Brett Fairbairn, president of Thompson Rivers University
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Thompson Rivers University
March 28, 2024 - 6:00 AM
A new policy at Thompson Rivers University meant to stifle news reporting on its decision making was introduced by the school's president this week.
The move was met with criticism, but it's not the first time he's come under fire for trying to silence discussion of university business outside school walls.
TRU president Brett Fairbairn resigned from his executive position at the University of Saskatchewan a decade ago after a letter titled "The silence of the deans" caused a communications crisis at the Saskatoon university, where Fairbairn was provost at the time.
The school was dealing with funding cuts and preparing a strategic plan dubbed "TransformUS."
READ MORE: TRU withholds meeting documents because of news coverage
The plan would eventually be abandoned, but not before a professor would be fired and re-hired, and the university would lose two executives at the centre of it.
The 2014 restructuring plan would have cut, reduced or drastically changed some of the school's programs, including the newly accredited public health program.
The dean of that program Dr. Robert Buckingham penned the letter in May 2014 and sent it to both the premier and the opposition party. While it was written in opposition to the restructuring, it was also because executives, including Fairbairn, tried to silence any public criticism.
Fairbairn sent an email to Buckingham and another faculty member at the end of April. He told them his "expectation" was that both would support the university's messaging.
"It is important for leaders of our community to uphold the university's autonomy and its right to make its own decisions whether or not we individually agree with them. Conversations about university structures belong in the university," the email read.
Two weeks later, Buckingham's letter was released publicly with Fairbairn's email attached, which is available online via CTV News.
Less than 24 hours later, Buckingham was escorted from the school by security. Fairbairn signed the termination letter.
READ MORE: Kamloops mayor suspends city's top employee
Buckingham was reinstated to a faculty position within days, but not as dean, a position he held for five years.
Fairbairn also resigned from his executive position shortly before an emergency board meeting at the university, a week after Buckingham's letter.
U of S president Ilene Busch-Vishniac was fired by the board just days later.
Fairbairn remained at U of S as a professor until 2018. That year Fairbairn left the university, where he studied in the 1980s before he began working as a professor, to take the job as president at Thompson Rivers University.
Fairbairn's new policy at TRU instead stifles news coverage and public participation, rather than criticism from faculty.
Agendas for upcoming board and senate meetings have traditionally been published online a week in advance.
On Monday, he changed that policy so the public can only access details of the meetings three hours before they start, a decision he made because news agencies were publishing updates about the school days before the meetings.
"Media have discovered those written reports as a convenient way to obtain quotable information about what's going on at TRU. That isn't the audience that I'm writing them for," he said at the meeting.
"If I were looking to write a media release, I would write a media release."
Despite the new policy, the university said it "remains committed to transparency and engaging with our community," according to a statement provided by Robert Koopmans from the TRU communications department.
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