Minister troubled by MUN board
Byrne quizzical about MUN governance review
When the Memorial University Board of Regents released an independent review into governance at MUN, it promised swift action to implement the recommendations, but Advanced Education and Skills Minister Gerry Byrne is skeptical.
The report, by consultant Harriet Lewis, was commissioned by the board of regents last year when Brittany Lennox, a student representative on the board, resigned suddenly, saying the board environment was characterized by bullying behind closed doors.
The final report said there were some changes that could be made to improve transparency, but generally the board of regents was operating well.
Speaking to The Telegram this week, right off the bat Byrne pointed to one passage in particular where Lewis said, “I understand that both the president and the board chair have customary direct contact with the premier and the ministers respectively, but that there is no consistent formalized channel for dealing with day-to-day matters between the government and the university.”
Byrne said that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“Lewis did not contact either myself or my department or any branch of government in forming that conclusion. If she did, she might have learned that in the last number of months we’ve re-engaged the Council on Higher Education,” Byrne said, referencing a forum enshrined in law that brings together representatives from the government, MUN and the College of the North Atlantic.
“I’m troubled by that particular finding, but I’m equally troubled by the fact that the author did not — in the several months in which she was engaged — make any contact with myself as minister, or the Department of Advanced Education, Skills and Labour,” Byrne added.
The board of regents is the top governance body at the university, with oversight over the president and administration, and it approves the university’s annual budget.
Byrne was also quizzical about other aspects of Lewis’s report, such as the first formal recommendation she made: further changes to (the Memorial University Act) should not be made piecemeal. “Change should be made only after a careful review of the legislation as a whole,” Lewis said.
Lewis went on to make several other recommendations that would require legislative change.
Byrne said a full consultation and overhaul of the entire Memorial University Act would be a beast of a job.
“The process of changing the Memorial University of Newfoundland Act — the consultation, the drafting, the vetting of legislation — that can take months, if not years to produce a final document,” he said.
“Whether or not it’s a comprehensive massive reorganization, we’ll reflect on this report, we’ll discuss that further with the board of regents, with the university, but as well with MUNSU, with MUNFA and with other stakeholders.”
Some of those stakeholders aren’t too thrilled with Lewis’s final report. The MUN Students’ Union (MUNSU) has already blasted a lot of the conclusions, and the MUN Faculty Association’s (MUNFA) submission to Lewis expressed serious concern about university governance. Lewis’s overall conclusion was that the board of regents was doing a good job following best practices.
The faculty association has been pressing for representation on the board of regents, and that’s something Byrne sounded like he’s willing to consider.
“In most universities in Canada, faculty do sit on the board of regents in a representative capacity,” Byrne said.
This is significant because it ties in with another part of the Lewis report that Byrne had some questions about. Lewis questioned whether it was possible for Lennox to serve on the board of regents while also being a member of the MUNSU executive, because it put her in an irreconcilable conflict of interest.
Byrne said that’s kind of weird, though, because many universities across Canada have student representatives on their governing boards.
“The author suggests that being a member of the student union executive and receiving an honorarium for that position puts one in a conflict of interest,” Byrne said.
“If you were to follow that, it would exclude future representation of faculty on the board. It would exclude future representation of staff on the board. And here’s the confusing point to me: the president and the provost of the university sit on the board, and they are employees of the university.”
Byrne said he will speak to Lewis about her report, and ask some follow-up questions.