Tributes are pouring in for an acclaimed American Samoan poet and teacher who was murdered last Saturday in Apia allegedly by a fellow poet.

According to local police Dr Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, a retired professor from the University of Hawai’i Manoa, was found dead at the Galu Moana Theatre in Vaivase-Uta.

The Samoa Observer reported last Sunday that police had charged playwright and poet, Papalii Sia Figiel, with manslaughter with the death but on Monday upgraded the charge to murder.

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The 78-year-old Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard, who was also a historian and environmentalist, has been described as a peaceful and calm person.

The Samoa Observer reports a friend of Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard said she was completely shocked and saddened when she found out.

She said Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard was a kindred spirit, a brilliant writer, and a supporter of writers.

“Someone who did not deserve to die like that. She was a very private person despite being a giant in the literary world,” they told the Observer.

Shocked literary friends
Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard’s death has also shocked many of her literary friends, who have been posting messages of condolence, and resulted in an outpouring of grief on social media reacting to the news.

In 2022, Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard warned of the implications of the Samoa government’s inaction to address concerns about the adverse effects of paraquat. She was part of the group advocating for the ban on the dangerous weedkiller.

Born in 1946, she was an American Samoan academic, writer, poet, and environmentalist and was the first Samoan to become a full professor in the United States. She is the sister of American politician Mike Gabbard and the aunt of politician Tulsi Gabbard.

She was born in Utulei village in American Samoa and educated at Sonoma State University, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Hawai’i.

Her PhD thesis called ‘Traditional Comic Theatre in Samoa: A Holographic View’. She taught creative writing at the University of Hawai’i for nearly 20 years and was an associate professor of Pacific literature at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.

In 2002, she published her collection of poetry, Alchemies of Distance and in August 2020, she was named by USA Today on its list of influential women from US territories.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Late last year, the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) initiated a process to eliminate 170 academic jobs to cut costs. The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) found AUT’s approach breached its collective employment agreement with staff and their union and ordered it to withdraw the termination notices.

Tertiary education runs on an insecure labour force in New Zealand and elsewhere. The AUT decision illustrates that even traditionally secure positions are becoming less so.

Tenure is the traditional protection for academics in the tertiary sector, but New Zealand does not have tenure at its universities.

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Tenure is more than a perk

A common argument against tenure is that it leads to a complacent, under-motivated university professor. These concerns are hypothetical — evidence that tenure causes productivity differences is lacking.

In fact, one of few large studies on the subject found the opposite. Good administrators should be able to manage any actual productivity issues as they do in all other workplaces.

On the other hand, lack of tenure creates risks for free societies. Tenure is common practice in other liberal democracies. UNESCO says:

Security of employment in the profession, including tenure […] should be safeguarded as it is essential to the interests of higher education.

Tenure is important, if not indispensable, for academic freedom. Academic freedom is essential to a university’s mission, and this mission is a characteristic of a democracy. As University of Regina professor Marc Spooner put it:

A country’s institutional commitment to academic freedom is a key indicator of whether its democracy is in good health.

The Employment Relations Authority has issued a compliance order to the university, requiring it to withdraw its notices of termination. https://t.co/NUvBfqS6ad

— Stuff (@NZStuff) January 5, 2023

Scholarship is not piecework
The ERA said AUT misunderstood terminology in the collective employment agreement.
The clash term was “specific position”. AUT’s position was that specific positions are identified by professional ranks (from lecturer to professor) and the numbers of each role across four particular faculties.

The ERA did not agree and concluded an essential component for identifying specific positions is the employee, being the person who is the current position holder or appointee to a position.

AUT’s assertion would be like the air force using the rank of “captain” to adjust its number of pilots. The number of captains does not tell you what each captain does, be it to fly planes or fix them.

Without tenure, a standard less than this minimum established by the ERA can be used to eliminate academics who have legitimate priorities that do not align with the administrative staff of the day, or are the victims of any other concealed discrimination. The ERA clarification makes it more difficult to inhibit intramural criticism, the right to criticise the actions taken by managers and leaders of the university.

The authoritative review of freedom of speech and academic freedom in Australian universities singles out the importance of academic freedom for this purpose, saying:

It […] reflects the distinctive relationship of academic staff and universities, a relationship not able to be defined by reference to the ordinary law of employer and employee relationships.

The ERA clarification helps to prevent the firing of academics who are teaching, researching or questioning things administrators, funders or governments don’t want them to. But it is a finger in a leaking dyke. Tenure is a tried and tested general solution.

Health of the democracy
We only need to observe the events in the United States to recognise the importance of tenure. This benchmark country has a proud tradition of tenure. Nevertheless state governments are dismantling tenure to impose political control on curriculums. Our liberal democracy is not immune to this.

We need more than tenure-secured academic freedom to enable universities to do the sometimes dreary and at other times risky work of providing societies alternatives to populist, nationalist or autocratic movements. But as the Douglas Dillon chair in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, Darrell M. West, wrote, academic freedom is a problem for these movements.

Recognizing the moral authority of independent experts, when despots come to power, one of the first things they do is discredit authoritative institutions who hold leaders accountable and encourage an informed citizenry.

In a system with tenure, a university would have a defined stand-down period preventing reappointment to vacated positions. For example, if an academic program and associated tenured staff that teach it were eliminated at the University of Arkansas for financial reasons, the program could not be reactivated for at least five years. The stand-down inhibits whimsical or agenda-fuelled restructuring as a lazy option to manage staff.

If a similar trade-off were to be applied to how AUT defined specific positions, then no academics could be hired there for five years. It is very different to be prevented from hiring academics than it is to, say, not re-establishing a financially struggling department or program.

Herein lies the true value of tenure. It is greater than a protection of the individual. It protects society from wasteful or ideologically motivated restructuring as an alternative to poor management. Tenure is security of the public trust in our universities.

Dr Jack Heinemann is professor of molecular biology and genetics, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

An award-winning professor of sport, leadership and governance has criticised her university’s handling of recent redundancies of 170 academic staff, saying a “rethink” is needed.

Professor Lesley Ferkins, director of Auckland University of Technology’s Sports Performance Research Institute and professor of sport, leadership and governance, told RNZ Nine to Noon that AUT’s senior management had lost the trust of staff.

Interviewed by Kathryn Ryan, Professor Ferkins said that if AUT continued on its current path it would “end in absolute disaster’.

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She said the university needed to draw on the “collective wisdom” of the academic staff.

Professor Ferkins has kept her job in the restructure, but has written an impassioned letter to vice chancellor professor Damon Salesa and the leadership team denouncing the redundancy process as lacking in transparency sound leadership values.

Last month, Professor Ferkins was named the Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand (SMAANZ) Distinguished Service Award winner.

Returning to ERA
AUT returned to the Employment Relations Authority today as part of its plans to make 170 academic staff redundant.

Yesterday, after a legal bid by the union representing teaching staff, the authority found the university’s process for issuing redundancy notices was flawed and breached the collective agreement.

It found that volunteers for redundancy should have been called for once specific positions were identified as surplus, but this did not happen.

In a letter to staff yesterday, AUT’s group director of people and culture Beth Bundy said AUT’s view of the findings differed from that of the Tertiary Education Union (TEU).

She said the university would return to the ERA today to seek clarification and hoped to have that by tomorrow.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

I couldn’t help but be drawn to the constant flow of emotions that came in the wake of the death of Professor Brij Lal on Christmas Day.

People from all walks of life shared their innermost feelings. There was no holding back for many.

Although he wrote books and learned articles in academic journals, Professor Lal also wrote, when he had time, for The Fiji Times.

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So he and I shared a correspondence. And what came through so often in his writing was that this man, whose intellect would carry him in any place in the world, regarded the country of his birth — our country — as a special place.

The good professor came from a farming family in Tabia, Vanua Levu. They weren’t rich, but that is from where he rose — to become an emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian history at the Australian National University.

He was your average farm boy, but he had it in him to become someone who would be held in very high regard.

He would eventually walk the corridors of the well-established, in many countries around the world, before he finally settled in Brisbane, Australia. Yet he never lost that touch of humility and appreciation of others.

Today we look at that connection. From Tabia to Brisbane! From a farm boy to an emeritus professor! Professor Lal’s life leaves many lessons to appreciate and value.

There are platforms for us to achieve, or aspire for. Yet despite the fact that he lived in a more developed country, with better available resources and the potential for a better life, Professor Lal never forgot his roots on Vanua Levu.

He yearned to return to see once more the “green undulating hills of Tabia”.

He considered it a special place. We are fortunate to live in a beautiful country abundant with rich resources.

We are friendly people who have learnt to embrace multiracialism, religion and ethnicity. In the face of all our differences, we have learnt to live together, appreciating these differences, and instinctively embracing them.

For his part, Professor Lal was proud to tell the world about Tabia. He lived with very strong memories of his childhood, and the special connection he had with people he knew and grew up with.

Perhaps, when we are able to take a moment, to get a jolt of reality, to truly appreciate what we have now, and the endless possibilities, we should reflect on how hard it would be to be denied the right to return home.

In one of his most recent pieces for The Fiji Times, Professor Lal wrote:

“Fiji is a bit like Churchill’s Russia, a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’.

“Here is a beautiful country full of a talented population, sophisticated infrastructure and abundant natural resources which is sadly prone to debilitating self-inflicted wounds that hobble its present and dent its future.”

Professor Lal epitomised the value Fijians have for their connection to their homeland.

In the face of the covid-19 pandemic, we are reminded about this sense of appreciation and value. We are reminded about who we are — Fijians!

This editorial was published in The Fiji Times on 28 December 2021 under the original title of “Our special place in the world”. Republished with permission.

Scores of students from the Papuan Student Association (IMP) in Medan, North Sumatra, have held a protest action this week in front of the North Sumatra University (USU) Rectorate Bureau Building protesting against alleged racism by a professor, reports CNN Indonesia.

During the action on Tuesday, the students demanded that the professorship of USU’s Yusuf Leonard Henuk be revoked, that he be expelled from the USU because he has tarnished the university’s good name, and that police investigate the case.

“We’re asking that Henuk be removed from his position as a USU professor. We also ask that he be prosecuted,” said action coordinator Yance Emany at the demonstration.

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“On Twitter he likened Papuans to monkeys and said that Papuans were stupid. These kinds of cases cannot be allowed to be protected at USU or in Indonesia.”

Emany also threatened to hold protest actions with even more people if the USU authorities failed to follow up on their demands.

“End racism against Papuans. If there is no response we will come back with even more people. We ask for the Bapak [Mr] USU rector’s cooperation.

“We as Papuan students oppose racism. We ask that there no longer be any racism against the Papuan people,” he said.

Pledge to study student demands
USU rector Muryanto Amin took the opportunity to pledge that he would first study the student’s demands. He said they would gather evidence and summon Henuk – who currently works at the USU agricultural faculty – and ask for clarification.

“Later we will study the Papuan students’ demands and whether or not the person concerned committed an ethical violation. The person concerned is a lecturer at USU. Later we will summon him to then determine what steps will be undertaken,” he said.

Last month on January 2, Henuk posted a tweet on his Twitter account @ProfYLH about former National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) commissioner Natalius Pigai which smacked of racism.

Henuk uploaded a photograph of Pigai alongside a monkey looking at a mirror. The photograph was accompanied with the caption “Indeed, does Pigai have any capacity in this country”.

In another posting he tweeted: IT’S BEEN PROVEN THAT PAPUANS ARE INDEED STUPID, THE PROBLEM IS PAPUANS WHO ARE CONSIDERED SMART SUCH AS @NataliusPigai2 CAN BE DECEIVED BY THE DEVIL @VeronicaKoman. ALL PAPUAN ARE CONTROLLED BY THE DEVIL/DAEMONS SO THEY DAMAGE THE ENTIRE CHRISTIAN FAITH. WHERE IS THE ROLE OF THE PAPUAN CHURCH?”.

When sought separately for confirmation, Henuk denied that his posting was a form of racism.

For Henuk, it was a “satirical allusion” about Pigai who he believed was arrogant.

‘A satirical allusion’
Henuk said the public should focus on the mirror in the posting, not the photograph of the monkey placed alongside Pigai’s picture.

“It was a satirical allusion, an allusion that he should self-reflect. Why’s he [Pigai] so arrogant. I don’t agree with the way he hit out at Hendropriyono”, said Henuk when sought for confirmation by CNN Indonesia.

“In relation to my posting, that’s what’s called an illustration [the photograph of the monkey], a reflection that he should reflect, self-introspection. So I say if you don’t want to be attacked then don’t attack other people,” he added.

With regard to saying that Papuans are stupid, Henuk said the statement was directed at Papuans who supported pro-independence leader Benny Wanda and exiled Papuan human rights activist and lawyer Veronica Koman.

“It was just a satirical allusion, right. In saying stupid I meant Papuans who still support Koman and Wenda. Meaning they’re stupid. This country is already independent, but many Papuans still believe in Wenda and Koman,” he claimed.

“Many of my friends are church people, why doesn’t the church function to make Papuan people aware. Come on lets enjoy the independence that God has given us.

“I’m a person from eastern Indonesia, I’m envious of Papua, because Jokowi [President Joko Widodo] has built really good roads in Papua, but what have we got in East Nusa Tenggara?,” he claimed.

IndoLeft News notes:
Former State Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief retired general Abdullah Mahmud Hendropriyono recently called for the forced removal of some two million indigenous Papuans to the island of Manado in an apparent response to last year’s December 1 declaration by the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) of a West Papuan provisional government headed by ULMWP Chairperson Benny Wenda.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Mahasiswa Papua Tuntut USU Copot Gelar Profesor Yusuf Henuk”.