UNBC dismissals unusual
not obtain tenure,” Rader said.
Weeks said the claim that five faculty members were relieved of duties through his own use of emergency powers was untrue. Asked at a public event last week, Weeks would not confirm how many times he had relieved faculty of duty using the provision, but said it was fewer than five.
“I have a responsibility at the institution to ensure that we have a safe, pleasant and harassment free workplace. In fact, by law I’m required to do so,” Weeks said.
“This is a typical kind of issue and nothing untoward at all.”
The emergency powers provision exists in a similar form at UBC, Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria, albeit under different names.
According to Brian Green, executive director of the SFU Faculty Association, the provision is termed a “summary suspension” at his university.
He said the suspensions usually involve an imminent threat to public safety on campus.
“What they are there for is imagining a situation in which the nature of a complaint is such that there is a real allegation that people’s safety is at risk,” Green said of the provision.
Reuben Kellen, member services advisor for the UVic Faculty Association, said that, for a similar provision to be invoked by the president of UVic, an active and thorough investigation must also be underway.
“There have to be the two elements,” Kellen said.
“It’s not enough for there just to be an investigation. If there was a safety concern but no allegations of misconduct preceding it, the university would need to use some other justification if they wanted to place someone on a protective leave,” Kellen said.
Officials from the administrations of both SFU and UVIC referred The Citizen to the collective agreement for their respective faculty members.
Both Green and Kellen said the use of these provisions were very rare on their campuses.
Kellen said he had only seen the provision used once at UVic in the three years he had worked there. Green said he had seen the provision invoked only once in the eight years he had worked with the union at SFU. During his previous nine year tenure as executive director of the UBC faculty union, he said he may have seen one case involving a similar provision.
“I would say that’s very unusual, particularly considering the size of the campus at UNBC,” Green said. “If there was one at UBC in my nine years there – and that’s 3,000-3,500 faculty members – and one at SFU in eight years – that’s 1,200 faculty members – they don’t come up often.”
There were 371 faculty at UNBC in 2015-16, according to the university’s website.
In February, the university was named one of B.C.’s Top Employers for the third year in a row by the editors of Canada’s Top 100 Employers.