Dalhousie students brace for faculty strike
Posted Feb 27, 2012 05:13:26 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Dalhousie Faculty Association is planning to return to talks, but it’s also setting up strike headquarters which could set the stage for a strike in two weeks.
With that happening on top of the transit strike, News 95.7 took to the campus to find out how students are dealing with the possibility of another strike that would shut down classrooms.
“If there is a strike and it’s only a week long, I guess we can finish our projects and papers and stuff but anything longer than that is just not going to be beneficial,” said Cameron.
Jeremy is frustrated his tuition is going toward services he may not get.
“I pay a lot of money, don’t get services and then I get held hostage by the faculty in a sense, but I don’t hold it against them,” said Jeremy. “They have a right to strike.”
Jill is one of the few students who say they’re OK with the strike.
“I’m a social work student so I believe in the union and the rights of the union,” she says. “I hope it’s quick. I’m preparing the best I can and going off the basis that they’re going to be on strike and getting as much work done as I can before.”
But she adds if she loses a semester she’ll be doing her “own form of striking.”
Leanne says the transit strike has already changed her routine and a faculty strike would just be one more thing to have to deal with.
“I can’t really go anywhere but school and anything within walking distance and it’s stressful to think about not having profs to teach us, we’ll basically have to teach ourselves.”
Katie says a strike would really affect her program.
“We have 40 hours of a class a week, and in a professional program if we miss it, it will be hard to catch up.”
Paul is lucky because he’s done in a couple weeks, but he sympathizes with the students.
“I was in a similar situation in UPEI a couple years ago,” he explains. “It’s a lot of anxiety for students and I feel really bad for the ones that are getting closer to graduation that don’t know if they’ll be able to complete their exams or not.”
He adds in his experience, it will all work out.
