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The SU advocacy team was working hard over the holiday break and throughout January to ensure that students received clear direction from the university. In December, the SU called on the university to make a decision about the winter semester prior to Christmas. The university had originally committed to a January 4^th deadline which would be far too late to allow students to adequately plan.

Since then, the SU has renewed its call for the university to provide clear direction on the remaining weeks of the winter semester from March forward. While students certainly have their preference between online and in person learning, students have told us that they are looking for certainty most of all.

That’s why in January, the SU put out a statement with what the university must do in each situation. It’s not as simple as saying that classes return in person or remain online, there are student impacts no matter which path the university chooses.

You can read the full statement here, but here are some highlights:

If learning remains online, the university must:

1. Cancel the UPass and refund students. Provide discounted transit tickets to students.
2. Refund or not charge campus recreation or athletics fees.
3. Allow students in residence to terminate leases without penalty.
4. Provide an expanded relocation grant for any students who had in person courses moved online that covers actual costs incurred

If learning shifts to in person for the remainder of the semester, the university must:

1. Pro-rate the campus recreation and athletics fees, not charging for the online portion of the semester.
2. Provide an expanded relocation grant for students who must return to campus midway through the semester.
3. Implement short-term lease agreements for students who want to live in residence.
4. Honour the original course delivery method and set consistent, campus wide, and public criteria should instructors wish to keep courses online.

The university must make its decision immediately and inform students. Students should not be rushed into making plans to return to Calgary, if that’s the path the university takes.

Join SU VP Student Life Assad Ali Bik as he interviews past and present student leaders, highlighting Black history at the SU. On Thursday, Feb. 17 at 12 p.m., our guests will be current SU Campus Food Bank coordinator Ganiyat Sadiq, and 77th SU Faculty of Arts Representative Tomiwa Oje. On Friday, Feb. 25, our guests will be 78th SU VP Academic Semhar Abraha, and 51st Vice President External Chima Nkemdirim. Both interviews were streamed live on the SU’s Facebook page.

Did you miss out? Watch the replays here:

Feb. 17 with Ganiyat and Tomiwa: https://fb.watch/boZfs0r5AI/

Feb. 25 with Semhar and Chima: https://fb.watch/boZ4sGDSf0/

Thursday, Feb. 17

Ganiyat Sadiq
SU Program and Events Assistant 2019 – 2020
Campus Food Bank Coordinator 2020 – 2021

Ganiyat Sadiq is a research and policy professional who has been recognized as Alberta’s Top 30 Under 30. She aims to establish substantial solutions to address growing political and social inequity through the facilitation of purposeful conversations with policy-makers, institutions and citizens. These interests are reflective of the @IAmXMovement, a social community founded by Ganiyat that seeks to raise awareness of the injustice faced by Black, Indigenous and Racialized individuals, as well as providing a safe space to share their experiences. She also co-founded and serves as President of the Black Inclusion Association, a novel non-profit that aims to achieve equity and social justice for Black Albertans. Currently, Ganiyat is a fourth year student in the Political Science program and the International Relations program at the University of Calgary.

Tomiwa Oje
Faculty of Arts Representative 2019 – 2020 (77th SLC)

Tomiwa Oje is a senior associate at an International accounting and consulting firm. Tomiwa acquired degrees in political science and international relations from the University of Calgary, graduating in 2020. In that time Tomiwa served as one of the Faculty of Arts’ Representative’s in the 77th Student Legislative Council. Like during her tenure in the SLC, Tomiwa continues to be a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion initiatives in her her everyday life and professional career. Tomiwa sits on the action committee for the Black Professional Inclusion Network and is a member of the Indigenous Inclusion Network at her firm. Tomiwa also works closely with the organization SanitaryAidforNigerianGirls an organization that aims to provide period products and reproductive education for impoverished and internally displaced women and girls in Nigeria. Tomiwa takes pride in being able to embrace her blackness authentically and works to ensure others can do so themselves. Her life is guided by a quote from Beyoncé: “Don’t try to lessen yourself for the world; let the world catch up to you.”

Friday, Feb. 25

Semhar Abraha
SU Vice-President Academic 2020 – 2021 (78th SLC)

Semhar Abraha is a first-year law student, and the former Vice-President Academic at the Students’ Union. In this position, she developed a unique scholarship opportunity to make post-secondary education more accessible for BIPOC students on campus. Semhar also successful advocated for the collection of race-based data within the SU to ensure that marginalized voices were recognized within decision making spaces. Under her leadership, Semhar secured funding that was used to hire students to create Open Educational Resourced (OERs), in order to reduce the financial burden of buying expensive textbooks. Currently, Ms. Abraha continues to advance areas of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion by her involvement with the Black Law Students Association and other university stakeholders.

Chima Nkemdirim
SU Vice President External 1993 – 1994 (51st SLC)

Chima Nkemdirim is the Vice President of Government Relations for Shaw Communications and is responsible for leading Shaw’s government relations efforts. He joined Shaw after serving as Chief of Staff to Mayor Naheed Nenshi of the City of Calgary for more than seven years. Chima successfully lead Mayor Nenshi’s first campaign in 2010 and joined the Mayor’s office thereafter.

Chima earned a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of Calgary and a law degree at the University of Ottawa. Chima practiced law with Denton’s LLP for over 13 years where he became partner. In 2011, he was appointed as Queen’s Council by the Government of Alberta for his work in the legal profession, and received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his contributions to Canada in 2012.

Chima is an active member of the community and volunteers his time with a variety of non-profit organizations, including The Walrus Foundation, Calgary Arts Development, Arts Commons, The Calgary Foundation and the Calgary Black Chambers.

The Students’ Union (SU) is calling for the university to extend the add/drop deadline until a decision is made on the remaining six weeks of the winter semester.

The SU has received an incredible amount of student feedback. By and large students want clarity for the remaining weeks of the semester and final exams.

Many students have also expressed preferences when it comes to whether the semester should remain online or return to in-person learning. This is not a decision the SU can make.

In addition, students have varying perspectives often based on the faculty in which they are enrolled. For example, students in the Arts and Engineering faculties may prefer to remain online. This is less practical for students in Kinesiology and Medicine who require interactive portions to many of the classes they are in currently.

The university has made it clear that it cannot offer the same course both online and in-person. Most classrooms are not equipped to do so. The university will need to make a consistent and campus wide decision. This decision needs to be made soon and before the add/drop deadline.

No matter the decision, there will be consequences for students. The SU will advocate to minimize these as much as possible.

Should the university extend online learning to the end of the winter semester, it must also:

1. Cancel the UPass and refund students. The university should provide discounted transit tickets to students as it did in previous online semesters.
2. Refund or not charge students for the campus recreation and athletics fees.
3. Allow students in residence to terminate their leases without penalty.
4. Provide an expanded relocation grant to all students who had in-person courses moved online and increase the amount of the benefit to cover the actual costs students are facing.

Should the university return to in-person learning for the remainder of the winter semester, it must also:

1. Pro-rate the campus recreation and athletics fees, not charging students for the online portion of the semester.
2. Provide an expanded relocation grant to all students who had courses moved online who must now incur travel and accommodation expenses to return to Calgary for six weeks plus exams.
3. Implement short-term lease agreements for students who want to live in residence for the remainder of the semester.
4. Honour the original course delivery method and set consistent, campus wide, and public criteria should instructors wish to keep courses online.

The university cannot make its decision in isolation. It must provide adequate notice to students and support them no matter the path forward. The SU will advocate for students no matter the university’s decision.

Calgary – The University of Calgary Students’ Union supports the decision by the University of Calgary to continue online learning until February 28^th. The SU is thankful that the university listened to student feedback and has provided a reasonable amount of notice to students. This means that students can plan for the month of February.

The SU is pleased to see a commitment from the university that all courses originally planned to be in-person will be delivered in that format when it is safe to return to campus. The SU strongly believes that the university and all faculties must honour the fact that many students had originally selected in-person learning.

“Like everyone, students want a return to normal. Students and the SU know that omicron makes this not possible. Over the next six weeks there are a number of things the university and provincial government can do to increase the likelihood that students can return to class. This work must start now and there must be a campus wide plan in place to ensure the safety of our university community ahead of any possible return in March.” – SU President, Nicole Schmidt

Should the university once again allow individual instructors to keep courses online after February 28th, as they did in September, the university must provide a consistent set of criteria for instructors to meet prior to such requests being approved. The university must commit to inform all students of course format decisions by February 15.

The university must also ensure that all those returning to campus, including students, faculty, and staff, are fully vaccinated.

Further, the SU calls on the UCP government to provide supports in time for post-secondary courses to return in-person. Similar to commitments made in the K-12 system, the government should procure and deliver medical masks and testing kits to post-secondary campuses prior to the end of February.

The decisions the university and the provincial government makes over the next six weeks will determine whether the campus is safe to return to in March. The SU looks forward to continued discussions with the university to ensure the safety of students and our campus community is a top priority.

Media inquiries may be directed to:

Mike Brown

External Communications Specialist

University of Calgary Students’ Union

Cell: 403-560-0577

Email: Michael.brown1@ucalgary.ca

The University of Calgary has struck a search committee to find the next Dean for the Faculty of Arts.

This survey is being conducted by your Faculty of Arts Students’ Union representatives to gather input and feedback from students in the Faculty of Arts regarding the search for a new Dean of the Faculty of Arts. The survey should take approximately 5-10 minutes to complete, and your input will help your SU representatives to advise the search committee and ensure your interests as students are represented throughout the search process!

Take the survey here:

[button link=”https://survey.ucalgary.ca/jfe/form/SV_3HFd8SaBUJE7nPU”]Student Input Survey: Dean, Faculty of Arts[/button]

The survey is available from January 11, 2022 until January 16, 2022.

The following information is made available by the University of Calgary:

Reporting to the Provost and Vice-President (Academic), the Dean leads the strategic direction and is the key advocate for the faculty.  As the chief executive officer, this visionary leader is also responsible for faculty and academic professional staff development, budget oversight and planning, fund development, facilities and research, while fostering a culture of equity, diversity, and inclusion for all students, faculty and staff.

The dean leads the students, faculty and staff of the Faculty of Arts. Through university-wide and community engagement, the dean manages priorities that contribute to the vision of the faculty, encourages research, champions the student experience and fosters a culture of excellence. The dean also manages policies and sustains an effective budget.

A dean is normally appointed for an initial term of five years.

You can read the job advertisement for the Dean, Faculty of Arts here for more information about the expectations for the role, or learn more about the search process here.

The Students’ Union (SU) supports the cancellation of remaining final exams and continues to support health measures and other steps the university has taken to keep students and our campus community safe.

The omicron variant is serious and should be taken as such. The SU encourages all students and all members of our campus community to get fully vaccinated.

However, this decision was once again made at the last minute by university administration.

Senior administration asked for SU input into the potential cancellation or move to online exams last week. The SU was clear and suggested any cancellation or move to online exams should be made and communicated to students by Friday, December 17^th. The SU also asked for consistency and equity as to how instructors would calculate final grades for students who experience a cancelled exam.

The university dithered and has presented no clear plan across the institution.

Similar to when classes were moved online in September, the university has waited until the last minute and, again, it is students who suffer as result.

After 22 months in a pandemic, it is unconscionable that the university does not have a campus-wide contingency plan for this situation or a quick pivot to online exams.

In addition, the university has committed to deciding on the nature of January course delivery on January 4^th. This will be too late for many students and fails to allow them adequate time to plan. The university must be decisive in this matter.

Moving forward, the SU expects university administration to:

1. Make a decision on January course delivery format prior to Christmas to allow students the opportunity to plan their return to Calgary.
2. Oversee an equitable approach across campus for students who have had their exams cancelled.
3. Honour what is written in course outlines and give affected students the option to write a final exam either online or in person at a later date, should they choose.
4. Develop a contingency plan so that students know what will occur should in-person learning and exams be cancelled again in the future.

The SU has continued its advocacy on many fronts throughout November, including the credit granted option, tuition and fees, and meetings with government officials.

On the Credit Granted option (CG), the SU is disappointed and frustrated that the university chose not to follow through on promises it made in the summer to ensure that all undergraduate students have some type of access to CG.

The initial proposal allowed for CGs in up to three semester-long courses over the duration of a student’s degree. Students would need at least a C- in the class in order to use CG. The SU was told there may be reasonable restrictions to CG for required or prerequisite courses.

However, the university has instead allowed the faculty of Engineering and other faculties such as Nursing to completely restrict out of existence the use of CG. Engineering and Nursing students will have no access to CG at all.

CG is important for two reasons: First, it allows students explore academically. They can take classes outside their program at reduced academic risk. Second, and more importantly, CG can help students should they face mental health challenges during their degree.

The university has claimed it takes student mental health seriously but those claims clearly fall flat given the CG decision. The Faculty of Engineering agrees that CG can help address mental health concerns but that was not enough for them to prioritize student mental health in their CG decision. Instead, they refer student to academic supports only, rather than add a new tool to deal with the issue.

The SU is continuing its fight on this issue and our expectation is that the university be held to account for the promises it makes to students.

On tuition, the SU met with the Advanced Education Minister’s Office on the university’s plan to increase Engineering tuition by more than 30% and Medicine by more than 15% for student starting in 2022. The university has failed to provide itemized lists of program improvements funded by these increases. They have also failed to outline performance metrics that will be used to show how the programs have improved thanks to the additional student money.

On the regular and annual tuition increases, the university will increase tuition by 7% for most programs, along with increases to several fees as well. This is going to the Board of Governors for approval on December 10^th. The SU will present and provide the student perspective on this third consecutive year of significant increases.