U of L students deserve to be educated for the tuition they have paid
By Lethbridge Herald on March 4, 2022.
I understand why the University of Lethbridge teachers are on strike, but here’s my question as a parent from one of their students: my son paid a heavy tuition fee to attend U of L and now because of the strike he is going to be one semester behind on graduating. I would like to know who’s going to reimburse him for his tuition for the semester and textbooks and why he is going to pay interest on a student loan that went to waste this year and who is going to pay for the extra semester?
Haven’t our students been through enough with online learning, COVID-19 etc.? My sons missed out on their 18th birthdays, high school graduation and their first two years of university was online and now this? If I were a student, I would go down to the picket lines with my books and say “I paid for an education, educate me!”
Doug Manderville
Lethbridge
5-4
Just an outsider here and plenty of different opinions on the many issues involved but the fact is 92% of the faculty voted to strike and put their needs above the needs of the students so my vote if its a lost semester its the faculty who should reimburse the students.
“Just an outsider here” — that pretty much sums it up and tells us just how informed your opinion is.
If I was a parent of a U of L student, I would ask this important question too. First, there has never been a semester lost to a strike in Canada (and never a year wasted either). The Board of Governors of every university in Alberta faces the same level of budget cuts as U of L, but none of those universities was unable to make a fair settlement with faculty. In fact MRU and U of A offered their faculty almost the same deal on salary as the Lethbridge faculty offered the U of L Board in mediation. In addition, MRU and U of A settled on scores of changes to contract language; the U of L Board settled only two after more than two years of the faculty trying in negotiations. People need to ask why U of L is so different. The U of L Board needs to get back to the table, stop being irresponsible, and give a similar deal to their faculty as the other universities and let teaching resume.
Can’t help think that us all fighting amongst ourselves when it comes to our liberal arts university is exactly what the UCP want to see.
They’d like to weaken all critical thinking institutions and replace them with more useful post-secondary facilities that focus on REAL JOBS like the trades (wonderful and important skills that they offer notwithstanding) because, “WHAT IS ART?”
The situation you son is in, as are many other students, is regrettable, remarkably so. However, your son is an adult and had I been in your position, I would have encouraged him to write his own letter.