I must disclose my background here; I was employed by the University of Saskatchewan for 40 years including 13 years as president. The institution’s distinctive origins combined the development of liberal education with a responsibility to build the province’s agricultural industry, and it did the latter with world-class agricultural programs and research institutes, and with faculty and students of many backgrounds from around the globe.
Now, we are told, the academic personnel in this worldly environment require mandatory trainingon racism: an Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression and Unconscious Bias Faculty Development Program. It is compulsory; those who decline its offerings will be shut out of collegial processes previously thought to be their right as tenured faculty. It was earlier reported that the program emerged from collective bargaining at the initiative of the university’s faculty union; if so, this does not relieve the administration from responsibility; it signed the collective agreement.
