Michelle Webber

Transgressive pedagogies? Exploring the difficult realities of enacting feminist pedagogies in undergraduate classrooms in a Canadian university

This article challenges the transgressive possibilities of trying to create feminist classrooms, and utilizing feminist approaches to teaching undergraduate social science courses that are jointly offered with womens studies in one Canadian university. Drawing on qualitative in‐depth interviews with 22 respondents, the article explores the difficult terrain of implementing feminist pedagogical approaches, when one considers such things as: the spatial organization of lecture halls, class sizes, faculty approaches to power/authority, departmental resources and the evaluation mechanisms of faculty members.

Continuity or Change? Gender, Family, and Academic Work for Junior Faculty in Ontario Universities

Over the past 40 or so years, women’s share of faculty positions in Canada and elsewhere has increased considerably, if not yet reaching parity. Yet working in the gendered university remains problematic. This article uses data from a qualitative research project in which 38 junior academics were interviewed about their responses to being on the tenure-track and being reviewed for tenure. Participants also talked about work–family issues and how they distributed their efforts among research, teaching, and service responsibilities. Both women and men made career decisions based on family needs, and two women and four men had taken parental leaves. While there were signs of changing norms around family matters, women were still overloaded with service roles at work. The article looks at the results in light of the contradictory nature of social change and gender roles within university work.

Uneasy Academic Subjectivities in the Contemporary Ontario University

For the past few years, we have been conducting a project exploring the relationship between what we call accountability governance in higher education, specifically in the Canadian province of Ontario, and the (re)formation of academic subjectivities. Our starting point was the burgeoning critical literature about the corporatization of universities and its many consequences, including increased surveillance of workers and emphasis on accountability and performativity.

Organizing the Ivory Tower The Unionization of the Brock University Faculty Association

Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews and analysis of relevant primary documents, this article explores the 1996 unionization of full-time academic faculty at Brock University, a public and primarily undergraduate university in southern Ontario, Canada. The case study examines both the impetus for unionization and the strategies employed by the faculty association in support of certification with a view to demonstrating how discourses of professionalism and collegiality can be challenged, subverted, and redeployed by academics intent on organizing, mobilizing, and ultimately winning support for unionization.

Discipline and Publish: The Tenure Review Process in Ontario Universities

Acker and Webber present results of their qualitative interviews with 47 early-career academics in five social science fields in Ontario, Canada. Using a theoretical framework drawn from Michel Foucault and scholarship on gender and organizations, they show how regulatory mechanisms such as the tenure review operate through surveillance, discipline and self-discipline. In the process of conforming to real or imagined standards, junior academics narrow their research, over-emphasize performativity and experience high anxiety. Gender, race and class contribute to differentiated experiences. The tenure review is a high-stakes “examination” that determines whether or not an academic gains a permanent position. While the tenure review process is not new, its intensity and impact on subjectivity have increased in line with the audit cultures spreading globally through academe.

Made to measure: early career academics in the Canadian university workplace

ABSTRACT While Canada lacks explicit central directives towards research productivity, academics experience frequent and intense reviews of their research, teaching and service through mechanisms such as elaborate tenure and promotion procedures and annual performance reviews. Given that newer academics are sometimes thought to be especially susceptible to contemporary performativity pressures, this article considers seven early career academics (ECAs), interviewed as part of a larger qualitative study, and the nuances of their reactions to evaluative processes, especially the tenure review. On the whole, the ECAs create and deploy strategies to ensure that they meet ever-rising standards, because they love their work and believe they are ‘lucky’ to be on track to secure a permanent position. They hope for more freedom in ‘life after tenure’. However, all have trenchant criticisms of the corporatized university and the ways in which evaluation proceeds.

Assessing the Potential Impact of Labor Law Reforms on University Faculty Findings from a Midsized Public University in Ontario

This article presents the findings of a survey of unionized professors and professional librarians at a public university in Southern Ontario to examine their views on the prospect and desirability of “right-to-work” legislation and “paycheck protection” laws. The purpose of the study is twofold: first, to assess the level of opposition to such legislative initiatives among unionized faculty, and, second, to determine the extent to which the passage of such laws would undermine the dues base of the faculty union. Based on the findings of a mixed methods survey, we found that a strong majority of the university professors and professional librarians surveyed were opposed to “right-to-work” and “paycheck protection” laws and that their passage would not deter them from paying dues or authorizing expenditures for political action.