other, more collective, ways in which the visible nature of communication in social media has prompted campus-wide engagement. The recent labour negotiations at Queen’s have underscored the potential for faculty and students to engage meaningfully online in ways that exceed the straightforward sharing of information and coordinating of events. The presence of the Queen’s University Faculty Association and faculty on Facebook allowed union members to respond to student inquiries and opinions, to provide dynamic content, and to engage in real-time dialogue. During this uncertain period, the communications, relationships, and publicity afforded through the various social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs) was instrumental in allowing students to have access to the arguments being made by both sides of the negotiations.1

These are just a few of the issues emerging in the university when formerly private communication is made visible. In questioning the implications of efforts to police this visibility, it should be clear that students in particular are seriously engaged with developing their own rules, codes, and self-regulatory forms of social media conduct. Faculty, staff, and administrators are using perhaps more idiosyncratic methods of policing, which lag ever-shifting privacy settings and students’ conventions of use.

Other issues of social media regulation arise in the classroom. Some professors ban the use of specific technologies. At a few U.S. universities, administrators block access to social media for the first week of a semester.

In terms of more formal efforts, most universities now have a social media policy in place or, more likely, guidelines for what they see as best practice. Typically, these are an amalgam of existing policies on the use of information technology in the work environment and risk-averse guidelines referencing the public and permanent nature of newer social media. Much of this has little to do with ethical or moral sensibilities. They focus on legal issues and the protection of the university brand by suggesting that all posts remain positive and rational.

Two questions about the institutional response to social media arise. First, what institutional strategies are in place that acknowledge the huge shift from private to public relations at all levels on the campus? Are student support services, counseling facilities, and advisory services up to speed with the novel ethical issues facing students as they learn to live publicly? Second, do existing efforts at protecting the university have the unintended consequence of stifling academic freedom? The policies of several Canadian universities emphasize a precautionary principle, which has the potential to discourage social media platforms from making any critical reflection on the university. 

Social media’s boundary-dissolving capacities have stimulated many responses aimed at regulating and policing unprecedented flows of public communication. In the context of the recent rioting, the British government is seeking to ban social media use for some individuals and to gain access to what were assumed to be private communications, in order to secure convictions. At the same time, at least one British police authority controversially used Photobucket and Twitter to ”name and shame” suspected rioters. Understanding this ambivalence of social media is crucial. Assuming that policing social media occurs from the top down is questionable because individuals and groups are shaping the ethics of social media from the bottom up.

Social media have become an important part of the infrastructure of university life. They become entangled within existing frames of reference but reshuffle them, sometimes reproducing older relations, at times making ordinary actions visible and rendering them extraordinary or, at least, available for intense reflection in novel ways.

There seems little point in adopting a reactionary approach to the pervasive use of social media on campus. We are all, as members of the university, inventing how social media will work on campus and carefully working out responses to problems as they arise. Faculty, in particular, should perhaps consider how the life skills of the contemporary student involve learning how to live publicly (safely, ethically, enjoyably). Faculty should be involved in this rather than eschewing it. That said, in a recent case, an entire college “un-friended” its social-media-savvy president for being unconnected to the reality of the school. Fostering social media relationships at the expense of other forms of relationships is to misunderstand social media entirely.

Martin Hand is an associate professor of sociology at Queen’s University. His latest book, Ubiquitous Photography, will be published by Polity Press in 2012.

1 Thanks to Victoria Millious, a graduate in the Cultural Studies program, for these valuable insights.

It is well established in Canadian jurisprudence that university administrators have a legitimate interest in regulating faculty-student relationships, including the management right, in appropriate circumstances, to discipline faculty for inappropriate behaviour. Discipline may be imposed even for incidents that occur off campus and outside of normal working hours, provided there is a nexus between the faculty member’s employment and his or her misconduct—such as when the conduct has a negative impact on a student’s learning environment and thereby undermines the institution’s educational mandate.

Labour arbitrators recognize, however, that faculty in post-secondary settings should enjoy considerable latitude in socializing and developing personal relationships with their students. There is an important social component to academic life, which encompasses interactions between faculty and students. The goal of promoting a free exchange of ideas is furthered by the creation of an environment in which faculty-student interactions are not impeded by overly hierarchical dynamics. Moreover, faculty are not simply instructors to their students; they also function as advisors and mentors. The most effective mentoring relationships are often built on a foundation of mutual interests and values—fertile ground for the development of personal, as well as professional, bonds. Faculty from underrepresented communities (e.g., openly lesbian/gay professors, professors from racialized minorities, professors with visible disabilities) sometimes function as support persons and role models for minority students aspiring to overcome systemic barriers (e.g. heterosexism, racism, ableism) in their chosen disciplines. Such supportive relationships are frequently ­nourished by sharing common experiences, histories, and perspectives, which can also engender the development of personal bonds. The multi-faceted dimensions of the faculty’s role, combined with the relatively close proximity in age between some professors and students, contribute to an environment in which friendships may flourish.

Although social interactions between faculty and students play a vital role in the fabric of academic life, there are clear professional and ethical boundaries that must be respected. As boards of arbitration have noted in a number of cases, the university classroom “is not a community of equals. ” Professors hold a position of authority and influence relative to students, who are in a position of dependence and considerable vulnerability. This gives rise to fiduciary obligations. Faculty must not abuse their authority or exploit students’ vulnerability in such a way as to jeopardize the institution’s educational goals.

Using one’s position of power to import sexual requirements into a student’s learning environment is the most obvious way in which a faculty member can breach his or her fiduciary duty. Any implication that sexual favours are expected or will be rewarded constitutes a breach of trust and sexual harassment—culpable conduct for which a faculty member can be disciplined. In the most egregious cases, termination of employment may be justified.

There need not be an explicit solicitation of sexual favours (or any sexual touching) in order for a finding of sexual harassment to be made. For example, in the Mahmoodi case arising at the University of British Columbia, a faculty member was found to have engaged in sexual harassment by interacting with a female student in a manner that had all of the “indicia of common courting behaviour”. After inviting her to join him for dinner at his home, he lowered the lighting, burned candles, lit a fire, played “seductive” music, served wine and initiated a conversation about his past girlfriend, leaving her with the impression that he was a single man. All of this occurred in the context of ongoing discussions in which he encouraged her to apply for graduate studies, despite her poor academic performance to date, and to enrol in a directed studies course for which she was ill-equipped and which she ultimately failed. The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal concluded that her experiences as a student were “detrimentally affected” by the professor’s behaviour and that she had “turned to him for guidance and he let her down.” He was found to have engaged in sexual harassment by “creating a sexualized environment” that “failed to acknowledge the normal professional boundaries between a professor and a student” and “failed to appreciate a professor’s position of trust in relation to his student and a student’s vulnerability vis-à-vis a professor.”

Courts have made it clear that, where a significant power imbalance exists between parties, harassment can involve very subtle behaviour. As the B.C. Supreme Court noted in reviewing the tribunal’s decision in the Mahmoodi case, sexual harassment may be found based on conduct that would otherwise constitute normal social interaction between equals. For example, invitations by a faculty member for dinner or drinks, compliments on a student’s appearance, and the offering of gifts could be interpreted as overtures implying an unwelcome romantic or sexual interest.

A faculty member who becomes involved in intimate interactions with a student cannot acquit himself or herself of an allegation of sexual harassment simply by demonstrating that he or she was not aware that the interactions were objectionable to the student. The relevant legal inquiry encompasses not only what the faculty member knew or intended, but also whether he or she ought to have known that his or her comments or conduct were unwelcome. In order to make this determination, adjudicators query whether a reasonable person, apprised of all the circumstances, would recognize that the behaviour was not welcome.

It is important to note that a finding of sexual harassment can be made even if a student does not vocalize any objection to the faculty member’s conduct. Harassment complainants are not required to communicate expressly that the impugned conduct is unwelcome. Reasonable people are deemed to know that a complainant may be too vulnerable or intimidated to confront a harasser, particularly where there is a power imbalance between them. Courts and tribunals have noted, for example, that a student may tolerate a faculty member’s sexual innuendos and overtures in order to obtain academic advantage, but that does not necessarily mean that the professor’s conduct is welcome. Acquiescence to an authority figure’s sexual advances is not the same thing as consent. As the tribunal observed in the Mahmoodi case, “[t]he reasons for submitting to conduct may be closely related to the power differential between the parties and the implied understanding that lack of co-operation could result in some form of disadvantage.”

The existence of a power differential between parties does not, however, automatically nullify consent in every case involving a questionable sexual relationship. The presence or absence of bona fide consent (and concomitantly of harassment) depends on the totality of the specific circumstances. Although there are some similarities, faculty-student relationships in university settings are not precisely comparable to doctor-patient relationships in therapeutic settings, solicitor-client relationships in legal settings, or teacher-student relationships in secondary school settings. The dynamics of each of these relationships is unique and presents its own set of concerns. Even within the academic university environment, the consensual nature and propriety of each faculty-student relationship must be evaluated on its own terms. A good example of this is the Okanagan University College case, in which a professor was terminated from his employment for engaging in sexual relationships with four students who were enrolled in the faculty where he taught. Two of the students made sexual harassment complaints against him, but he was ultimately found not to have violated the institution’s harassment policy. Arbitrator Lanyon concluded that this was not a case “where…all the circumstances and the difference in power objectively vitiates consent.”

A review of the case law reveals that contextual factors, such as the age differential between the parties, the place and manner in which they first met (e.g. outside the classroom at a dinner hosted by mutual friends), and whether the students were enrolled in the faculty member’s courses are relevant considerations that will impact an adjudicator’s determination of whether a faculty member has engaged in harassment or otherwise transgressed appropriate professional boundaries. For this reason, a labour arbitrator would be unlikely to uphold a university policy that attempted to prohibit outright all intimate relationships between faculty and students (unless such a policy were negotiated with a faculty association as part of a collective agreement, which would be extremely unusual).

It should be noted that a relationship that is consensual at its inception can nevertheless result in a finding of harassment or breach of trust if, for example, the student later wishes to terminate the relationship but feels trapped and unable to do so, for fear of suffering negative academic reprisals. Because of the power differential and resulting vulnerability of students, the prospect of coercion and abuse of authority is ever present in intimate faculty-student relationships. Consequently, in the Okanagan University College case, arbitrator Lanyon ruled that, whenever there is a relationship involving sexual intimacy with a student, a legal presumption arises that the faculty member has engaged in a breach of trust. The presumption may be successfully rebutted, but the faculty member bears the onus of disproving the presumed breach.

In cases where a truly consensual relationship evolves, and there is no basis for alleging harassment, there may nevertheless be grounds for the university to discipline a faculty member, if he or she fails to manage the relationship ethically and professionally. This is, in fact, what occurred in the Okanagan University College case, where the professor was exonerated of harassment allegations and reinstated to his employment but was disciplined (i.e., suspended) for breach of trust. Any faculty-student relationship that jeopardizes the university’s educational mandate may be found to constitute a breach of trust.

A university has a responsibility toward every student who enrols in its programs, and faculty are entrusted with the delivery of the university’s educational goals. When a professor becomes involved in an intimate relationship with a student, an obvious conflict of interest arises with respect to the professor’s evaluation of that student’s progress. Any judgements made by the faculty member can legitimately be called into question. As the board of arbitration noted in the recent Lethbridge College case, “[e]valuating someone’s performance while in the midst of a sexual relationship, or shortly after the end of the relationship, can lead to deliberate favouritism, exploitation, or, if the relationship has ended badly for the faculty member, disadvantage to the student.” The board added that “[t]he instructor’s behaviour does not have to be conscious to skew the results.”

The Lethbridge College case involved a professor terminated from his employment for engaging in sexual relationships with three of his female students. He knew one of the students before she enrolled in his class but met the other two students as a result of their enrolment. He developed friendships with all of them, friendships which evolved into consensual sexual relationships either shortly before or shortly after the students completed his course. Two of the students took a second course from him, but one of them later withdrew from that course because of her ongoing relationship with him. He nevertheless completed a graduation audit form for her. Their relationship later ended abruptly, and the student experienced difficulties in completing her academic term. She eventually filed a complaint against him, alleging that he had overstepped ethical boundaries by taking advantage of her in a vulnerable situation. He did not disclose any of his relationships to the college administration, which was ultimately found to be just cause for discipline (though he was reinstated to his position). The board of arbitration noted that, in addition to the potential for actual bias, an apprehension of bias was likely to arise in the minds of other faculty and students. The board concluded that, even if objectivity was maintained by the professor, “the perception of bias, if the relationship becomes public, may be impossible to overcome.” Apprehension of bias was also a factor in the Okanagan College case, in which arbitrator Lanyon found that perceived favouritism toward certain students “distorts and damages the learning environment for students in that they no longer have confidence in the instructor, the faculty, or the institution.”

Since the mere perception of preferential treatment can be damaging to a university’s reputation and to the students’ learning environment, faculty who become involved in an intimate relationship with a student are expected to manage the relationship appropriately in order to avoid conflict of interest and minimize the risk of perceived bias. The recommended course of action—described by the board of arbitration in Lethbridge College as “the only proper course of action for the instructor in this situation”—is immediate disclosure of the relationship to an appropriate person in authority (such as their dean) and removal of all responsibility for supervision and evaluation of the student’s academic performance (including grading, advising, sitting on a thesis committee, providing letters of reference, etc.).

Failure to make appropriate and timely disclosure of a relationship with a student may result in a finding of conflict of interest and/or breach of trust, resulting in cause for discipline. The severity of the discipline will depend on all of the circumstances of the case, including the existence (or not) of clear university guidelines requiring disclosure. Some faculty collective agreements now include articles outlining mandatory disclosure obligations, upon which universities can rely in justifying disciplinary penalties. The absence of such contract language and of a clearly communicated disclosure policy has been treated by some arbitrators as a mitigating circumstance. In the Lethbridge College case, for example, the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench held that the board of arbitration was justified in concluding that the faculty member’s misconduct was not “serious enough to warrant dismissal” because it had “occurred in the context of ambiguously defined boundaries and in the absence of an express policy.”

Cynthia Petersen is a partner at Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP in Toronto.

This article constitutes a summary of Canadian arbitral jurisprudence regarding the regulation of personal relationships between faculty and students in post-secondary academic settings. Nothing in the article should be construed as legal advice.

CASES CITED IN THIS ARTICLE: Re Okanagan University College and Okanagan University College Faculty Association (1996), 64 LAC (4th) 416; Mahmoodi v. University of B.C., [1999] BCHRTD No.52, upheld by the BC Supreme Court 12001 BCSC 1256; Re Lethbridge College and Lethbridge College Faculty Association (2007), 166 LAC (4th) 289, upheld by the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench (2008), 180 LAC (4th) 114.