There’s a glimmer of hope Capilano University’s semester can be saved before exams are scheduled to begin on Monday.
Capilano Faculty Association members walked off the job on Wednesday morning after the teachers and administration couldn’t reach a deal in contract talks. But a middle-of-night proposal delivered by the teachers before the strike began could break the deadlock.
Negotiators from the university and the teachers were scheduled to meet in the afternoon on Thursday as a deadline for making a decision about whether exams can proceed loomed.
Outstanding issues at the bargaining table for the teachers are an academic freedom clause, regularizing part-time faculty and limitations on the employer’s right to lay off faculty, according to Eduard Lavalle, the union’s negotiator.
“We made a proposal that I think meets some of the requests that had been put forward through proposals by the university,” he said noting both the faculty and the administration would like to see the dispute resolved before the exam period begins. “In deference to that, we’ve made some concessions.”
Administrators too remain hopeful, according to Richard Gale, Capilano’s academic vice-president.
“We have plans for going forward and we’re going to tell the students they should plan on studying for and taking their exams,” Gale said. “My hope is that instructors are also planning for this as well.”
University administrators have been looking to other post-secondary schools to see how they might deal with cancelled or postponed exams. A decision will likely have to be reached by Friday, Gale said.
Students, meanwhile, have been caught in the middle.
Fourth-year business student Sara Hajaghaie led a faction of classmates across the picket line on Wednesday in order to make the point that students have the most at stake in the dispute.
Hajaghaie said she has applied for jobs that are contingent upon having a degree, as is her conditional acceptance for a master’s program at Capilano. A cancelled exam period, she said, would jeopardize her career and force the hard work she and her classmates have done to go unacknowledged.
“It will mean that four years of my invested time and me being indebted and me giving up other avenues of career and my ability to put my time and energy in different areas is just somewhat wasted and delayed and held behind. It’s not fair,” she said.
Hajaghaie said she admires her teachers and feels they deserve to be well compensated and enjoy job security but that extending control over layoffs to the teachers would be not feasible for the administration.
Kaschelle Thiessen a student and mother of two who would otherwise be graduating this semester from the global stewardship program is also needing her transcript in order to be accepted to Simon Fraser University for this fall. But Thiessen has chosen to stand in solidarity with the teachers.
“I’ve gotten a huge amount out of my education from Capilano and it’s largely to do with the professors here. They’ve been more than just teachers. They know my name,” Thiessen said. “I’m definitely a person here. I’m not just a number in a big institution and they’ve really gone above and beyond in providing an education to the students here.”
Even if the strike has been stressful, students still owe it to their teachers to fight for a university system that will serve the needs of future students, Thiessen added.
“Even in the case that graduation might be delayed for one semester, it’s more important to me in the long-term for us to have a culture that respects people’s right to work and the academic freedom for us to be able to take the courses we need to take,” she said. “I don’t anticipate anyone’s lives being ruined by this.”
The university is advising students to check online for strike news at capilanou.ca/faculty-strike-updates/.
