A Sydney man offers advice to new CBU president.
University is in a ‘unique position to grow and develop a new future for itself’
Congratulations to David Dingwall on his appointment as president of Cape Breton University (CBU). He has his work cut out for him.
Folk-rock legends Simon and Garfunkel, in their 1964 hit Sounds of Silence, warned about people who hear without listening. Dingwall has said he wants to start his tenure by listening. Excellent! I would like to recommend that he start by having a meeting limited to faculty members hired in the past seven years. These represent some of the most active members of the faculty in terms of new academic program development, research, scholarly activities and service to their professions. They are
CBU’s future.
These also are the most mobile faculty members and Dingwall may find that he will have to work hard to make them want to stay. They aren’t looking to leave because CBU has the lowest faculty salaries in Nova Scotia, and among the lowest in Canada. It is because of the frustration they experience in trying to do their jobs.
Many of these professors were hired at a time in Canada when faculty positions were scant. This meant that CBU was able to acquire some excellent talent who came based on promises that they would be supported in their careers, particularly in their abilities to conduct research.
It is a promise, however, that few have experienced, resulting in negative impacts on their careers.
The current administration and some senior faculty may like to convince everyone that all the problems were the fault of former president Dr. David Wheeler. But I think Dingwall will discover that many of the serious problems go back to before Dr. Wheeler’s time at CBU and have continued after his departure.
Among the most egregious things to come out of CBU is the phrase, “but that’s the way we’ve always done it.” The problem is that often the old ways don’t fit a modern reality. CBU must learn to leave its college past behind and focus on being a university. CBU is in a unique position to grow and develop a new future for itself. Dingwall shouldn’t let this opportunity pass.
Only a small number of faculty have been able to secure funding from Canada’s national granting agencies, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). CBU’s 2011-2012 Academic Plan: Responding to Challenges and Opportunities with Sustainable Growth and the 2011-2015 Strategic Research Plan identified the need for significant increases in funding levels from these agencies, but academic and research support has not been provided to enable success.
Funding from these councils plays a significant role in determining the number of Canada Research Chairs a university is allocated and how much salary support it receives for them, as well as the amount of funding received from the federal Research Support Fund, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. This is not sustainable. A university that does not enable research is a college. A strong research regime brings funding to, and produces spin-off effects for, the surrounding community.
CBU’s 2011 strategic research plan called for an interdisciplinary, thesis-based Master of Science program in energy and environment. Several faculty were lured to CBU with the promise of being involved in the development of this program. The current administration has stated that these programs are too expensive to operate. I submit that building research successes would more than offset the costs of this program and I would go one step further. An interdisciplinary thesis-based master’s in Community Studies would enable researchers in the social sciences and humanities the opportunity to bring in graduate students, as well.
To be clear, undergraduate research engagement should be a priority for a small university, but just think about the impact the research produced in these graduate programs could have in helping Cape Breton address its future. Currently, many of the research active faculty have graduate students at other universities outside of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, resulting in much research being done elsewhere. This means research funds leaving our community and vital expertise being developed for someone else.
There are plenty of other ideas and opportunities to be had. Look
“Among the most egregious things to come out of CBU is the phrase, ‘but that’s the way we’ve always done it.’ ”
to other small, remote universities across Canada that have transformed themselves through change and growth, even in developing medical programs that then enhanced health delivery capacity in their communities. I’m not saying CBU must copy those universities, but have a look and see what could be adapted to work here.
We all must hope that Dingwall has the wherewithal to go after change, for inertia will continue to stifle CBU.
Kevin Driscoll currently commutes from his home in Sydney to work at the University of Saskatchewan where he is research facilitator and has supported researchers in obtaining over $80 million in research funding in the past 2.5 years. He also has worked for NSERC and four other universities across Canada. kgdriscoll@gmail.com