Update: Capilano University has postponed final exams after a last-ditch effort to end a faculty strike failed over night.
The Capilano Faculty Association and negotiators from the university met from Saturday afternoon until the early morning hours of Sunday to discuss moving the labour dispute into arbitration.
“Regrettably, after many hours of discussion, the parties remain at an impasse,” read a statement from the university on Sunday morning. “We recognize the uncertainty and concern created by this situation, and are working hard to mitigate the impact on our students, their families and other members of our campus community. Our most immediate priority is to finalize plans to allow students to successfully complete their academic terms.”
The new exam period will begin Thursday April 16 and conclude Friday April 24 – if the teachers agree to end the strike.
The revised schedule, listing new dates and times for all exams, will be posted on the website, and students will be notified by email as soon as the revised exam schedule becomes available.
Contract talks to end a faculty strike at Capilano University on the eve of the exam period have broken down.
With exams scheduled to start Monday morning, the Capilano Faculty Association met with the university’s bargaining team until 10 p.m. on Thursday to review one more proposal, which ended in one last impasse.
“We had put forward a response to their most recent proposal that we thought was a reasonable middle ground for agreement. The upshot is the faculty continue to be on strike,” said Richard Gale, Capilano’s academic vice-president.
“I thought we would have been far enough along at least to be able to say that the faculty was going to be coming back on Monday. That was my original hope and I’m quite disappointed and a little frustrated that didn’t happen.”
The two sides have become stuck on three issues: academic freedom, extending benefits to part-time faculty and limiting the administration’s ability to lay off teachers. The last issue has caused the most difficulty, as it is, in effect, a power struggle over who will control which courses are offered by the university.
The two sides clashed over the university cutting a swath of programs and laying off teachers in 2013.
“They want to kill some of the courses and programs that are in existence in order to have flexibility in deciding what new programs to pay for….because they think those are better or more sexy or more in keeping with the government’s job creation program,” said Eduard Lavalle, the faculty’s negotiator, adding that in most universities, the faculty have a greater say in the type of education offered.
“I don’t believe the people who administer Capilano University are much more capable of making those kinds of judgments than my colleagues and I.”
The university now faces three options for exams: Keep them scheduled in hopes of a deal being reached over the weekend, postpone them until closer to the end of the exam period, which closes on April 24, or — the worst case scenario — cancel the exams entirely and assign final grades based on the students’ work that had been marked up until the start of the labour dispute, Gale said.
Lavalle said he’s doubtful the last option will work as the teachers have not submitted their marks to the administration. At most, he said, they could give the students a pass based on attendance.
Though both sides appear to have dug in, Gale and Lavalle both said they remain hopeful the semester can be salvaged.
“I’m not prepared to give up on that because I know our faculty and I know they do believe in our students and I know we want to do what’s best for them.
“My hope is the CFA will listen to the students, listen to the faculty and agree to let our students prepare for and take their final exams,” Gale said.
Any future progress, though, will have to come from the administration making significant movement on the three remaining issues, Lavalle said.
“They’re going for the jugular on these issues,” he said.
“We could probably conclude the bargaining and terminate the strike within a very short period of time — maybe within half a day.”
The only other option to resolve the deadlock, Lavalle said, is arbitration.
“We’re willing to risk our position in order to be able to do that,” he said.
The Capilano Students Union, meanwhile, remains disappointed with the lack of progress and impact on students’ academic careers.
“We’re really disappointed to see that a resolution hasn’t been met so far and this is something that’s continually adding to the uncertainty around students and their academic careers,” said student union president Brittany Barnes.
“We know there are a lot of students who depend on their final projects and their final exams to boost their grades a little bit.”
