At Alberta, Trading Furloughs for Information

Faculty members at the University of Alberta agreed to accept six furlough days in return for more access to information about university finances, The Edmonton Journal reported. Under the agreement, a new committee -- with equal representation of administrators and professors -- will review finances (including data previously unavailable to faculty members). Walter Dixon, president of the faculty association, told the Journal that the arrangement was "not a matter of having any sort of veto power,” but about the “ability to report on those activities and comment on them publicly. If we think it’s the wrong decision, we can actually say so before that decision is made so that there may be some sober second thought.”