Last year, I wrote about Lakehead University's decision to shut down its campuses for four days in December and place its faculty on furlough during that time.

Nearly a year later, an arbitrator ruled the university violated its collective agreement with faculty members by imposing the unpaid time off.

The ruling is significant. It effectively prevents any Canadian university from using furlough to save money without receiving consent from its faculty association - which is unlikely to occur without major non-monetary concessions by the institution.

And it will likely set off a chain of labour unrest.

The use of furlough at Lakehead has achieved nothing.

While the arbitrator left it to the faculty association and university to negotiate a settlement, it is unlikely the faculty will settle for anything less than full compensation for the furlough and costs for the arbitration - meaning the furlough will likely cost the university money.

The ruling comes at a critical time, with the current collective agreement for faculty expiring in about six months at the end of June.

The decision to impose furlough poisoned the labour environment at Lakehead and the ruling will likely only strengthen resolve among faculty to fight for strong salary provisions in the contract being negotiated.

Combine this with the provincial directive to freeze wages across the board for two years and it appears Lakehead's negotiations will be difficult.

But, while there is always the potential for a strike, it is very unlikely one will happen at Lakehead.

The provincial wage freeze has not been imposed at other institutions that have reached new collective agreements since it was announced. There is no reason to believe Lakehead will be the first university to impose a freeze.

And the drop in the number of applications to York University following the infamous 2008/09 CUPE strike has likely scared both administrations and unions into avoiding damage to their own interests by scaring away potential students - Lakehead's location make its even more vulnerable to long-term damage from a strike.

As well, the provincial election is scheduled for October and, because the university is in vulnerable Liberal territory, the province may be more open to opening its coffers for the university in the lead-up to the election. The two Thunder Bay seats are held by the governing Liberals, but are likely to fall to the NDP. The government held Thunder Bay-Atikokan by a slim margin of only 50 votes in the 2007 election. A strike during the election would be devastating for the Liberals in the North.

In short, it serves no one's interests to allow a strike to occur and a way will likely be found for the university to balance its budget without antagonizing its labour unions in the process.

The boxing match between the dean of McMaster's DeGroote School of Business and the academic faculty within it is over - the academic faculty have won a TKO.

The dean, former Charles Schwab executive Paul Bates, is resigning from his position following the release of a report by a three-person panel that "clearly concluded" that it is "essential for a change in leadership in the School."

The panel was created early this year following a report by the university's Office of Human Rights and Equity Services which found the faculty had "become a dysfunctional work environment" due to infighting about Bates, who, as a non-academic, was not accepted by many of the tenured academics in the faculty.

Bates was appointed dean in 2004 to bring the DeGroote School closer to the business world and address concerns that its competitive position relative to other business schools was hampered by a lack of industry-experienced faculty within the school.

Bates was a controversial choice as dean, as he does not hold an undergraduate degree and had no experience leading in academia.

He was very successful at improving the profile of the Business School, securing donations for an expansion of programs - including the building of a new MBA and graduate programs campus in Burlington, Ont., - and is widely popular with students at the school.

Over the years, I've interviewed Bates numerous times and have enjoyed many conversations with him regarding the direction of business education within the academy. He knowledge is second to none and I'm of the opinion that he is one of the best business-oriented Deans in the country.

It is a tribute to his character that he's stepping aside in light of this report but not leaving the school. He's moving to the Burlington campus and will take a leadership role focused "on strategy and development" as the satellite campus is being established.

With Bates gone, the faculty who poisoned the business school have won the victory they seek, but not without tremendous collateral damage to the institution.

McMaster faces the dual challenge of taming their emboldened professors at the same time as trying to find a new dean to run the school, with the knowledge that the university can no longer move in the direction of being more industry oriented.

The university will not find the best candidate for the position - those individuals will be wise enough to await an opening at another business school - someone who can juggle the infighting, quell concerns on Bay Street about sending their executives to DeGroote programs, and prevent a split between the campuses.

It's a tall order and I don't see how anyone will be able to prevent the school from splitting into two distinct entities - the undergraduate programs in Hamilton and the graduate ones in Burlington.

The one advantage they have is that the panel's report offers a road map for restructuring the school. At 36 pages, it's well worth reading for anyone following the continuing debate about the relevance of business schools within the university setting.

I wonder how many case studies will be written warning other business executives of the mistakes made by McMaster University after hiring Bates. One thing's for sure: They'll require more than 36 pages.

Ontario's senior university administrators are going to face their first provincially mandated austerity measure - they'll have to start paying for their own golf and country club memberships.

The Ontario government announced the province's "broader public sector" will no longer be allowed to pay for golf club and gym memberships or season tickets for sporting events, or get lump-sum payment for travel without receipts.

University administrators are included in the group that will be affected, and golf and country club memberships are a common perk given to highly-paid senior university administrators, as revealed by The Hamilton Spectator in 2008 after a freedom of information request.

While today's move is more about politics than sound fiscal policy - the savings are minuscule in relation to the billions of dollars spent by universities each year - it's good public policy.

Taxpayers and students should not be struggling to make ends meet at the same time that a highly paid university president is teeing off at their expense.

With some university presidents making more than a half-million dollars a year, it's about time they started paying for their own tee-off times.

The question now is: Will the government vigilantly enforce the ban or allow universities to continue robbing Peter to pay Paul?

The wage-freeze does not include benefits, which are unregulated. A larger bonus has the same effect on an administrator's bank account as a wage increase, but is allowed.

As well, university foundations can easily be used to continue funding perks for university administrators and, unless the government closes this loophole, it's likely they will. Universities justify some of these perks as the cost of fundraising. Rich people frequent country clubs and the president is able to befriend them to increase donations to the institution.

While this is a sound argument - it's flimsy. The president can pay his own pay.

Universities should think of the claw-back as a fundraiser that will easily pay for a lecturer or two.

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Ending perks received most of the attention today, but the announcement also included bad news for Ontario's research sector. The government is canceling the Premier's Discovery and Catalyst Awards, two of the three awards known collectively as the Premier's Innovation Awards.

These two awards cost the government $2.5-million each year. The $5-million Premier's Summit Award in Medical Research remains.

The cancellation is surprising, as the Ministry of Research and Innovation was one of Premier McGuinity's pet projects. You know money's tight when this is getting cut.

Does the "fiduciary duty" (i.e. acting in the best interests of the students) of a university's Board of Governors allow it to withhold funds from a student union when that union refuses to provide audited financial statements to the Board?

That's the crux of the current situation at Carleton University, where the Board of Governors is withholding student fees from the Carleton University Students' Association (CUSA) and the Graduate Students' Association (GSA).

The student unions have filed a petition with the Ontario courts in an attempt to force Carleton to give them the fee money.

The university board's position is that, according to the auditors advising them, their fiduciary duty is to make sure money collected is used for the stated purpose.  

The student unions are refusing to make public their audits and are accusing the University of trying to interfere. They say they are only accountable to the students and not to the university .

"The claim that this is about financial accountability is a red herring", stated GSA president Kimalee Phillip in a news release, "this is about political interference plain and simple. They want to silence students' voices on-campus."

In a statement on the University website, the institution says, "The university has no interest in determining or directing how student associations at Carleton University spend their funds. The university is simply asking for CUSA and GSA to be transparent and accountable to the Carleton community with regard to how student fees are disbursed."

I can understand the paranoia of the student associations.

They often disagree with Carleton's administration and an argument could easily be made that it is in the best interests of the institution to "interfere" in the operations of the student unions.

The student unions are a major risk to the institution's reputation. One only needs to remember the most embarrassing incident in Carleton's history.

In 2008,  CUSA voted to boycott the cystic fibrosis fundraiser Shinerama on the grounds that the disease only affects white people.

But even if the university wanted to use its leverage over student fees to control the students unions, it is a weak position. By providing full disclosure, the student unions would take this position away from the university.  

The Board of Governors that collects the fee from students does have a responsibility to ensure the fees are being used for their intended purpose.

The best method of ensuring the funds are being properly used is to read the entire financial audits of the student unions.

If CUSA and the GSA were serious about being transparent to students, they would release their annual audits for public viewing. And doing so would expose if Carleton is using this as a "red herring" or not.

By not making their books public, it looks like the student unions are more interested in playing petty political games and engaging in hyperbole than actually finding a solution to their current disagreement.

For its part, the university is providing funds for necessary services and holding the remainder in trust until such time as financial responsibility is ensured.

Ultimately, the courts will have to decide and create new legal precedent - there are at present no common law rulings dealing with the specifics of defining the limits of a university's "fiduciary duty" in relation to fees collected for student unions or societies.

The closest case we have to cite is Douglas Students' Union v. Douglas College.

In this case,  the Douglas Students' Union failed to complete financial audits for a few years and Douglas College refused to turn over student fees until the audits were completed.

The student union took the institution to court but the court did not rule either way if the actions of Douglas College were legal under the legislation governing student societies in British Columbia.

The court appointed a receiver to oversee the finances of the student union and both sides - the student union and the college - claimed victory in the case.

The situation at Carleton is much different - the student unions are not alleged to have incomplete audits, just that they're not making them public.

It all comes down to the limits of "fiduciary duty" and depending on the judge that hears the case, either side could win.