The past academic year has been difficult for the Communications Committee—as it has been for everyone else connected with the Faculty Association in any capacity. The Committee’s job is to get out information about issues facing Members and news about the Association’s campaigns and activities. But in the fluid situation in which we have all found ourselves this year, this has proven very difficult. With the Executive focussed on enforcing the Collective Agreement and helping

The Joint Equity Committee met only a few times this year, owing in part to the pandemic, as well as various shifts in membership on the FA side. Members at this time were Ann Braithwaite, Sharon Myers (co-chair), and Margot Rejskind for the FA, and Nola Etkin, Kathy Gotschall-Pass (co-chair), and Ron MacDonald for Administration. Meetings in the Fall, previous to the change in committee membership, were focused on providing comment on early drafts of

The Awards and Scholarships Committee oversees awards and scholarships that are sponsored and co-sponsored by the Faculty Association, as well as the events celebrating FA award recipients. As Chair, I was capably assisted this year by committee members Cora Gilroy, Barry Linkletter, Shafiqul Islam, Raquel Hoersting, Nadja Bressen and Armin Bodaghkhani. Despite all the disruptions of this past year, activities to recognize the efforts of our members continued. We were pleased to assume responsibility for

The formal mandate of the UPEIFA Research and Advocacy Committee states that the Committee is: “tasked by the Executive with completing research and making recommendations on issues being discussed by the Executive. In addition, the Committee serves an advocacy function to external groups and organizations, and to governments.” In practice, the Committee has generally focussed on its research role, supporting the FA Executive (and the Negotiating Team in years when negotiation positions are being prepared),