Will love save the DFA?

In a special Valentine’s Day gesture, students poured their hearts out to the Dalhousie administration, putting their thoughts about the potential Dalhousie Faculty Association strike on paper—or rather, on a valentine.

Putting a new spin on an age-old tradition, students gathered in the Killam Library atrium to write personalized Valentine’s Day cards that were to be presented to the Board of Governors. But instead of messages of love and lust, students scribbled notes of support for the DFA as negotiations with the university administration drag on.

Gordo Fraser. Photo by Clark Jang.

Red and pink construction paper hearts were decorated and scrawled upon with everything from rhyming couplets to sternly worded demands by students opposed to a faculty strike. Many students also expressed demands that the Board of Governors acknowledge the DFA’s collective bargaining rights.

“The Dalhousie administration and our president is using us students as bargaining tools in order to bring teachers into unfair agreements and contract negotiations,” says fourth-year international development student Megan Tremblay.

Tremblay opposes a strike and feels faculty and students should be more actively involved in the negotiation process. “As faculty and  students we should be included in the discussion [and] we should not have to give up our studies to do so,” says Tremblay.

Mackenzie Childs. Photo by Clark Jang.

Second-year environment, sustainability and society student Mackenzie Childs fears a strike would jeopardize her ability to remain caught up in her studies. “Personally, I’m trying to catch up in planning and if I lose my credits it’s going to put me back a year.”

Childs decorated her pink paper heart with the simple message: “Please have a fair negotiation.”

First-year student Liam Melville believes that the DFA would not go on strike unless they had a legitimate reason.

“I really care about my education and I think the professors do as well,” says Melville, who also wrote upon his card: “Dear Board of Governors: An open, fair negotiation process is a beautiful thing. We can be a beautiful thing.”

Kaleigh McGregor-Bales. Photo by Clark Jang.

The valentines were given to the Board of Governors at a meeting in the Mona Campbell Building.

Whether Cupid worked his magic is still to be determined.