“Personally, I am sick of the platitudes such as “we hear you” when the bureaucracy of executives clearly do not.” SMU student Jeremy Hebb argues that when COVID-19 arrived the university abandoned its students.
PSA: Friends of NSCAD, a longstanding group of faculty, staff students, alumni and concerned citizens, have initiated a petition demanding the immediate reinstatement of abruptly fired NSCAD president Aoife Mac Namara.
Language barriers. Slow internet. Students sent home with no work. Stephen Wentzell writes on the Liberal government’s broken promise of ‘no child left behind’ after the schools closed because of the coronavirus.
Media release: Late last week, the Board of Governors of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD University) removed the President, Dr. Aoife Mac Namara. The President had been in her post for less than a year. There was no consultation with the University community. Members of the Faculty Union Executive are shocked and appalled at the actions of the Board who made this decision in the middle of a global pandemic.
Social injustice and academic negligence against Black learners cannot continue and our leaders cannot continue to sit silently. Silence is an action that is not acceptable. The Black Educators Association is calling for comprehensive change to the structural biases that exist within the education system.
As our members are aware, Dalhousie University has decided to continue with their four-year plan to increase tuition by 3%, with international students bearing an additional $1473 per year. Through the survey we conducted and recent advocacy efforts, the DSU and its membership have made it clear that the temporary financial aids the University have implemented do not compensate for the increase in tuition.
Enrollment in recently reopened child care centres is often not meeting the threshold necessary for operations to be financially viable. As a result, there are reports of workers being laid off, and within the sector there are grave concerns that some of the centres will not be around come fall. That would be disastrous for an already fragile sector and the working parents who rely on its services.
Letter: I realize that we must strive to get the economy back up and running, but at what expense? Do we risk the lives of the day care workers or others including parents and families for the sake of supposedly getting unemployed mothers /partners back to work.
Students at NSCAD University, the venerable post-secondary art school in Halifax, are worried that tuition fees will be raised once again this year. How are students going to pay the already very high fees, especially Black, Indigenous and POC students who are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus crisis? the student union asks.
Dr. David Westwood: “Before COVID-19, it was understood that a year or more of planning, development, and refinement was required for a single, high quality online course offering. Now, professors have scarcely three months to change over all of their courses in time for the fall semester. “