Reading week to go ahead after Dal announces schedule changes
Students relieved that fall break is no longer in jeopardy
Dalhousie University’s senate confirmed that reading week will go ahead as scheduled from Nov. 10 to 14 after announcing changes to the academic schedule on Sept. 22.
Fall break, a permanent fixture at Dalhousie since 2016, was previously up in the air. The university was undecided whether to cancel the break to make up for class time lost to Dalhousie’s faculty lockout.
“Given the duration of the labour disruption thus far, it is likely some programs/faculties will choose to cancel the fall break … to ensure course delivery can be completed for the term,” the university said in a Sept. 4 update posted to its website.
Fall classes, scheduled to begin on Sept. 2, were suspended following Dal’s lockout of its faculty on Aug. 20 amid contract negotiations. The university’s board of governors and the Dalhousie Faculty Association ratified a new collective agreement on Sept. 17. Suspended class resumed on Sept. 23.
The deadline for tuition payments, as well as adding and dropping courses for the fall term, was extended to Oct. 7.
Chris Aung, an exchange student at Dalhousie, is pleased that fall break wasn’t cut from the academic schedule. He doesn’t think having an extra week of class would make a difference.
“I don’t think it would be that beneficial because we still need the time to review all the materials,” says Aung. “Then I can review and relax before my test days.”
Exam schedule changes
Classes suspended due to the lockout will now end on Dec. 10. Classes unaffected by the lockout will still end as scheduled on Dec. 3.
“These changes have resulted in a small number of course scheduling conflicts on Wednesday, December 3,” the university’s website said. “Your instructors are aware of this and will afford flexibility where conflicts arise in the few classes that are affected.”
The university said that “the exam schedule for ALL courses will be modified to allow for more instruction time for classes that resume on September 23.”
Exams will now begin on Dec. 11 and end on Dec. 21. The exam schedule will be available Oct. 17.
DFA collective agreement
The DFA shared some details of the new agreement in a Sept. 17 media release.
The three-year collective agreement sees faculty receiving total wage increases of 10 per cent over the course of the contract. Faculty will get 3.25 per cent raises for each of the first two years and a 3.5 per cent raise in the third year. The deal also includes an additional 21 weeks of parental leave top-up payments, and five days of paid leave for Indigenous faculty to observe cultural days of importance.
Sixteen positions that have been limited-term for over six years will be converted to tenured positions, and early-career faculty who join the university at a rank other than professor will receive salary adjustments of $1,500 to $5,000.
95.7 per cent of DFA members voted in favour of the agreement on Sept. 16.
“We’re pleased with the details of the final collective agreement,” says David Westwood, DFA president. “It’s unfortunate that it had to come to such a confrontational way to resolve a contract being locked out.”
The full collective agreement between Dalhousie and the DFA will be publicized “in the coming weeks,” according to a release from the university.
