October 16, 2008

An Issue of Trust and Respect

Doug Ramsey, Associate Professor
Rural Development, Brandon University

Thursday, 16 October 2008

As all BU faculty found out today, our profession relies very heavily on email for communications. I anticipated the short-sighted, thoughtless, and as I have now come to realize, reckless action of interrupting email access. In fact, I activated an auto-reply - indicating a possible interruption. However, this was also affected - an email abyss. As most of you have probably found out by now...people are frustrated when no response is given.

Beyond some issues that I have been able to apologize for, one has proven more difficult. I edit an on-line journal. Yesterday, after repeated communication attempts, an author pulled his manuscript that had been accepted with revisions. I have spent three years building this journal. One of the biggest efforts has been to work with scholars from the developing world whose manuscripts often require major revisions. Because of this, the length of time from original submission to publication is much longer. The author became frustrated not hearing from me in two weeks and withdrew his manuscript. I have requested that he reconsider, yet the embarrassment, frustration, and stress has really hit me.

My response (which is not knee-jerk or short-sighted, as I have been thinking about it since the day email was blocked) is to remove myself from the BU email system. The journal will now operate through westman wave. My courses now all have their own gmail accounts. I am in the process of updating my Moodle pages to reflect this. In fact, I am also reconsidering Moodle. My new email is now ramsey.doug65@gmail.com. New business cards are being ordered to reflect this change!

Most employers are respectful to employees during a job action. General Motors knows that their workers will return to produce the product to be sold to consumers. Treat them right and they will reciprocate. Halting email access was not taking away one of our toys. It affected our ability to fulfill all three aspects of our position: teaching, research, and service. With respect to research and service, for some the damage will have taken a toll beyond the period to which we were locked out. They knew this. As such, I no longer trust my employer. Nor do I respect my employer.

A second frustration I have is about a community that thinks we turned down employer offers of 18% and 22%. I certainly heard an earful yesterday at the doctor's office. During last night's information session, a student asked what the employer and faculty were going to do to repair the damage caused by the strike. I think the BU administration should think very carefully about making any future announcements that make outrageous and false claims about "package" increases. They may think they are hurting faculty by embarrassing and shaming them. They should realize the damage goes much deeper.

I was proud to walk with my colleagues. For the most part, I am glad to be back.