Capilano University students will be writing their final exams this week as a strike by faculty members has been suspended.
The university announced Sunday that the exam schedule, which was supposed to start Monday morning, had been postponed to Thursday after late-night meetings between the Capilano Faculty Association and the university’s bargaining team produced nothing.
But, the two sides met again on Monday afternoon and agreed to non-binding mediation to solve the impasse — at least until the semester is over.
“We’re going to stick with the revised exam schedule because we don’t want to throw students’ worlds into a tizzy at this point,” said Richard Gale, Capilano’s academic vice-president. “Exams will begin Thursday at 8 a.m.”
Under the agreement, the two sides will meet with a mediator with significant post-secondary experience, according to the university. In the event an agreement is not reached, the mediator will issue non-binding recommendations.
The parties will then have 10 days to either accept or reject the recommendations. Should one or both parties reject the recommendations, the strike will resume and threaten the summer semester.
The remaining issues in the deadlocked labour dispute are academic freedom, benefits for part-time teachers and more control for the faculty over layoffs.
“Essentially, the university has accepted the proposal that we had put on the table on Saturday and where we got to Saturday night where we asked for either arbitration or a mediation-arbitration process,” said faculty association president Brent Calvert. “We’re happy that it’s done now. We wish it could have been done on Saturday because that would allow the original exam schedule to proceed.”
Gale credits the students with breaking the deadlock.
“I think both sides were really concerned that the students had the ability to complete their term – to go through their exams. I think we all heard the need of the students and responded to it,” he said.
Calvert, however, said the university could not ignore the chorus voices from the post-secondary sector across Canada supporting the Capilano faculty and lobbying the university to accept their reasonable offer.
“That’s really great for us. It means we can get out final grades and submit our final projects and see a kind of deadline where we can move on with our lives,” said Brittany Barnes, Capilano Students’ Union president.
But the exam period hasn’t been postponed so much as it has been condensed, Barnes added, which means some students won’t be able to write their exams, whether they want to or not.
“Some students booked off days to study and write their exams but those dates are no longer applicable and they’re not able to get more time off from work, or they have travel plans or what have you,” she said. “We want to make sure those students aren’t going to fall through the cracks.”
The students’ union has now thrown its support behind a 1,700-name petition started by third-year business student Asif Ali, asking for the exams to be made optional.
Ali said it would be an appropriate measure for students whose academic careers and personal lives have been thrown into disarray as a result of the strike they were powerless to stop.
“We’re trying to provide the students a voice as we’ve kind of been tossed around quite a bit recently,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t come to this but the university’s reputation is kind of at stake.”
Gale said only the teachers have the leeway to change the course curriculum or make exams optional.
