Beware political intervention in our universities

Mandated tuition controls undermine autonomy, says Peter MacKinnon.

In the past two years, we have seen the government of Alberta, in effect, create unions out of the province’s postsecondary faculty associations (without votes of their members), and prescribe limits upon the compensation of post-secondary leaders.

Now, with Bill 19, the province will extend its already prescriptive approach to tuition even further. In themselves, these developments are troubling. As disturbing is the fact that they have occurred in the absence of public debate and commentary.

All three of these initiatives will undermine Alberta’s universities in their efforts to compete successfully in the international context in which they must do their work, but my immediate concern is with government substituting its judgment in matters of tuition for that of the institutions’ boards of governors.

The evolution of university governance in Canada reflects long-standing public policy that universities should manage their own affairs. Of course there must be — and is — a framework of accountability for the expenditure of public monies but historically, governments through their legislation have deferred to university senates (general faculties councils in Alberta) in academic matters, and to the institutions’ boards of governors in financial matters, including setting tuition rates.

There is good reason for this deference.

General faculties councils have majority numbers who are experts in academic matters, and boards are constituted so as to do the work entrusted to them. They have about 20 members and include students, faculty, staff and the general public.

They have oversight of university administration and of the universities’ finances. Their fiduciary responsibility is to ensure that the institutions’ finances are in good order; they are close to the many voices within the academy, and (in my experience) they are both sensitive and responsive to tuition concerns.

In recent decades, provincial governments in Canada have diminished board authority, a trend that appears to be accelerating in Alberta. There are many reasons for this, including a willingness of government to be guided by voices outside university-governance channels.

Governments have discovered that intervention in university affairs, particularly in tuition matters, can be good politics — particularly when university leaders refrain from public objection because they fear it will rebound to the disadvantage of their institutions.

“Really, students wrote this bill,” Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt is quoted as saying in introducing the legislation, though he does not ask the obvious question that follows: why have boards of governors if you are going to usurp their fiduciary responsibility to ensure their institutions have the resources they need to do their work well?

Minister Schmidt neither asks nor answers that vital question.

This is a critical issue.

At a minimum, the challenge of multi-year tuition guarantees in the absence of multi-year funding guarantees will be a challenge for our universities.

Beyond this challenge, though, will be tuition controls initiated by government that may have shortterm political advantage for the government but which undermine university autonomy and governance. The consequences for the province’s universities will be negative.

Why have boards of governors if you are going to usurp their fiduciary responsibility?