There’s a glimmer of hope Capilano University’s semester can be saved before exams are scheduled to begin on Monday.
Capilano Faculty Association members walked off the job on Wednesday morning after the teachers and administration couldn’t reach a deal in contract talks. But a middle-of-night proposal delivered by the teachers before the strike began could break the deadlock.
Negotiators from the university and the teachers were scheduled to meet in the afternoon on Thursday as a deadline for making a decision about whether exams can proceed loomed.
Outstanding issues at the bargaining table for the teachers are an academic freedom clause, regularizing part-time faculty and limitations on the employer’s right to lay off faculty, according to Eduard Lavalle, the union’s negotiator.
“We made a proposal that I think meets some of the requests that had been put forward through proposals by the university,” he said noting both the faculty and the administration would like to see the dispute resolved before the exam period begins. “In deference to that, we’ve made some concessions.”
Administrators too remain hopeful, according to Richard Gale, Capilano’s academic vice-president.
“We have plans for going forward and we’re going to tell the students they should plan on studying for and taking their exams,” Gale said. “My hope is that instructors are also planning for this as well.”
University administrators have been looking to other post-secondary schools to see how they might deal with cancelled or postponed exams. A decision will likely have to be reached by Friday, Gale said.
Students, meanwhile, have been caught in the middle.
Fourth-year business student Sara Hajaghaie led a faction of classmates across the picket line on Wednesday in order to make the point that students have the most at stake in the dispute.
Hajaghaie said she has applied for jobs that are contingent upon having a degree, as is her conditional acceptance for a master’s program at Capilano. A cancelled exam period, she said, would jeopardize her career and force the hard work she and her classmates have done to go unacknowledged.
“It will mean that four years of my invested time and me being indebted and me giving up other avenues of career and my ability to put my time and energy in different areas is just somewhat wasted and delayed and held behind. It’s not fair,” she said.
This story first appeared on our sister publication the North Shore News. Click here to read the complete version.
