Dr. Rancourt's Wrongful Dismissal Arbitration Hearing October 31, 2011

This is the day for opening statements from both the Faculty Associattion and the University laying out their respective cases and positions with regard to Dr. Rancourt's termination in April 2009.

Denis Rancourt Wrongful Dismissal Hearing Day November 1, 2011

This was supposed to have been the first day of hearing evidence and witnesses, but the employer stalled with some questionable tactics with regard to evidence. This shorting hearing (about an hour) showcases the employer's attempts to derail and the union's clear wanting to proceed imediately. The next hearing day is January 23, 2011

Allowing Audio-Visual Recording to the Wrongful Dismissal Arbitration Grievance of Denis Rancourt

Denis Rancourt, a 20+ year tenured Full Professor at the University of Ottawa was fired for academic reasons and trumped up reasons involving grading policy of his students. In this instance Academic Freedom seems to not exist at the University of Ottawa. At the second arbitration hearing much was made about a motion to render everything confidential, allowing narrowly certain documents to be made public. Further, despite both the university and union agreeing to having hearing proceedings be audio-visually recorded, the arbitrator unilaterally decided not to record. This public hearing had an audience that wanted to record the proceedings so the arbitrator has allowed submissions from all parties and the audience as to why the hearing proceedings should or should not be recorded. This is my submission.

Contract of Grievance Settlement Between Dean of Education, University of Ottawa and Faculty Association

I was told by the Faculty Association of the University of Ottawa that it would approach the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Marie Josee Berger, to see if she would settle the grievance - without my presence. First problem. So, unbeknownst to me a contract was drawn up and forwarded by the Faculty Association to Dean Berger for her signature. The problem remains that I would never have agreed to this contract had I known beforehand what was in it. The contract signatures were the Dean's and the Faculty Association. I was completely removed from it. What was "agreed" to was that my current contract would be extended 6 months (really a salary continuance), without teaching. I was to complete a small project (really a make-work project that the Dean, as past history suggests, would do nothing with) with full salary and benefits reinstated (amounted to approx. $55,000) and the gouging of my salary over the three years would be paid retroactively ($30,000) - but the arbitrary removing my salary for a month would not be dealt with and the teaching overload of 4 courses taught for free would not be addressed. My negotiated and agreed to 2010-2011 contract was not being honoured by Dean Berger or the Faculty Association. With friends like this...the whole thing stinks of sleaze and a complete lack of ethics. And keep in mind I had no input or knowledge into this grievance settlement, except after the fact.

Grievance: Teacher Overload Unpaid Over Three Years

Despite the Dean of Education, Marie Josee Berger, stating that the standard teaching load of the Faculty of Education, at the University of Ottawa is five courses, I was required to teach 8 courses a year without any additional compensation for doing so. Further, the Faculty Association, in its wisdom, decided not to challenge this and seek compensation as part of my grievance. It doesn't help that the Faculty Association has three masters: its own interests, the interests of the university (as the payer of pay cheques) and lastly and far in the distance ... mind as an individual faculty association member. I laid out a very strong case about why I should be compensated, but the faculty association ignored everything.

Dissertation Glossary

Dissertation List of References Used

Dissertation Chapter Ten

Dissertation Chapter Nine

Dissertation Chapter Eight

Dissertation Chapter Seven

Dissertation Chapter Six

Dissertation Chapter Five

Dissertation Chapter Four

Dissertation Chapter Three

Dissertation Chapter Two

Dissertation Chapter One

Precis Document of Grievance Issues

In essence, when I filed a grievance after being "offered" an illegal contract (and accepting it), from the Dean of the Faculty of Education, the Dean reneged on the contract and locked me out of my workplace. I've heard from faculty, there, that when someone files a grievance in that faculty, the Dean will do everything she can to get rid of you. Well, mission accomplished - but not without a fight. This document is a precis of the experience. I am currently writing a journal length article on the experience. Interesting power issues arise.

No time for nostalgia!

Collaboratively Written by: Leslie G. Romana*, Sheena Brownb, Steven Noblec, Rafael Wainerd and Alannah Earl Younge

This article asks: How have disability, indigenous arts and cultural praxis transformed and challenged the historical sociological archival research into relationships among asylum-making, medicalized colonialism and eugenics in the
Woodlands School, formerly the Victoria Lunatic Asylum, the Provincial Asylum for the Insane in Victoria, BC 1859–72 and the Public Hospital for the Insane, (herein, PHI) and most recently, the Woodlands School in New Westminster,
British Columbia (1878–1996)? How can the experiences of ‘patients’ often silenced or suppressed in archival historical sociology and in official institutional records be re-claimed through the textual analysis of official documents, the arts,
oral history, and community engagement? The article unearths the unexplored dimensions of medicalized colonialism in the first critical shift – from 1859–97 –
from a minimal juridical state in which magistrates and judges determined the processes of commitment to one in which medical authorities as colonial administrators had greater control over PHI than in previous years. Through a
textual analysis of clinical case records, patient files, legislation, colonial medical administrators’ correspondence, and the records of the first Royal Commission
Public Inquiry in 1894 into the abuses and deaths of patients at PHI, the research reveals the fissures within the discourses of colonial medical administrators and staff within the emerging medical-juridical apparatus. Gaps, silences, or truths untold in the official records are then counter-posed with insights gleaned from the art of First Nations, Secwepemc Tania Willard, oral historical work with Qayayt
First Nations, Rhonda Larabee, on whose grandfather’s land the Woodlands School was built, key reports from the independent community living, deinstitutionalization,
self-advocacy movements, confirming the systemic physical,
emotional, and sexual abuses that went on at Woodlands, as well as with the testimonial narratives of the self-advocate survivors of Woodlands in their documentary film, From the Inside/Out! Analyzed relationally, these sources provide a richer understanding of the links between the disturbing past of PHI and the present legal struggles pertaining to Woodlands. Disability and indigenous studies are shown to challenge and transform ableist normalizing medicalized
colonialism and its pastoral educational sociology. The article concludes that no time is a time for nostalgia about Woodlands or such related total institutions.

Reconceptualizing High School: Curriculum, Film, and Narrative Assemblies

Collaboratively written by: Nicholas Ng-A-Fook, Kathryn Robayo Sheridan, Steve Noble

Reconceptualizing High School

Steve Noble's Grievance Document with University of Ottawa

Numerous ethical issues with regard to my employment with the University of Ottawa that was put forward through a grievance which resulted in my contract not being renewed, my office and mail being locked from me. I succeeded with my grievance, but have had to look elsewhere for employment.

Faculty Work Climate Report

Meeting Myself for the First Time While on Stage

Crystal Diagnosis: Youth Re/Paring a Story of Addiction as Repair

Mental Illness Through Popular Theatre: Performing (In)Sanely

Finding Keys/Opening Closets: Being Inclusive of Sexual Minorities in K-12 School Spaces