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Department of Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology
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Michael Lebowitz fonds

  • F-129
  • Fonds
  • 1960 - 1971

Fonds consists of records relating to a dispute between SFU's administration and the Political Science, Sociology, and Anthropology Department. In July 1969 SFU President Kenneth Strand placed the PSA Department under trusteeship. In September eight faculty members and a number of students went on strike. Strand suspended the faculty members with pay and informed them of their right to appeal. One faculty member, Nathan Popkin, asked for a separate hearing because, although he was technically "on strike," he conducted classes in his home. Mike Lebowitz agreed to act as his counsel before the appeal committee chaired by UBC economist Gideon Rosenbluth.

The Rosenbluth Committee concluded that there was no cause for dismissal. The university reinstated Popkin only to allow his contract to expire the following year.

Fonds consists of correspondence, minutes, transcripts, agendas, notes, schedules, procedural rules, chronologies, reports, constitutions, petitions, news clippings, and other documents.

While Lebowitz acquired the papers for Popkin's defense, there is considerable material relating to the other professors who went on strike.

Lebowitz, Michael

Department of Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology collection (Norman Swartz collector)

  • F-131
  • Collection
  • 1969 - 1970

Norman Swartz joined the Department of Philosophy at SFU in 1967 and retired as Professor Emeritus in 1998.

During Swartz's early years at SFU, the Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology Department was in academic and administrative turmoil, which culminated in the Department being placed under trusteeship by the University administration and eight faculty members going on strike.

Various faculty members, administrators and students produced documents to support their points of view during the PSA crisis. As he explained in his autobiographical notes, Swartz collected all of the PSA material that circulated around the University and that reached his desk from 1969 to 1970. Collection includes correspondence, memoranda, newspaper clippings and other documents related to the ongoing events in the PSA Department at this time.

Swartz, Norman

Koenraad Kuiper graduate student mailbox collection

The series consists of one file made up of materials that were deposited in Koenraad Kuiper's graduate student mailbox in 1969. Taken as a whole, it provides a sense of the types of materials that were circulating on campus during a tumultuous period in SFU's history.

Records include reports, articles, newsletters, and correspondence related to the PSA affair; memorandums and correspondence about the trial of the 114 students who were arrested for occupying the Academic Services building; a report from the Presidential Search Committee; copies of articles from The Peak; a copy of Focos magazine; two issues of SFU Komix; a copy of the first issue of SFU Comment; and miscellaneous materials related to Kuiper's role as a graduate student.

Kuiper, Koenraad

Special hearings

In the fall of 1969, nine professors in the Department of Political Science, Sociology, and Anthropology withdrew their services in response to the department being put under trusteeship by the University administration. The University appointed a trustee because of allegations of departmental mismanagement of finances. The department also did not produce a constitution and tenure committee structure that were acceptable to the University administration. Various student and faculty support strikes and protest actions followed. The President suspended nine PSA faculty members who were most actively involved in the strike and later fired seven of them.

The series comprises audio recordings of the suspension hearings held by the Board of Governors for six of those faculty members. The Board conducted the hearings to enable faculty members to appeal their suspension by the President. In each case, the Board upheld the decision by the President to suspend the faculty members. Additional legal proceedings followed the suspension hearings.

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