Is there anyone left on this campus who still believes that senior administrators have the university’s best interests at heart?
Three days before the exam deadline, ten days before the end of classes, the university refused an invitation to sit down to talk with PSAC.
The university persists with the fiction that their side, though “committed to reaching an agreement,” is unable to return to the table because PSAC has not made a new proposal. Yet, there is no requirement that one side or the other must present a new proposal for negotiations to resume. Bargaining teams can meet to clarify their differences so that new proposals can be drawn up. They can meet to bring new explanations to previous proposals. An employer that was genuinely committed to reaching an agreement would be working hard to get negotiations moving again. Queen’s is not that employer. Yesterday, we learned that on Tuesday afternoon of this week, PSAC offered to return to the table to restart talks. The university refused.
Queen’s is not just the employer of the striking PSAC workers. It is also the employer of thousands of other workers and the provider of education for more than 20,000 undergraduate students. The refusal of the university’s bargaining team members to engage in talks with PSAC demonstrates disdain for the entire campus community and a willingness to degrade the general conditions of work and study here. And for what exactly? To break the union? To create a hostile climate for labour and the QUFA negotiations that will come later this year? To prove (to the Board? the Premier? each other? the rest of us?) just how hard-minded they are? Skilled and competent leaders – the kind we are preparing our students to be – would have found a way through the impasse by now, with good communication, strong efforts at relationship building, willingness to compromise, respect for the university’s stated values, and an ability to keep the needs of the whole community in view.
“All the possibility and potential here at Queen’s resides in our people, whose intellectual curiosity, passion to achieve and commitment to collaboration are great cause for pride.” It’s true, of course. What would the institution look like if this sentiment were reflected in the actions of the people who have the privilege of running the place?
For more on fiction and fact in the strike see here. For the views of undergraduate students, see these letters that have been shared with QCAA.
2. The best news this week is that undergrad students are organizing. At the time of writing, an open letter had been signed by more than 1300 students. I cannot remember anything over the last three decades – beyond street parties – that has generated such a show of collective intent among students at Queen’s. In the letter, students demand: 1) that all of their academic work be graded; 2) that they receive GD (grade deferred) notations on their transcripts rather than CR (credit standing, similar to a pass), which is what Deans and other administrators are proposing; 3) that they receive partial tuition refunds; and 4) that Queen’s return to the bargaining table with a fair offer for PSAC.
Tomorrow students are meeting at 2:00 pm, outside Stauffer Library, for a protest and march to Robert Sutherland Hall. The kids are alright!
3. Students are not alone in their concern about grades. Faculty members are also concerned about plans to simply apply CR grades in classes where work remains unmarked at the end of term. CR grades can disadvantage students. A number of faculty members have suggested that GD (grade deferred) notations could be a less harmful and more appropriate option. GD is a notation that is used on transcripts when administrative circumstances have delayed grading, which seems a pretty apt description of where we are at. With a GD, students know that their assignments and exams will eventually be assessed, and that they will receive a letter grade to reflect the quality of their work. A CR, by contrast, has no relationship to the student’s own achievements. It is simply the easiest option for the university. It’s a bureaucratic solution to the withdrawal of TA and TF labour. A discussion of these grading options is available here.
4. This short statement by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) reminds us that the assignment of student grades is “an element of academic freedom…It is a violation of academic freedom to impose a mandatory grading policy which constrains or prohibits an instructor from issuing grades which he/she deems and can defend as reasonable.”
5. A solidarity rally for PSAC 901 will be held this Friday, 28 March, at 11:00 am, at the corner of Union Street and University Avenue.
6. On Friday 21 March, faculty members held a rally and teach-in to support our graduate student colleagues. After marching from the Yellow House to Richardson Hall, faculty members were joined by PSAC members who were working the picket line. Teach-in speakers talked about the formation of PSAC 901, Canadian labour history, the history and meanings of the term ‘scabbing,’ trans activists in the labour movement, and the conditions of graduate student workers at Queen’s.
7. An excellent letter supporting PSAC 901, written by Professor Ariel Salzmann of the Department of History, appeared in Friday’s Whig Standard.
8. TAs at Concordia just settled after an 8-day strike, winning an overall 20% pay increase – up from 11% in the university’s initial offer – along with retroactive pay in accordance with negotiated increases for 2024 and 2025. They also gained an indexing mechanism that sets TA hours in relation to the number of undergraduate students enrolled at Concordia. The point of the indexing mechanism is to make sure that, in the context of budget cuts, the university does not cut TA hours to pay for the higher wages.
Please circulate this newsletter to your students and colleagues.
✦ ✦ ✦
Addendum…
In the newsletter I sent earlier this morning, I mentioned that undergraduate students will be holding a protest this afternoon outside Robert Sutherland Hall, which is where Senate had been scheduled to meet.
Senators have just been informed that their meeting has been moved fully online – for reasons of ‘security.’
A group of undergraduate students holding signs and making demands is not a security risk. It is a sign that our students do not feel heard. It is also a sign that they are critical thinkers, that they take initiative, that they care about the quality of their education and the state of this university, which seems to be deteriorating around them.
Anyone who serves on Senate should expect to be confronted by student protesters. Some of the most important changes at this university have come about because of student protest. Recall, for instance, a protest at Senate about racism that led to the establishment of PICARDI, the Principal’s Implementation Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The students were smart and brave. Their actions made many people in the room very uncomfortable, but the protest helped to prompt necessary change. After that protest, Senators continued to show up to meetings, in person, as they have done for generations. Most of us are not afraid of our students. And we reject the university’s increasing attempts to make us so.
Protest is a key part of democratic process. In the current global political context we should be encouraging our students to see the value of public, collective actions, even when they make us uncomfortable. If we are afraid to face our students, what will we do when the stakes are higher?
Queen's Coalition Against Austerity 