Students protest in support of faculty

By Dale Woodard - Lethbridge Herald on February 1, 2022.

Herald photo by Dale Woodard University of Lethbridge students and supporters wave their signs along University Drive Sunday morning in support of ongoing faculty budget deliberations.

With a potential strike looming, students at the University of Lethbridge are standing in support of faculty.
On a windy Sunday afternoon, students and faculty alike gathered alongside University Drive with signs waving at honking motorists passing by to garner support for the faculty with a strike vote scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
Earlier this month, The University of Lethbridge Faculty Association (ULFA) withdrew from mediation following an official Offer of Settlement from the University of Lethbridge Board Negotiation Team as it seeks to come to a settlement on a new contract agreement.
“The reason we’re here today is because our faculty has been in negotiations with the university admin for over two years now,” said Amy Mendenhall, a fourth-year Indigenous studies and history minor and one of the organizers of Sunday’s protest. “We are getting down to the point where there might be a strike. The strike vote is happening Wednesday and Thursday and we’re just so frustrated. As students, we are the biggest stakeholder here and nobody has asked us. Nobody has talked to us and we’ve been kept out of it. So we started thinking about this because we need to show support for our faculty and we knew the vote was coming. So we (said) let’s do this protest the week before they vote.”
On Thursday, Mendenhall said they received an unsigned letter from the university administration threatening their education.
“We talked to ULFA, everything in that letter was false, but it was meant to scare us and I think that really got a lot of people angry because we are trying our hardest here.”
As a fourth-year student, Mendenhall said she’s less important in the negotiations.
“I’m done in April,” she said. “My concern is for all the first years and the second years who never experienced campus life and that makes me angry. They don’t know what’s happening because students are intentionally left out of the conversation. So that email might have been their only communication and we’re seeing it in social media posts and we’re stressed out. Their anxiety is through the roof because we’re all isolated and now they’re threatening our education. I’m here for my classmates who deserve better than what they’re getting.”
On Monday, the University of Lethbridge released a statement which read “Our goal is to negotiate a collective agreement that respects the contribution and value of our colleagues and ensures a high-quality post-secondary education for students. 
We are eager to return to negotiations, and look forward to meeting the Faculty Association at the bargaining table again tomorrow, and to avoiding any interruption to student learning.
We have a limited semester window to provide the minimum number of instructional hours. A Faculty Association strike would have consequences for everyone, including students. We have an obligation to keep students informed. We’re doing that through direct communication and through our Student FAQ on the university website. (https://www.ulethbridge.ca/bargaining/student-faq”.
In the past two years, Mendenhall said she has only spent one semester on campus, instead doing online learning.
As a disability student, she said the faculty has helped her.
“When my dad died in September, it was the faculty that stood by me,” she said. “They have stood by me every step of the way and it’s my time to fight for them. They fought for me and now I’m here for them. If we can gather people, create a group and bring everybody together before the vote, let’s do it.”
Mendenhall said the message is they want the admin to come back to the table with a fair and respectful offer to the faculty. 
“Don’t force this strike, let us not be in this stage of we don’t know what’s happening. Be respectful. Be kind and understand we all have a stake in this and our faculty deserves better. Students deserve better, but faculty deserves better.”

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