INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Canadian University Promises It Won't Require Professors to Use Technology

By JEFFREY R. YOUNG

Professors at York University walked picket lines earlier this year with posters reading "Televisions don't teach, people do" and "Clone sheep, not Internet courses." In what may have been a first, new instructional technology was a major issue in a faculty strike -- one that lasted 55 days.

Union leaders at the Toronto university claim victory on the issue, one of several at the heart of the strike. Among the technology-related provisions in the final version of the contract is an unusual promise from the administration: Professors will not be forced to use technology in their classrooms or to deliver courses over the Internet.

The contract says decisions to use technology for enhancing classroom sessions or for delivering courses to remote locations using videoconferencing "shall be consistent with the pedagogic and academic judgments and principles of the faculty member employee as to the appropriateness of the use of technology in the circumstances." It adds: "Normally, a faculty member will not be required to convert a course without his or her agreement."

David Clipsham is chairman of the faculty union, the York University Faculty Association. He says that forcing the university to accept the restrictions was a pre-emptive move stemming from "fears that the administration was moving too fast into technology that no one understood."

The union was deeply concerned about protecting the autonomy of professors. "When you put your course on a Web site," says David Noble, a history professor, "you are essentially giving up control of the course." Fitting a course to a Web site constructed to someone else's specifications can interfere with a professor's plan for the course, he says.

Another professor involved in the strike simply doesn't believe in using technology in the classroom. "I have no interest in using the Web for my teaching," says Janice Newson, an associate professor of sociology. "My own judgment on this is that I am not persuaded that this is the best way to go."

She says multimedia software created for classroom use has several drawbacks: It reduces face-to-face contact; it can discourage critical thinking by students who move quickly among screens full of information; and its bugs and glitches can waste valuable teaching time.

Both Dr. Newson and Dr. Noble say they are worried about being replaced by their own high-tech creations. Dr. Noble says administrators at York and other universities may one day use World-Wide Web sites or video-taped lectures to cut back on faculty staffing. "Whatever the rhetoric of the institution," he says, "the unspoken agenda is to eliminate direct labor."

Paula H. O'Reilly, York's director of academic and staff relations, represented the university in negotiations during the strike. She says the institution had no intention of forcing professors to use technology anyway. Most of the decisions about whether to use technology are made at the departmental level or by individual professors, she says. "We don't see ourselves as controlling technology."

She says the administration agrees that, if faculty members don't believe in using technology in education, "their right to oppose it needs to be respected."

During the contract negotiations, she says, administrators wanted to make sure that any promises they made were flexible enough to accommodate unanticipated changes in technology.

The new contract also calls for the creation of a "Joint Subcommittee on the Impact of Technology." The panel will consider a variety of issues, including providing adequate training and support to professors who want to use high-tech tools; setting guidelines for purchasing and developing packaged courses and distance-learning courses; and long-term goals for technology use.

Perry M. Robinson, deputy director of the higher-education department at the American Federation of Teachers, says technology issues are becoming more and more important in contract negotiations. "There are quite a number of issues now with distance learning," he says. "I think it will increasingly become important."

Mr. Robinson says that union contracts at a few colleges already address technology issues. Many of those contracts specify class size or compensation policies for distance-education courses -- for instance, at the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District in California, Glen Oaks Community College in Michigan, and Salem Community College in New Jersey.

Promising not to force technology on professors is more unusual, he says. That's because few cases, if any, have surfaced in which professors are being forced to use technology, he says.

But Dr. Noble, whose specialty is the history of technology, says he sees a trend -- the "commoditization of instruction." As universities find ways to package teaching in digital form, he says, professors could be phased out, just as some assembly-line workers have been replaced by robots. He points to a new program at the University of California at Los Angeles, where administrators have promised that every class in its main undergraduate college will have a Web page. That's a sign, he says, that faculty members at other colleges need to take a fresh look at their contracts. "We worked very hard to protect ourselves," he says.