Friday May 29 – Saturday May 30 2026, London, Ontario.
Registration Fee:
Friday $130.00
Saturday $120.00
Friday and Saturday $250.00
Deadline is May 20 for registration!
If you would like to pay by credit you may do so by filling out the form found here. We will register you once we receive either amount (note that other amounts will be considered donations unless otherwise indicated to us at safs@safs.ca). We also accept e-transfers at payments@safs.ca. Registration will close May 20.
Hotel: Our recommendation is the Delta Armouries where the Friday event will be held.
Registration & Coffee
Gunnery Ballroom
Discussion with SAFS Board Members:
An informal discussion by SAFS board members about the current state of academic freedom in Canada.
Bruce Pardy (Queens), Does the traditional university have a future?
A panel discussion asking what universities are for, whether they are capable of reform, whether in the era of AI they will become redundant or transform themselves
Cocktails (Gunnery Ballroom)
Dinner (Gunnery Ballroom)
Non-sectarian and Non-political in Principle
Andrew Irvine, University of British Columbia Okanagan
The Eighth Annual Chris and John Furedy Lecture on the Contemporary University
Gunnery Ballroom
Please note that this session is free and open to the public.
Registration and Coffee
Welcome and Introductory Remarks (Robert Thomas)
Daniel Page, Academic Culling and the Future of Academic Freedom in Canadian Universities.
Academic hiring is a primary process that cultivates the next generation of academics, shaping the character of academic communities within public universities. While an institution may cultivate an academic culture that elevates dispassionate inquiry and intellectual autonomy among academics, it may also foster a different sort of culture oriented toward other objectives. There is growing evidence in Canada that contemporary Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity-based hiring practices and policies are contributing to shifts in Canadian institutions around this concern, inviting broader societal discussion regarding the functional role of public universities. Page will introduce the mechanism of academic culling as a generational threat to academic freedom in Canadian universities. Drawing on this framework, Page will present new research results surrounding academic hiring, including novel examples and contributions to this conversation from his ongoing research in Canadian Computer Science and STEM.
Pierre Desrochers (UTM) and Joanna Szurmak (UTM), Betting against humanity: Reflections on Paul Ehrlich’s (1932-2026) outlook and legacy.
Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich (1932-2026) entered the public consciousness with his 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb in which he famously proclaimed that “The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” Despite Ehrlich’s repeated failed empirical predictions and constant refusal to abide by the norms of open academic discourse, his academic and media career became one of America’s most successful, for a scientist. This talk will review Ehrlich’s major contributions and suggest that sustained pressure to abide by the rules of open academic debate would have likely resulted, on his part, in theorizing more connected to reality, albeit probably at the expense of his popular success.
Sinclair MacRae (MRU).
The Threats to Academic Excellence and Academic Freedom from Regarding Education as a Status Good
This presentation contrasts assessing education based on merit or worth and viewing it as a status good. Whereas a university education grounded in the pursuit of academic excellence is consistent with both the Enlightenment project and the intrinsic valuing of that education, the same is not true for valuing higher education as a status good. Moreover, whereas the protection and promotion of academic freedom rights is essential for helping to establish the complex social and cultural milieu within which the pursuit of academic excellence can thrive, such rights are expendable on this alternative conception. It will be further argued that the corruption of higher education through the influence of Social Justice Theory is partly due to that ideology’s valuing of education as a status good and that this helps explain such disparate phenomena as the rise of cancel culture, EDI initiatives, and the ongoing fueling of grade inflation.
Lunch
Time, Place and Manner: Distinguishing Regulation and Censorship
Andrew Irvine, University of British Columbia
Annual Meeting
Informal Gathering (Beertown)
