La Belle La Cite

On Friday, October 4th, I took the train to Ottawa, one of my favourite Canadian cities, to visit with the faculty at La Cite, Ontario's largest francophone college.  After lunch with locale 470 du SEFPO (OPSEU Local 470) President Benoit Dupuis, I had an engaging conversation with the local officers and stewards.


Local 470 President Benoit Dupuis

La Cite is a relatively recent addition to the Ontario college system, being founded in 1990.  It is a medium-size institution, with approximately 5,000 full-time students, and 300 full-time faculty.  The ratio of full-time to part-time faculty is 50-50, a bit below the system average, but creeping ever upward.

A significant change at La Cite has been a new college president taking over in 2010.  Since this change-over, and a more corporate management style, there has been a definite shift in labour relations.  Chief Grievance officer Pierre St.-Gelais noted that from April of 2011 to September 2013, the union has filed six times the number of grievances it had filed in the previous fifteen years.

Chief Grievance Officer Pierre St.-Gelais

Another issue facing the professors at La Cite has been increasing class sizes.  Class enrolments were once capped by college administration based on "academic quality".  However, the caps have now been removed, as has any mention of academic quality being linked to class size.

As La Cite's priorities have shifted from academic quality to corporate promotion and marketing, their scores on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have been increasing.  KPIs are student satisfaction surveys used across the college system in the increasingly competitive battle for students.

The current focus on KPIs reflects a customer-service approach to college education, in which attracting students and maintaining them at all costs has come to eclipse an educational approach based on high academic standards and rigorous training.  High KPI scores and swelling enrolments may lead to healthy management bonuses, but Local 470's officers noted that employers on college-industry committees are expressing concerns.  Could it be that larger class sizes, fewer full-time faculty and reduced face-to-face instruction are producing college graduates that are less prepared for the workplace?