Faculty association asks what’s up as senior leaders appear to be fleeing Athabasca University in droves

Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government reappointed lawyer Byron Nelson on Wednesday to a second three-year term as chair of the board of governors of Athabasca University.

The cabinet order was published yesterday, as was a news release on the website of the 55-year-old distance university based in the Town of Athabasca, 140 kilometres north of Edmonton, wherein university President Alex Clarke poured out his excitement about being able to continue working with Mr. Nelson. 

“With our new strategic plan, Like No Other, and AU firmly grounded in our home community of Athabasca, the years ahead will be pivotal to realizing AU’s highest contribution to learners and communities near and far,” Dr. Clark enthused. “As we meet and adapt together to the challenges of the future, I am delighted AU continues to benefit from Chair Nelson’s steadfast commitment to accessible and open education, his energy, and wise leadership.”

For his part, according to the news release, Mr. Nelson was “beyond thrilled” with his re-appointment. 

When last we heard from Mr. Nelson, in the early spring of 2023, he had just finished firing the university’s previous president without a vote of the full board of governors.

“Three board members, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they weren’t notified of a vote, which was conducted by email, and only learned about the firing of president Peter Scott – three weeks after the death of his wife – after it had been done,” independent investigative journalist Charles Rusnell reported in The Tyee on Feb. 2, 2024.

Two of Mr. Rusnell’s sources said they only learned about Dr. Scott’s firing when the university published a news release about it.

The firing took place after a long-running and very public fight between Dr. Scott and then UCP premier Jason Kenney, who had been determined to force the university to drop its plan to operate on a “near virtual” basis in which most faculty would not be required to live in the town of 2,800 people with insufficient housing to put roofs over all of their heads. 

In a Feb. 3, 2023, report in The Globe and Mail, Mr. Nelson admitted that “the way that this was conducted, while legal, I would acknowledge was not best practices.”

However, he told he told reporter Carrie Tait, “it couldn’t be best practices,” because the situation was “unique” requiring an “extreme amount of confidentiality.”

Since the spring of 2023, things appeared to have settled down at AU.

However, according to an email sent to members of the Athabasca University Faculty Association a week ago by the union’s governance lead, beneath the surface things have not been so placid.

“AUFA has received an increasing number of concerns related to the high numbers of departures of senior leaders at AU,” Rhiannon Rutherford wrote.

In her email she named five senior leaders who have resigned in the past year: Provost Matt Prineas, Deputy Provost Bailey Sousa, University Relations VP Jennifer Pascoe, Finance VP Dale Mountain, Assistant VP of Research Andrew Perrin, and Faculty of Business Dean Lisa Watson.

In addition, she said, four other senior leaders are in the process of leaving or have just left, including the Dean of Graduate Studies, Shawn Fraser. 

“AUFA is aware that some members of SLT quit, while others left involuntarily,” Ms. Rutherford said. “There has also been significant turnover in management within University Relations. Multiple directors have left this past year, and it appears that the parts of the department responsible for communication and the public image of the university are currently without any management whatsoever.”

She pointed to “persistent concerns around micromanagement of AU’s public image” as being among the reasons senior administrators seem to be rushing for the exits.

I am told more developments in this story can be expected soon. 

One-party consent explained: Why Postmedia owes Athana Mentzelopoulos a retraction

A report published by Postmedia about the Alberta Government’s latest filing in the former Alberta Health Services CEO’s wrongful dismissal lawsuit says the province’s lawyers now argue that Athana Mentzelopoulos may have broken the terms of her contract by recording conversations with the health minister and members of the AHS board.

They can argue that if they wish as part of the UCP Government’s effort to drag out the case for as long as possible, but this seems like a bit of a procedural snoozer at this point in the story. However, it’s important to note that nowhere does the story by journalist Matthew Black say or even hint that Ms. Mentzelopoulos broke any laws by recording conversations in which she was a participant. 

So why does the headline on the story state unequivocally that, “Alberta lawyers claim Mentzelopoulos may have illegally recorded meetings.” Surely this seriously misrepresents the contents of the story. A secondary headline repeats the false statement.

In case you wondered, here’s what the Criminal Code of Canada has to say nowadays about intercepting conversations: “Where a private communication is originated by more than one person or is intended by the originator thereof to be received by more than one person, a consent to the interception thereof by any one of those persons is sufficient consent …” 

In other words, recording a private conversation is legal as long as one of the participants gives their consent. That includes the person making the recording. This is known as “one-party consent,” and one could argue that since reporters stopped learning shorthand it pretty much keeps journalism legal in Canada.

Postmedia, it is said here, owes Ms. Mentzelopoulos a retraction and an apology for that misleading headline.