This has been an exhausting exercise, this impending strike.We took the the strike vote over a month ago. Since then we have had many, many meetings of the Strike Action Committee, we have had several information pickets, as well as the Information Session for Students. All along the way, I have responded to my students' request for information about the strike as best I could.
Emotionally, there has also been a price to pay.
I have worried about going through Christmas without a paycheque.
I have also worried about my younger colleagues who have new families and new mortgages, who must also face the possibility of a December without a paycheque in the bank.
And I have worried, as I have written earlier, about my dilemma as teacher and faculty member -- which role should be privileged in this situation?
It is deeply moving for me on a personal level that I am able, as always, to draw strength and hope from my students, both past and present.
One student, whom I have never met, e-mailed to thank me for providing information about the situation via this blog. He allowed that he did not agree with everything that BUFA said, but he was nevertheless grateful for the information he found here. I was touched that someone whom I have never taught would take the time to express his thanks for something that is his right at a university, the right to knowledge.
A former student, still enrolled at Brock, e-mailed this afternoon to offer his encouragement, to let me know that he and others like him do get the bigger picture, to say that he understands why a strike is necessary.
And a graduate of Brock gave me permission to share some of her thoughts in this forum. Sarah Carruthers (B.A., Popular Culture, 2006) wrote in her snail-mail letter:
"It is hard to see so many problems in a place I called home and valued so much for four years. I certainly do not like what is happening and how it is affecting all of the people I left at Brock whom I care about. ... I really do not get how the administration can justify what is going on.
What happened to 'in the best interest of the student?'
When did the education of students stop being a priority?
When did academic standards become something that did not matter?
Not supporting or compensating faculty is saying just that, that the education of students does not matter and that the students who pay $15,000 a year for four years to get a degree do not deserve the best professors and the best work of the professors they have. ...
What does it say to potential students when the University isn't willing to do what it needs to do to keep a top notch faculty doing work that produces top notch graduates?
When they put faculty last, all they are really doing is putting the students last, students who pay to keep the institution running."
It is truly amazing how much we can learn from students if we just stop and listen ...
Time for another Motrin.
1 comment:
Hear ye. Hear ye. If a picture is worth a thousand words, one blogger should be worth a thousand faculty. At last count there are 568 faculty at Brock, so your one Blog, is worth the entire university.
By the way, my students, whom I have been entirely honest with on issues (not trying to sway one way or another), have been supportive and concerned so far. I have asked them to seek out the facts. Administration has been, hitherto, unwilling to provide any facts, except for the recent, strangely worded emails from Terry Boak. Given the lack of accuracy in many of his previous communications, I am left wondering how reliable any communication is from him.
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