The Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) needed to respond to the dentistry scandal. VP Internal Jennifer Nowoselski put together a statement after talking with levied societies about their thoughts on how to reduce sexism and misogyny on campus. Another statement was compiled with input from DSU councillors and executives, faculty members and the South House Sexual and Gender Resource Centre.
Both statements recommended a variety of options, but the most radical is the suggestion of a mandatory equity course for all students and faculty.
The course would discuss “the root causes of gender-based violence and oppression.” In a later interview with the Gazette, DSU VP External and Academic Jacqueline Skiptunis said that she isn’t sure what the course will look or when it will come to fruition — it was just a recommendation. She said that it will not be implemented in the 2015/16 school year.
Skiptunis said the DSU has looked at a number of options for the set-up of the course. It could be an online module, or a completely new lecture. She also said that the credit could come from taking a number of already existing courses, within faculties like gender and women’s studies or international development studies.
Skiptunis has looked at other schools that have implemented a mandatory equity course. She cited York University in Toronto as the most concrete example of a school responding to sexism and misogyny with a mandatory equity course.
In 2012, the York Federation of Students (YFS) proposed a mandatory gender and women’s studies course for every student, as a response to a slew of sexual assaults occurring on campus.
Eva Karpinski, a gender and women’s studies professor at York, said in a podcast with the York newspaper, the Excalibur, that she didn’t think a mandatory course in gender and women’s studies would be beneficial for York students. She said a more effective way would be for the YFS to encourage non-violent and oppressive behaviour on campus.
Karpinski said via online correspondence that the idea of a mandatory equity course has been abandoned by the YFS in favour of a more integrated course in general education requirement courses.
Councillors have been vocal about their own hesitations toward this approach of fighting sexism and misogyny at Dalhousie.
In an interview with the Gazette, Dalhousie Undergraduate Engineering Society president Branwen Price said engineers already take engineering law and ethics courses, and that their history of engineering course also talks about ethics.
Price added that engineering students are held to a higher standard than other undergraduate degrees because their degrees are professional degrees. Most engineering students go straight into leadership positions in engineering after they graduate from Dalhousie.
“I was worried that this [equity course] would just be another course that engineers need to take, and then everyone starts resenting it because instead of having six courses per semester, you now have seven,” Price said, “At six, you’re overwhelmed, at seven, you don’t know what to do.”
Price said that she already attended meetings with the dean and faculty of engineering to discuss the dentistry scandal before the DSU meeting. Like dentistry, engineering is a professional, male-dominated faculty. Price said that everyone wants to ensure that a no sexist or misogynist situation occurs within engineering.
Engineering is in the midst of creating a student code of ethics to ensure that students know the consequences of unacceptable behaviour—and have no excuse to transgress these guidelines.
“We as a faculty know we need to do more,” Price said, “and we as a student society, we know that we need to lead the way because if it’s something that’s made by students for students, they’re going to be a lot more receptive than if it’s just the hammer came down from Dalhousie because dentistry screwed up.”
Dalhousie Faculty Association (DFA) president Catrina Brown also said she doesn’t think a mandatory equity course is the best way to change attitudes toward misogyny and sexism on campus.
The DFA has a broad statement about these sorts of behaviours occurring in the collective agreement for its members. Article 17 says: “To be fair to their students, to foster a free exchange of ideas to avoid unjust or improper discriminator and to avoid any exploitation of students or other employees.”
In faculty orientation packages, there is information about article 17. Brown said that the DFA sees its first priority as ensuring that faculty work in a safe environment.
Brown recommends that departments examine their faculty: do they have diverse students and faculty members? Does their content relate to diversity and equity? If not, how can they improve that?
“Departments and units need to be responsible for that [which they teach] themselves,” Brown said, “rather than here is a course you must take.”
Skiptunis said that she understands why people aren’t thrilled with the idea of a mandatory equity course, bringing up points articulated by Price and Brown.
However, she said she is upset that the one thing that came out of that DSU meeting to try and discuss how to try to ensure that sexism and misogyny don’t continue to happen on campus, and all people can talk about is having to take another course.
“If you have to defend why having a background in why any of this is important as a human being,” Skiptunis said, “then we have a bit of a problem, then you’re proving a need for this.”
Not only at DSU meetings was there backlash toward trying to fight sexism and misogyny, but also at senate meetings. Skiptunis said that many departments don’t want to admit that sexism and misogyny occur within their own faculties.
“We will be sexist, we will be racist, we will be homophobic, we’ve been raised to be that way in different aspects of society — we just know it’s going to happen,” she said.
“If we take the advantage of the fact that we have a university community that’s open to learning, open to addressing these things in a careful, dedicated way, we can admit that our whole faculty is sexist and do something about it.”
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