• Vissi d’arte, Vissi d’amore
• Non feci mai male ad
anima viva!
• I lived for my art, I lived
for love
• I never did harm to a
living soul!
• Puccini, Illica
Initial thoughts
ACAD
Suggestion that Lukaszuk join us in a
redundancy meeting
Academic Council meeting to start a
conversation on academic freedom
Start of a conversation
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What is academic freedom?
Who thinks it is important?
A little historical perspective
Why might we be interested?
Limits
Threats
Nuances
Academic Freedom
 to teach, research and publish [to inquire]
 to criticize and help determine institutional
policies
 to address public issues as citizens
 institutional autonomy in running its affairs
 for student choice in academic programs
Criticism
 Art or act of judging against some standard
 Formulated opinion
 Detailed inquiry [merits, demerits; beauties,
blemishes]
 “One who thinks otherwise”
 Pleasure in debate
Academic Freedom
 essential to academy [disinterested inquiry]
and society
 freedom to teach, present ideas and facts
(including those inconvenient to special
interest groups or authorities), without fear of
repression, job or privilege loss
MIT
Policies and Procedures: 4.1 Teaching and Research
“Not only does the Institute recognize outstanding contributions
and achievements by appropriate salary advancement and
promotion, but also by permitting faculty members substantial
freedom in arranging their academic lives. This freedom is
subject, however, to an overriding principle: The primary loyalty of
a full-time member of the Faculty must be to the Institute at all
times. This obligation underlies all others. “
“While fulfilling responsibilities to their students, the Institute,
and their discipline, faculty members have a right, and the
Institute has an obligation, to protect academic freedom in
their classroom, in the expression of their ideas in the
academic community, and in publishing and disseminating
their work.”
CAQC
Handbook
3.7 ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND SCHOLARSHIP
 June 2006
 As stated in its Key Operating Principles, Council respects the
foundational role of academic freedom in the provision of high
quality degree programs. Thus, Council requires that institutions
meet its organizational assessment standards on academic
freedom, institutional integrity, and scholarly and research
activity. In making its recommendation to the Minister, the Postsecondary Learning Act (Appendix A) requires the Campus
Alberta Quality Council to consider the ability (readiness) of
institutions to deliver and sustain high quality degree.
CAQC
Handbook
3.7.1 ACADEMIC FREEDOM
 An institution must ensure that it maintains an atmosphere in which
intellectual freedom exists. Although it is understood that an institution
will be in reasonable harmony with its founding and sustaining
organizations, a high degree of intellectual independence is expected of
its academic staff and students.
 An institution’s academic staff and students must be free to examine and
to test all knowledge appropriate to their disciplines as judged by the
academic community in general.
 An institution must adopt and distribute to all members of the academic
staff a statement of the principle of academic freedom as established by
the governing board of the institution, assuring freedom in teaching,
scholarship/research and publication (see below), and community
activities. Written policy and procedures that ensure the principles of
natural justice are followed in the event of alleged violations of the policy
must be clearly stated, widely available, and actively followed.
CAQC
Handbook
3.7.2 INSTITUTIONAL INTEGRITY
 In general terms, the institution must recognize and
protect the right of the individual to the honest search for
knowledge, wherever knowledge is to be found, without
fear of reprisals by the institution or by third parties.
Academic freedom implies the right to communicate
freely the acquired knowledge and the result of
scholarship/research. It implies the duty, however, to
respect the rights of others, to exercise that freedom in a
reasonable and responsible manner, and to respect the
academic objectives of the institution. Chapter 3 –
Organizational Evaluation || CAQC Handbook
www.caqc.gov.ab.ca 42
CAUT
Policy Statement on Academic Freedom
1
Post-secondary educational institutions serve the common good of society through searching
for, and disseminating, knowledge and understanding and through fostering independent
thinking and expression in academic staff and students. Robust democracies require no less.
These ends cannot be achieved without academic freedom.
2
Academic freedom includes the right, without restriction by prescribed doctrine, to freedom
to teach and discuss; freedom to carry out research and disseminate and publish the results
thereof; freedom to produce and perform creative works; freedom to engage in service to
the institution and the community; freedom to express one's opinion about the institution,
its administration, and the system in which one works; freedom to acquire, preserve, and
provide access to documentary material in all formats; and freedom to participate in
professional and representative academic bodies. Academic freedom always entails freedom
from institutional censorship.
3
Academic freedom does not require neutrality on the part of the individual. Academic
freedom makes intellectual discourse, critique, and commitment possible. All academic
staff must have the right to fulfil their functions without reprisal or repression by the
institution, the state, or any other source. Contracts which are silent on the matter of
academic freedom do not entitle the employer to breach or threaten in any way the
academic freedom of academic staff employed under such collective agreements or other
employment contracts.
CAUT
Policy Statement on Academic Freedom
4
All academic staff have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression,
assembly, and association and the right to liberty and security of the person and freedom of
movement. Academic staff must not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as
individuals including the right to contribute to social change through free expression of
opinion on matters of public interest. Academic staff must not suffer any institutional
penalties because of the exercise of such rights.
5
Academic freedom requires that academic staff play a major role in the governance of the
institution. Academic staff members shall constitute at least a majority on committees or
collegial governing bodies responsible for academic matters including but not limited to
curriculum, assessment procedures and standards, appointment, tenure and promotion.
6
Academic freedom must not be confused with institutional autonomy. Post-secondary
institutions are autonomous to the extent that they can set policies independent of outside
influence. That very autonomy can protect academic freedom from a hostile external
environment, but it can also facilitate an internal assault on academic freedom. Academic
freedom is a right of members of the academic staff, not of the institution. The employer
shall not abridge academic freedom on any grounds, including claims of institutional
autonomy.
Approved by the CAUT Council, November 2011.
AUCC
Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada
What is academic freedom?
 Academic freedom is the freedom to teach and conduct research in
an academic environment. Academic freedom is fundamental to
the mandate of universities to pursue truth, educate students and
disseminate knowledge and understanding.
 In teaching, academic freedom is fundamental to the protection of
the rights of the teacher to teach and of the student to learn. In
research and scholarship, it is critical to advancing knowledge.
Academic freedom includes the right to freely communicate
knowledge and the results of research and scholarship.
 Unlike the broader concept of freedom of speech, academic
freedom must be based on institutional integrity, rigorous
standards for enquiry and institutional autonomy, which allows
universities to set their research and educational priorities.
AUCC
Why is academic freedom important to Canada?
 Academic freedom does not exist for its own sake, but
rather for important social purposes. Academic freedom is
essential to the role of universities in a democratic society.
Universities are committed to the pursuit of truth and its
communication to others, including students and the
broader community. To do this, faculty must be free to take
intellectual risks and tackle controversial subjects in their
teaching, research and scholarship.
 For Canadians, it is important to know that views expressed
by faculty are based on solid research, data and evidence,
and that universities are autonomous and responsible
institutions committed to the principles of integrity.
AUCC
The responsibilities of academic freedom
 Evidence and truth are the guiding principles for universities and the
community of scholars that make up their faculty and students. Thus,
academic freedom must be based on reasoned discourse, rigorous
extensive research and scholarship, and peer review.
 Academic freedom is constrained by the professional standards of the
relevant discipline and the responsibility of the institution to organize its
academic mission. The insistence on professional standards speaks to the
rigor of the enquiry and not to its outcome.
 The constraint of institutional requirements recognizes simply that the
academic mission, like other work, has to be organized according to
institutional needs. This includes the institution’s responsibility to select
and appoint faculty and staff, to admit and discipline students, to establish
and control curriculum, to make organizational arrangements for the
conduct of academic work, to certify completion of a program and to grant
degrees.
AUCC
Roles and responsibilities
 University leadership: It is a major responsibility of university governing bodies and senior officers
to protect and promote academic freedom. This includes ensuring that funding and other
partnerships do not interfere with autonomy in deciding what is studied and how. Canada’s
university presidents must play a leadership role in communicating the values around academic
freedom to internal and external stakeholders. The university must also defend academic freedom
against interpretations that are excessive or too loose, and the claims that may spring from such
definitions.
 To ensure and protect academic freedom, universities must be autonomous, with their governing
bodies committed to integrity and free to act in the institution’s best interests.
 Universities must also ensure that the rights and freedoms of others are respected, and that
academic freedom is exercised in a reasonable and responsible manner.
 Faculty: Faculty must be committed to the highest ethical standards in their teaching and research.
They must be free to examine data, question assumptions and be guided by evidence.
 Faculty have an equal responsibility to submit their knowledge and claims to rigorous and public
review by peers who are experts in the subject matter under consideration and to ground their
arguments in the best available evidence.
 Faculty members and university leaders have an obligation to ensure that students’ human rights
are respected and that they are encouraged to pursue their education according to the principles of
academic freedom.
 Faculty also share with university leadership the responsibility of ensuring that pressures from
funding and other types of partnerships do not unduly influence the intellectual work of the
university
History
Socrates
 Hemlock and
corrupting youth
through teachings
History
University of Bologna
Constitutio Habita ,
about 1158,
guaranteed right of
scholars to travel
freely
History
 Enlightenment [Germaine de Stael, Wilhelm von
Humboldt, John Stuart Mill – On Liberty]
 Germany [Lehrfreiheit (teach), Lernfreiheit* (study)]
 U.S. Research universities – achievement trumps
personal beliefs
 U.S. right of free speech
 British tradition of academic free speech, political
involvement, self government
 Canada –early role for clergy, leaders of society
[morality]
History
 Fusing of graduate schools, undergraduate colleges [??]
 Harvard College 1636, with 1st degree in 1642, from
residential college to University with growth, higher
faculties
 Starts as small religious affiliations, with liberal arts
education at the undergraduate level
 College of William and Mary – Royal Charter
 Dartmouth College
 University of California, Berkley from College of California
and Agricultural, Mining and Mechanical Arts College 1853
 Trinity College absorbed by University of Toronto (still
grants degrees through Faculty of Divinity)
History
 Americans added the context of engaged citizens, and
implied intramural expression by early 20th century
 In Canada [1958 Harry Crowe dismissal by United
College]
 Fowke-Laskin investigation held that academic freedom
included freedom to criticize the employer, should not be
limited by institutions religious aims
 Supreme Court [1967]under Chief Justice Warren
noted that academic freedom is:
 ‘a special concern of the first amendment, which does not
tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the
classroom.”
Budapest University of Technology
and Economics (1782)
Colleges, Polytechnics
 Community colleges evolved in Canada between 1960 and
1975
Training needs of business, industry, public sector
 Polytechnics [higher and/or vocational education]
 PITA (1916)[motor mechanics, metalworking; hospital facility,
teacher training, RC Air Force (1940), apprenticeship (1948), ACAD
(1985)] to SAIT and NAIT (1959)
 Ryerson (1948) from training and re-establishment
institute to polytechnic (1966) to university (1971)
 BCIT (1960) as vocational training
 Propelling business innovation, creating jobs
for tomorrow
 Multi-skilled, multi-disciplined and industryresponsive
 Solutions to industry problems, accelerating
knowledge transfer
Limits
 Cannot limit others academic freedom
 Professional codes of ethical conduct
 Collective agreements
 Illegal acts, defamation, lack of effort
 Civility
 Validation of courses by academic bodies
Threats
Exclusivity of a truth, orthodoxy versus
emerging theory
– Need challenges for innovation
Idea of waste implied by ‘idle curiosity’
Acceptance in principle, not in practice
Church, state, governing body, parent
interference or control
Political correctness
Threats
 Neo-liberalism
 all human activity governed by pure competition, smaller
public sector
 Flexibility, nimbleness, responsibility (New College, Oxford)
 Queen’s University (Mason), U of T (Olivieri)
 Mason: long and distinguished career (imperialism and neo-colonialism),
verbatim transcript from hearing on Pearl Harbour (“towel head,” “japs”
and “little yellow sons of bitches,”), students suggested classroom was not
a “safe” environment, Mason suspended
 Olivieri: haematologist and researcher UofT, Apotex, evidence of toxicity, confidentiality
Nuances
CAUT Annual Conference on Academic Freedom
 “Professional norms”
Foundation is continual exposure to criticism,
systematic empirical inquiry
Concern for speaking outside one’s discipline [interconnectedness]
 Institutional autonomy
 Religious belief [faith tests]
 Equity [discrimination, harassment, bullying]
 The law [contempt of law, confidentiality]
 Growth of University-Industry collaborations
Our concerns?
 Moodle (closed curriculum: content)
 Prescribed assessments
 Instructors (engaged – doctrinal)
 MOOCs (massive open online course)
 Secrecy, spin, fear of critiquing
 Advanced Education mandates
References
• Michiel Horn, Academic Freedom in Canada: A History,
University of Toronto Press, Toronto,1999.
Thoughts!