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.

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.

Sub-sub-series consists primarily of photocopied material from the Sun, the Province, the Peak, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Bulletin, and other publications relating to the development of SFU. Subjects, events and activities documented include post-secondary education in the 1960s; student activism; the development and administration of SFU; post-secondary educational systems; faculty-administration relations; the Board of Governors; the CAUT Censure; the PSA affair; the Shell service station dispute; and the presidencies of Patrick McTaggart-Cowan and Kenneth Strand. Records include journal and magazine articles; newspaper clippings; reports and book excerpts.

Sub-sub-series consists of photocopied material relating to the development and administration of academic departments; and the appointment, promotion, and tenure of faculty. Hugh Johnston numbered most of the pages and created an index to this material. Subjects, activities, and events documented include the Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee; the Appointment Committee; the Joint Committee on Salaries, Promotions and Tenure; the SFU Faculty Association; faculty appointments; the CAUT Censure; sabbatical leave; PSA dismissals; foreign scholars; departmental reviews; the University Development Committee; the development of academic research centres and institutes; faculty members; culturally significant individuals, groups and movements of the 1960s; student activism and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Sub-sub-series includes appointment notices; selected chapters of an unpublished anthology of essays; correspondence; draft policy statements; printed emails; faculty handbooks; interview transcriptions; discussion papers; list serve postings; memoranda; minutes; printed material from online newsletters, newspapers, magazines, and encyclopedias; newspaper and journal articles; reports; and working papers.

Sub-series consists of records relating to the Vice-President, Academic's interactions with the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). Activities and topics documented include CAUT's 1971 censure of SFU relating to the dispute in the university's Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology (PSA) Department, university governance, faculty benefits, and development of research ethics policies. Records include correspondence, reports, news releases and other CAUT printed material.