Post-Strike Comments

I have heard that one of the college presidents has resigned ... good move in my view. I too would resign as CEO if I had simply mouthed the ACAATO policies which were guaranteed to alienate the very people who had made the reputation of the colleges over the last 39 years. Presidents/CEOs should provide true leadership in trying times ... and to be fair, some of them did. Mohawk and Centennial come to mind immediately. Perhaps those who mouthed the line would consider resignation as a strategy... LOL I think not. Not at the salaries they are paid.

I am of two minds re the fact that our college's fearless "leaders" have pulled their worst communications during the strike off the college websites. First thought I had was "it's about time" but on second thought -- in a way it would be nice to have them stay there, as a reminder to those who, over the next few months, may prefer to forget. If those vicious communications are no longer on line, (based on the memorandum of agreement which says that whatever happened prior to or during the strike there will be no reprisals .. which fortuately covers me too, although I am not terribly worried about this ... I can retire any time at this point, although I certainly would prefer to stay on at least until the next strike because I do like teaching!) I worry that it will eventually be denied and then fade into history. Fortunately I saved some of them - I shall not be misled into thinking that these communications were a figment of my imagination, or at least much softer than I imagined.

I was originally worried re our students' response to management's comments, but given my discussions with students yesterday and today, the majority really had not even been bothered to read them so .... it was only the faculty that "got the message" that was being conveyed. And we sure got it! No respect at all for our work was clear. Thanks, folks. Gotcha loud and clear!

Re students, I was the first instructor to see one of my post-strike classes. Opening line from me was ..."So -- the adminstration said they had asked you to keep up your studies while we were on strike ... do any of you have anything based on keeping up with your studies that you want to hand in at this point?" You should have seen their eyes ... deer in the headlights! Then when I subsequently said that I was equally paralysed during the strike, so we would work together to make the best of it .. huge relief was apparent! And I really do understand ... how do you continue (WebCT or no, pre-prepared course information or no, clear course outline or no, posted powerpoints or no, lesson plans online or no) without faculty (including cousellors and librarians!) to guide you, direct you, cajole you, encourage you in terms of how and what to study... and to tutor, to advise and provide support for those who need it. Study independently ... how can we expect the majority of our students to be so self-disciplined as to actually have followed the course of studies without guidance under the circumstances? And particluarly given that the "semester completion strategy" was non-existent. Not that developing one without faculty was a viable alternative anyway ... that was simply a "threat" and was in my view one of the greatest PR errors of the entire Council campaign. Nobody bought that one, but a number of College Presidents mouthed it. And great credit to those few who did not!!! TY TY. If you work for one of them, send them flowers (and Timbits)!!!!

Our first day back was interesting. At one end were a very few fellow faculty who accused (not in so many words, but certainly in implication) that the 80% who had supported the strike did not care about their students --- hey, educate yourself re the issues, folks, before your make such bizarre statements !(I could rant forever on how those who voted for a strike cared MORE about the students, but if you think differently, then you are beyond rational argument, and I cannot waste time on you) and at the other end were those who refused to even attend the meetings.

I am tired of administrators here saying "welcome back" to me ... HEY ... I never left! I have been there every single day for nothing but strike pay ... I just have not been not inside. I am the one who lost pay for quality. I have never for one minute forgotten about my students. That is why I have been on strike.

The stress that was on all during the strike was apparent in these meetings. With "immediate" management it was less ... after all they did not craft the communications of the "un-strategy", and most of us were aware of that.

My concern right now is primarily for my students, but (bottom line) given that this is going to be a 4 year deal, is that none of them will lose more than 2 weeks over 14 weeks X 2-3 years, so in the long term the students will not have missed a huge amount of content/skills (now that we are back). But what really annoys me is that nobody seems to be making a connection here re quality. Let's talk "quality" for a minute. When I entered this system, after approx. 15 years of experience in the communications industry, we had an 17-18 week long semester, with 4 hours per week per course, to teach (pardon my language, this is now a dirty word I think we now create a learning environment) -- with class sizes of roughly 25-30. Now, to achieve do the same outcomes, I get 14 weeks and 3 hours per week and have class sizes set at 40+. (And can easily go 20% higher.) So what do you think has happened to the outcomes since then? And to the content? Draw your own conclusions.