On Friday November 14th 2014, the Faculty Association submitted the following letter to the UOIT Board of Governors (BoG) re: irregularities associated with the renewal of the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences. However, as of the time this was posted, the document will not be appearing before the BoG and the FA has been denied an opportunity to speak to the BoG regarding the matter.
Friday November 14th 2014
Dear Board of Governors,
UOIT Faculty Association (UOITFA) is writing to alert the Board of Governors to apparent irregularities associated with the renewal of the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences. Through a formal motion recorded at a meeting on October 21st, 2014, and a subsequent meeting with members of the unit on November 11th, the UOITFA has been “empowered by faculty to move forward through any and all means to investigate and seek resolution to the process issues and irregularities associated with the renewal process for the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences.” Therefore, the UOITFA is bringing forward to the Board of Governors the very serious concerns detailed by faculty and staff of UOIT regarding the following issues in the FHS Dean renewal process. Additionally, I met with President McTiernan on November 11th to communicate to him the UOITFA’s approach to the issues.
Specific concerns related to process involve the Chair of the Health Sciences’ Dean Renewal Committee and are, in summary:
- The use of a confidentiality agreement for members of this committee that does not appear to be standard to either a Dean Search or Renewal Committee and may violate the TTTF Collective Agreement
- The very serious allegations of breaches of confidentiality by the Provost through: i) the sharing (and potentially misrepresenting) of personal information about confidential and supposedly anonymized letters provided through the Renewal process to the incumbent Dean (and candidate for renewal), and ii) the sharing (and potentially misrepresenting) of information by the Provost to the incumbent Dean (and candidate for renewal) about committee members’ deliberations
- Multiple complaints by faculty that they were photographed by an administrative officer of UOIT while marshalling before attending Academic Council on October 21st, 2014, in contravention of Labour Relations Act guarantees
- The premature restricting of access by committee members to the materials submitted for the renewal process (i.e., for the Committee’s review)
- The failure to communicate the situation with regard to the breakdown of the Decanal Renewal Committee in FHS with the UOIT community, and to directly address the members of the committee about its future
These summaries are presented with the goal of encouraging the Board and senior administrative officers of UOIT to collaborate with faculty in Health Sciences towards the creation of mutually satisfactory solutions to the above problems and to restore the loss of trust and confidence in university procedures and processes.
I will be present at the November Board of Governors meeting and available to speak to the issues and answer questions.
Sincerely,
Gary Genosko
President
UOIT Faculty Association