Letter to the Dalhousie Gazette about NSCC

So, with regards to the ongoing nonsense at NSCC and most likely due to some of the comments I’ve been making on the interwebs about todays student protest rally, someone from the Dalhousie Gazette contacted me with some questions.

Given that I like talking so very much I probably gave him too much information. And while anything I’ve said will be open to a much wider reader-base via the gazette, I wanted to post the letter here in full because I feel in expresses my current mindset quite well.

Hi Tim, sure, I’d be happy to answer your questions.

I’m a first year Information Technology student.

My feelings towards the strike probably mirror that of most students. We’re all a mix of apprehensive, angry and upset. No one who takes their education seriously thinks it’s a good thing. Some people are willing to treat it like some sort of a mini-vacation… but I’m assuming these people aren’t serious about their programs or the money they’ve invested into them.

I’m reasonably confident that I’ll be able to succeed despite the strike. So far I’ve been pulling in some excellent grades and I’m fairly well dedicated to doing my best here. I worry about a lot of my friends though, because some of them don’t seem to be doing as well.

We actually held a rally at Marconi today and at one point I got up in front of everyone and asked, if there was a strike and it lasted weeks or months, how many of the people in the room with us would still be here at the end of it.

I have mixed feelings as to how it’s been handled by the administration and staff. I’ve probably been harder and less supporting of the faculty than I should, but that’s because a strike vote is, to my mind, them saying “We are more important than the students.” Although from their point of view they are. And they certainly seem to be getting treated very unfairly by the administration and government throughout this whole process.

The administration has left me completely disheartened regarding their ability to adequately handle this situation. I feel like communication has been lackluster, sporadic and ineffective. I don’t feel like they value the time or money commitment I’ve put into this at all and I know for a fact a lot of my fellow students feel the same.

In conclusion, this whole ordeal seems unnecessary. They’re debating teachers salaries as if it were a significant amount of money when compared to how much this will cost us in other ways. NSCC has 26000 students. Say 20% of them fail as a result of this. That’s 5000 people who may not get jobs as a result of not completing their education and who wouldn’t have income to get taxed. It’s 5000 people who could potentially end up on EI.

Obviously, I’m just picking these numbers at random to make a point. I don’t know what the stats are. If anything, I’d say the failure rate would be higher than that.

And the NSCC teachers are great. They’re hired based on workplace experience. Many of them could go out into the workforce and make more money than they do teaching.

It’s a whole lot of nonsense and everyone is going to lose.

Eric

The rally today made me realize something. I’m not angry at the NSCC faculty. I’ve probably come accross as harsher on them than I should have. I still stand by the fact that their strike vote is done completely at our expense, and I’ve been saying all along that they’re legally allowed to strike and I think they have some valid points, but I should have realize how much they’ve been forced into this.

So if any of my teachers, or any other NSCC faculty, have been reading this: My intention was not to come across as hard on you. As I’ve said previously, you all do a tremendous job. And we know that many of you could go out and work in the industries you represent for more money, but you chose to teach us. And for that we’re grateful.

I’m angry at you for voting to strike, but it’s only a fraction of the anger I feel towards eveyone else involved in this.

And I still stand by the assertion that the student are being almost completely ignored throughout this process. Any time we’ve been mentioned by the other parties involved, it’s felt like we’re simply having lip service paid to us by people too damned self-important to worry about how we feel about this.