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<\/a>Camosun College Faculty Association (CCFA) president Lynelle Yutani says faculty and staff were not consulted on the wide-scale changes, and disagrees with the college\u2019s response to the federal announcement. She says the college has violated a BC Labour Code and their contract with the CCFA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s actually two specific things that are problematic with the way that the college is going about the changes that they\u2019ve proposed or that they\u2019ve announced,\u201d she says. \u201cOne of them is that inside our collective agreement… there are some rules, specifically, that state how they have to provide notification and consultation, as well as agreement with us for making these kinds of wide-scope changes\u201d<\/p>\n
Yutani says that this is backed up by Section 54 of the BC Labour Relations Code, which governs labour adjustments such as layoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo whenever an employer has a labour adjustment, and there\u2019s also collective agreement language around that, the college can\u2019t act unilaterally, and that\u2019s what they\u2019re doing,\u201d says Yutani. \u201cThey\u2019re making announcements, they\u2019re saying, \u2018This is what we\u2019re doing,\u2019 and they\u2019ve done all of that without any consultation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camosun College executive director of communications and marketing Rodney Porter declined to comment on the CCFA\u2019s concerns for this story.<\/p>\n
Yutani says Camosun\u2019s reaction is not on par with several other BC colleges whose approach has included more involvement and input from the college community.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther colleges have been discussing these kinds of issues, have done so more openly, they have done so more transparently, and they have done so to everyone,\u201d says Yutani. \u201cSo Vancouver Community College and North Island College had school-wide town halls that everyone could attend. So everyone heard the information at the same time, and everyone received the same message.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CCFA is particularly displeased with Camosun\u2019s restructure of Indigenous Studies, Yutani says. She says their response goes against the college\u2019s commitment to Truth and Reconciliation.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom our perspective, the greatest and most significant loss, and the one that we are reeling from, is the Centre for Indigenous Education and Community Connections basically having all of the educational programming stripped\u2026 And there\u2019s a number of, I would say, substantial issues with that, notwithstanding the college\u2019s supposed commitment to decolonization and reconciliation. So what the effects of that is, is we have Indigenous programs and Indigenous programming and Indigenous instructors and Indigenous students who had been basically able to progress through their educational path as a community. So that community has been stripped, and it\u2019s going to be individual courses, are going to be tucked into other programming areas,\u201d says Yutani. \u201cSo I can\u2019t think of anything more colonial than that to be done to something that\u2019s supposed to be, I would call it, the centrepiece of our college\u2019s philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) executive director Michel Turcotte says the CCSS is still uncertain about what impact the changes might have on students. However, he says he feels confident that student education is of top priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was talking to senior college administration and have been assured that they are seeking to prioritize the educational experience for Camosun students,\u201d says Turcotte. \u201cSo they are seeking to ensure that the cuts are minimal at the level that will impact students directly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CCFA, together with the Vancouver Community College Faculty Association and North Island College Faculty Association, traveled to Ottawa early November to lobby against the federal government decision. Yutani says their discussion focused on negative effects specific to BC colleges. (The CCFA also met with NDP MP Laurel Collins in Victoria in November.)<\/p>\n
\u201c[We] went to Ottawa in particular to discuss how the recent changes to international student visas and post-graduate work diplomas were disproportionately negatively affecting colleges, in particular colleges in BC\u2026 For example, post-graduate work permits for anyone graduating from a degree program at a college have been excluded, whereas if you get your degree at a university, you\u2019re eligible for a post-graduate work permit,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd we felt that that was unfair, especially because in BC, colleges, largely, especially in specialty areas and programming like Camosun or regional areas like North Island College, where there aren\u2019t university alternatives, those communities are suffering because they don\u2019t have the ability to meet regional labour market needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yutani says larger discussions need to be had with the provincial government, requiring post-secondary funding to better support schools. She also hopes to see advocacy come from students, the demographic she sees as being most powerful.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt needs to be everyone calling for this change,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I think the student body may be one of the most powerful groups if they took up that call. Because they\u2019re suffering because BC isn\u2019t adequately funding post-secondary institutions, our college is making these changes without consultation with [the] very students that it affects the most. So faculty, we can demand things because we have a collective agreement. But students are the reason we all are here, the reason the college exists.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Camosun College has announced impending layoffs and a restructuring of the college\u2019s schools in an effort to adapt to a projected $5-million financial deficit caused by recent federal policy reforms and restrictions on international students\u2014and the Camosun College Faculty Association (CCFA) does not approve. In an email sent out to Camosun faculty and staff, Camosun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26137,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26135\/revisions\/26137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}