Statements about U of L are shocking

By Letter to the Editor on November 10, 2021.

Editor:
Re: “Proposed U of L salary cuts affect the whole city,” Dr. Dan O’Donnell, Oct. 30, 2021.
Dr. O’Donnell argues that a proposed four per cent pay cut to University of Lethbridge faculty salaries will damage the Lethbridge community.
He says: “With salaries already 10-15 per cent lower than other similar universities, it is already difficult enough to attract and retain top talent, before an additional retroactive rollback… it becomes increasingly more difficult to hire good quality instructors and scholars and more difficult to keep good ones here in Lethbridge. The cheapest professors are very unlikely to be excellent or even average.”
The “cheapest professors…?” This is what $150,000+ salaried professors think of those who are paid much less? In other words, money equals your humanity, your dignity, your worth?
The best professors I’ve had have been the lowly paid sessionals.
While Dr. O’Donnell speaks of his fears of faculty losing their jobs, he does not disclose that the U of L’s draconian vaccine mandate has no qualms about putting faculty on unpaid leave or terminating, taking away the livelihood and careers of those who choose not to disclose their private vaccination status
(See https://www.ulethbridge.ca/sites/default/files/2021/10/covid-19_vaccination_prinicples_oct_1-21_final.pdf).
Interestingly, major universities, UBC and McGill, have no vaccine mandate.
He glowingly speaks of how the “students attending the University of Lethbridge contribute over $100 million to the local economy each year,” but does not disclose that U of L professors have been given lists of students, in their in-person classes, who have not disclosed their vaccination status.
Finally, it is shocking to see that amidst a pandemic in which there has been a huge psychological and economic fall out, Dr. O’Donnell finds it acceptable to publicly complain about proposed cuts to faculty (FYI: U of L salaries of those who make over $135,000 per year, https://www.ulethbridge.ca/governance/public-sector-body-compensation-disclosure ).
Since March 2020 we’ve been dealing with lockdowns, etc., and yet Dan O’Donnell et.al. are focusing on self aggrandizement.
One is reminded of the Neronian scene where Nero “fiddled while Rome burned.”
Bernadette Remus
U of L Student