University ordered to grant leave
The Faculty Association of the University of St. Thomas filed a grievance against the New Brunswick university after Thomas Parkhill was denied sabbatical leave for a second time.
The union alleges the university’s reasons for denying the leave to Parkhill — a faculty member and a tenured full professor in the department of religious studies — were "speculative and prejudicial." The denial was in violation of the full and fair consideration clause of the parties’ collective agreement, the union argued, and it requested Parkhill be granted a sabbatical leave for the year July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016.
In her letter denying Parkhill’s request for a 2014-2015 sabbatical, the university’s president and vice-chancellor, Dawn Russell, wrote, "Since you have provided no evidence of a recent scholarly publication, the concerns I expressed in the attached letter persist about whether you will produce the actual scholarly work which you propose in your most recent sabbatical application."
The letter Russell referenced was her denial of Parkhill’s previous request for a 2013-2014 sabbatical. In that instance, Russell wrote she required Parkhill to provide evidence of a recent scholarly publication before she was prepared to grant his request.
According to the university, Parkhill offered no evidence of recent publications and in fact had not published anything since 2001.
This stood in stark contrast with the rest of the faculty, as the university reported the average rate of publication for a faculty member was 1.5 submissions annually.
The university argued a sabbatical leave is not automatically granted. The right of assessment rests in the hands of the president, subject to a reasonable test of review.
The union, however, argued the university used Parkhill’s request as a tool for performance review and correction.
At no point in time, Parkhill testified, did he ever receive any expression of concern about his work or the frequency of his publications. The only feedback he did get, in his annual reports, was positive.
Parkhill testified that, if granted a sabbatical, he was confident he would complete his work. While he admitted he had not published anything in recent years, Parkhill said that lull was the result of a "poisoned workplace."
Issues within the department of religious studies affected Parkhill personally, he said, and pulled his focus from his research. Furthermore, the union argued, a sabbatical leave can be achieved in a number of ways and there is no minimum publication requirement.
The university submitted Russell addressed the issue of publishing only because publishing was what Parkhill focused on as the determining issue of both of his recent requests for sabbatical leave.
Russell did not use the request for leave as a form of performance review, the university argued, but undertook a fair assessment of whether or not Parkhill was capable to completing the proposed work.
"It is this arbitrator’s finding," ruled Robert Breen, "that the challenged decision of the president, whose testimony I found straightforward, plausible, without discriminatory or arbitrary intent, and not unreliable on the evidence, was nonetheless not proper in terms of the collective agreement, and thus unfair."
The grievance was allowed and the university ordered, in remedy, to grant a sabbatical leave to Parkhill for the academic year July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016.
Reference: St. Thomas University and the Faculty Association of the University St. Thomas. Robert D. Breen — arbitrator. Jamie Eddy for the employer, David Mombourquette for the union. Sept. 24, 2014.
