National university teacher association lashes out at U of M’s economics department

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This article was published 28/01/2015 (2984 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has denounced the University of Manitoba’s economics department for alleged serious violations of academic freedom and a climate that has become “corrosive and dysfunctional to the point of crisis.”

CAUT created an investigatory committee in response to allegations of efforts in the department to reduce or eliminate approaches and views outside of mainstream economics. The department traditionally had a reputation of making room for both mainstream and heterodox views in hiring and in its curriculum, CAUT said today.

“A change of direction or emphasis within an academic unit does not intrinsically implicate academic freedom,” the committee notes in its report. “However, it is our conclusion that decisions and actions within the Department cumulatively constituted violations of academic freedom by producing an environment within which the scholarship of heterodox colleagues was undermined.”

The committee found evidence that heterodox faculty and graduate students – those who think outside the box – were poorly treated and undermined, and that attempts were made to re-assign courses to orthodox proponents.

“It was a violation of academic freedom when orthodox members of the department behaved in ways that discriminated against doctoral students being supervised by heterodox economists,” the committee concluded. “This included treatment at oral examinations, advice about potential areas of study, funding decisions, and advice that their choice of heterodox supervisors was unwise in terms of their future careers.”

The report makes a series of recommendations, including that a search be held for a new head of the department, that an external review of the graduate and undergraduate programs in economics be conducted, and that there is a commitment to ensuring both heterodox and mainstream traditions remain viable in the department.

“The atmosphere and relations within the department of economics remain divided and embittered,” states the report. “The status quo cannot be maintained.”

The U of M is considering how it will respond. President David Barnard previously told CAUT that it has no authority on campus and that issues are being addressed internally.

Members of the investigatory committee were: Allan Manson, Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University; Pamela McCallum, Professor, Department of English, University of Calgary; and, Larry Haiven, Professor, Department of Management, Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary`s University.

Copies of the full report are available at www.caut.ca