Looking into the faces of the future
Dr. Richard Kool, President, Confederation of University Faculty Associations, BC
September 2012
Taking on the responsibility of being CUFA BC’s president,
and being the first president from Royal Roads University, is quite an honour
and I’d like to thank my colleagues past and present on CUFA BC Council for
giving me this chance to serve the academic staff at BC’s research
universities.
I'm an Associate Professor at Royal Roads University, where in 2003 I founded a transdisciplinary MA program in environmental education and communication. I was also part of the team that, in 2006, unionized our faculty association and wrested a first collective agreement out of a very intransigent university administration.
I'm an Associate Professor at Royal Roads University, where in 2003 I founded a transdisciplinary MA program in environmental education and communication. I was also part of the team that, in 2006, unionized our faculty association and wrested a first collective agreement out of a very intransigent university administration.
I’ve been a registered student at three of our member
institutions: UBC (MSc from the Institute of Animal Resource Ecology), SFU
(summer program for educators at Outward Bound) and UVic (a wonderful course in
qualitative research methods), and have instructed as a sessional at UVic and
as a TA at UBC. So UNBC is the only institution of our five in which I’ve had
no formal involvement.
I plan, over the course of my two year term, to write to
faculty association members on a regular basis about things that are on my mind
when it comes to the realm of post-secondary education.
And while there are many important things to talk about as I look forward to my two year term-- things like the issue of power, academic governance and collegial decision-making, funding issues and our concern about student access to higher education and the issue of affordability, issues around academic freedom and the attacks by governments on “inconvenient” knowledge—I do feel that September is the time of year when we renew our vows, so to speak, and welcome students back to school: into the library and our offices, labs, rehearsal halls, art studios, seminar spaces and lecture halls. At the start of the school year, I am often reminded of a line from late Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers’ beautiful song about Prairie farming, Watch the Field Behind the Plow, where Stan sings “put another season’s promise in the ground.” Every year, we get to touch the lives of young (and not so young) people; “another season’s promise".
There is a great honour and privilege in this work of being an academic. We are the carriers of a long history of knowledge-creation, both theoretical and practical, of artistic creation and performance, of critical philosophical and social insights, of deeply felt arguments as well as the means of resolving them. Our work as scholars and educators is done from a place where we honour those whose shoulders we stand on, while looking into the faces of those who may choose to stand on ours. In fact, it’s shoulders all the way down.
Teaching, to me, is a faith-based activity. We do what we do with the faith that it will make a difference in our student’s lives even if we never know what that difference might be. September, for me as a teacher, is always about looking into the faces of the future.
And while there are many important things to talk about as I look forward to my two year term-- things like the issue of power, academic governance and collegial decision-making, funding issues and our concern about student access to higher education and the issue of affordability, issues around academic freedom and the attacks by governments on “inconvenient” knowledge—I do feel that September is the time of year when we renew our vows, so to speak, and welcome students back to school: into the library and our offices, labs, rehearsal halls, art studios, seminar spaces and lecture halls. At the start of the school year, I am often reminded of a line from late Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers’ beautiful song about Prairie farming, Watch the Field Behind the Plow, where Stan sings “put another season’s promise in the ground.” Every year, we get to touch the lives of young (and not so young) people; “another season’s promise".
There is a great honour and privilege in this work of being an academic. We are the carriers of a long history of knowledge-creation, both theoretical and practical, of artistic creation and performance, of critical philosophical and social insights, of deeply felt arguments as well as the means of resolving them. Our work as scholars and educators is done from a place where we honour those whose shoulders we stand on, while looking into the faces of those who may choose to stand on ours. In fact, it’s shoulders all the way down.
Teaching, to me, is a faith-based activity. We do what we do with the faith that it will make a difference in our student’s lives even if we never know what that difference might be. September, for me as a teacher, is always about looking into the faces of the future.
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