The Most Recent E-Mail

My favourite graffito was on a wall on Queen Street West in Toronto:
Always question authority before authority questions you.


By now, everyone --students and faculty alike -- will have received the e-mail from the VPA intended to calm fears and still rising student voices.

But what precisely does this e-mail tell students? Quite frankly, not much.

The opening motherhood statements about the administration being committed to a fair and negotiated settlement with the union is ostrich behaviour. The administration is choosing to ignore the fact that a strike vote has been taken with 88% in favour, and that since that announcement, only one round of negotiations has taken place because the administration chose not to attend the other two rounds.

There are only 8 half-days of scheduled negotiations before the strike date of December 5. It does not appear in fact as if the administration really believes in its own motherhood statments about a negotiated settlement.

So, let me say to students: Yes, continue to study and prepare for exams because your education is your responsibility. It is your job to review and internalize knowledge; learning need not be a directed activity.

But let me also tell you what the administration will not:

BE PREPARED FOR A FACULTY STRIKE ON DECEMBER 5, BECAUSE WE ARE MOBILIZING.

• The Strike Action Committee has gone into active preparations and a check list of preparations is going out to faculty tomorrow.
• The CAUT Defence Fund has already prepared and mailed a sizeable donation to the BUFA war chest, so that this strike can be seen through to the end.
• Pickets from other Canadian universities have already volunteered to be flown in to walk the line in solidarity with Brock faculty.

I spoke today by phone to a colleague from St. Thomas University in Fredericton who is a trustee of the CAUT Defence Fund. He has already volunteered to come to St. Catharines in solidarity, along with other volunteers from other universities.

Check out the expressions of solidarity already received on the BUFA website:

Letters of Support

The fear and frustration being provoked in our students is absolutely unnecessary. But it is the practice of the very brinksmanship that Dr. Lightstone denigrated in his remarks to Senate.

Not a very flattering lesson from senior administration to Brock students: Do as I say, not as I do.

I guess that bit of Queen Street graffiti had more than a kernel of truth to it:

Always question authority before authority questions you!

Demand real answers:

jack.lightstone@brocku.ca

tboak@brocku.ca