Update March 5: After this story was published, the Mount Saint Vincent University Faculty Association released a statement that answers one of the story's key unknowns: Classes at The Mount are starting up again on Thursday, Mar. 7. At this point, it remains unknown if the semester is going to be extended to make up for the two-plus weeks of class missed while faculty were on strike. MSVU's senate is expected to decide on that later.
After three weeks and two days of striking, the largest faculty union at Mount Saint Vincent University voted "Yes," by a large majority, to pass a tentative agreement with their employer—the MSVU Board of Governors—on Tuesday afternoon. But that doesn’t mean classes start right away. The university’s senate will meet to determine exactly how and when classes will resume, and whether students will have their term extended or curricula rearranged and shortened to make up for this lost time. April’s final exams and graduation deadlines are looming large.
If classes were to resume tomorrow, Wednesday, students would have technically missed two weeks and two days because the strike absorbed their reading week in February. But the return-to-work process will add to that lost classroom time, so students may still have to adjust their plans for May and onwards if MSVU decides a longer term is required.
Michael Gillis is a fifth-year student and co-president of the MSVU English Society. He says the society tries not to speculate too much on consequences following the strike. “There's not really much we can do about that—we're just sitting and waiting to see what's going to happen,” Gillis said in an interview Monday, Mar. 4, before the tentative agreement was reached later that evening. At that point, the union and the Board of Governors were in the third day of a bargaining session that started on Saturday, clearly making progress on a deal. But for Gillis, it was just another chance to show that students were behind the faculty association: "What we can do is go on the picket line, and support professors and try to get the strike resolved even more quickly.”
Among the students, Gillis said ”there's a general sense that the semester could get extended, or maybe professors will cut content from their syllabi—but it's still very up in the air.”
How long MSVU can extend the winter term into late spring is limited by the May 6 start date of summer terms. A shortening of required curricula and a recalculation of final grades based on work already completed could prevent students from improving on low grades from the beginning of the semester. At the same time, students haven’t received feedback on course work since Feb. 9 and would have to adjust quickly if the semester resumed with unchanged final exams and coursework deadlines still in place.
"We're supposed to be a feminist university.”
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The MSVU administration has made regular updates under Human Resources on their website here. There are hints to what might happen next in messages posted before and during the strike.
A week before the strike on Feb. 5, MSVU vice president administration Isabelle Nault wrote: "Should a strike occur, the university will explore a variety of options in support of students’ needs. Other universities in the region have experienced strikes in the past several years and in all of those cases, students were able to complete their semesters."
On Feb. 29, MSVU's associate vice-president, student experience, Keltie Jones wrote: "Students are not required to review any materials on Moodle or submit any assignments in those courses that were due after noon on February 12th. All assignment due dates will be adjusted after the end of the strike. Students who have not submitted assignments that were due after noon on February 12th will not be penalized. Once the strike is over, all course outlines and deadlines will be adjusted to complete the term." Students supported each other through the strike, while continuing to support striking faculty through picketing alongside them and writing letters of appreciation.
However, students are having to come up with contingency plans based on not knowing what the rest of the semester will look like. Gillis is writing an honours thesis that has a deadline at the end of April. He says his work has become precarious since the strike began as communication with his advisor—whose sabbatical was cancelled based on the administration's strike protocols—was null. “My contingency at this point has been to keep working on it to the best of my abilities, when he's not allowed to help me with that.”
Gillis feels he’s in a privileged position by working on an extended essay that’s one single assignment he can work on independently, “whereas I've talked to lots of other students who would typically be working on lots of different assignments. But they don't know which assignments are going to be cut, or if assignments are going to be cut—they don't know what to work on, what to prioritize over the break, or even if they should be worrying about that kind of thing.”
Says Gillis, “it's certainly a very uncertain situation.”
Another crucial stage Gillis has missed in his honours program is an English Society colloquium cancelled in February that will need to be rescheduled. It’s integral to the thesis process and allows students to get feedback from peers and faculty once they’re halfway through their work. If that isn’t rescheduled, “that's also a big aspect that's lost entirely,” says Gillis. “Maybe it will be rescheduled, if we're back soon, but it's hard to say.”
“If anyone has been making sure students have felt supported throughout this strike, it's the faculty"
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Gillis says he’s halfway through his thesis that is due next month. If class resumes Thursday, or even Monday, without an extended term, that might require a hastened thesis completion process for students in the same position as Gillis. “I'm a little bit worried that even if I do continue with it, or if it gets rushed towards the end, that it's not going to be exactly as robust, or I might not really learn as much about writing an extended essay, by the end of all of this.”
Gillis and English Society co-president, Natalie Freeman, organized a student sit-in at the beginning of the strike: Monday Feb.12 at noon. Since then, the society’s Instagram account has been a de-facto hub for student information throughout the strike due, in some part, to the fact that the society was told by their faculty in December—well ahead of others on campus—that a faculty strike was possible.
“If anyone has been making sure students have felt supported throughout this strike, it's the faculty,” says Freeman. “All faculty were very clear in saying that students were their number one priority. That makes it a lot easier for us to be on the picket line as well.” Freeman says when they’ve gone down to the picket line they’re welcomed with “open arms” from faculty who are voicing their appreciation to students.
And it goes both ways. Students delivered Valentine’s Day cards throughout February to picketing faculty, which Gillis saw as one ironic silver lining to the strike: “The picket line is so wonderful, and there's kind of an irony I think, where I don't want our profs to have to be on strike and picketing—but being on the picket line with them is so rewarding.”
Another student, who was picketing on Feb. 16 at the first Friday rally of the strike, echoes that faculty, not administrators, are what make The Mount special.
“We love our profs,” said fifth-year faculty of arts student Michelle Wallace, from Friday’s picket line. “They're the ones who have taught us to be activists—they're the ones that have taught us to question and to question the establishment and to wonder why things are the way they are.
"We're here today because we want to support them. They’re the reason why we're [at the Mount]. They are the school, and the administration is not.”
Says Freeman, the question isn’t what drew students to apply to The Mount—it’s what has kept them there after many years.
Natalie Freeman is in her fifth-year victory lap as she’s already graduated. “The reason I've stayed at The Mount is the students and the professors.
“Because it's such a small university, students don't feel like a number in the classroom. There's no other way of putting that. The opportunities that you have at The Mount to grow and try out different things—that means something.”
Gillis calls The Mount a “tight knit community,” where students know their professors on a first-name basis. That’s why Gillis found the reason for the strike “so frustrating.” As he sees it, the faculty union's fight to put strong language around equity, accessibility, inclusion and diversity into their agreement speaks to the school's heart. "Being at The Mount: that's our culture, that's what we are, that's what we do. We're supposed to be a feminist university.”
