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In the past 3 months, I’ve seen first-hand how hard faculty, librarians, and staff at @dalhousieu have been working, first to rapidly transform Winter 2020 courses, and now to develop a university-wide online program. That’s *astonishing.*
But make no mistake, it came at the expense of many people’s mental, physical, and familial well-being. We didn’t just snap our fingers & have an online curriculum
This feat comes from ongoing, intense, unforgiving efforts. For many faculty, learning tech staff, librarians, front-line admin, and so on, it’s been a 7-full-days-a-week job for months, while constantly feeling like not enough is getting done.
Among all of my colleagues, every last one of whom is putting in this profound effort, I think especially of part-time faculty, many (most? all?) have had to do off-contract-period work just to ensure students have strong courses to attend.
And it seemed like it was all paying off! Our Summer and Fall courses are full to bursting, with wait lists, especially at first year. Huzzah!
Then today, my union, @dalfacultyassoc, tells us that Dal’s senior admin sprung a surprise bargaining plan to us staff, asking for “significant concessions” and a “a short window of time to negotiate.” What follows is me speaking for myself (w/in my rights as a faculty member)...
but... A) that seems at best an improper way to begin collective bargaining...
and B) According to a third-party financial analysis, Dalhousie ran a $39.5 MILLION surplus last year. Dalhousie regularly runs surpluses, and that has been at the expense of spending on the academic mission dropping for a decade. https://immediac.blob.core.windows.net/dfawebsite/2020%20PDFs/DFA.Review.Dal.Finances.April.2020.pdf
And they tell us now, in the midst of <gestures widely> everything, that they want concessions? CONCESSIONS!? How about all the online prep part-timers have been giving outside of their contract periods?
How about the blood, sweat and tears those of us in the classroom, labs, and libraries have poured into these last several months, and expect to keep pouring in until this pandemic is over?
Concessions?! Maybe the central administration should look in the mirror: if they want to build yet another surplus, maybe they should do it off their own backs this time. Bean counter, count thyself.
I have never felt so devalued and unappreciated at this institution. Whoever thought it was a good idea at this moment to add to stress instead of finding a way to, I don’t know, redirect that surplus, you couldn’t have done more disservice to morale if you had tried.
