MUN faculty, students still have concerns ahead of return to campus

Memorial University of Newfoundland Faculty Association members are calling for a delay in returning to campus, as in-person learning resumes Monday.

Classes with 99 people or fewer are slated to be held in person beginning Monday, while larger classes will remain online. Classes have been held entirely online, with the exception of some lab courses, since Jan. 10.

MUNFA president Josh Lepawsky says faculty members want to return to campus but they want it to happen safely. He said there are still concerns about the pandemic and the eruption of the Omicron variant.

"There's no particular reason to start that early given the state of COVID in the province," Lepawsky said Friday.

Although classes will resume in person, there's no guarantee all students will be in attendance. A walkout has been planned on social media to protest the decision.

Jessica Martin, a MUN student and member of Students for Online Accommodations Coalition, which organized the walkout, said students have been asked to message their professors to explain their reasons for not wanting to attend classes in person, while requesting accommodations from MUN officials.

Martin said the walkout was organized because students' concerns "weren't taken seriously."

"We've noticed that [MUN] administration has put requests out for online accommodations but there aren't any requirements of professors," she said.

While some professors are co-operating, Martin said, others are refusing to post anything online, despite MUN's requests for accommodations.

All we're asking is to simply post your notes online … understand students have individual needs.- Jessica Martin

Martin said she is immunocompromised, and doesn't want to put herself at risk by attending classes on campus. Other students are concerned about having to self-isolate if they become sick, she said.

"All we're asking is to simply post your notes online, record yourself at your lecture, or set up a laptop with Skype going," she said. "Just be willing to accommodate and understand students have individual needs."

Martin said MUN has refused to put any regulations in place as doing so would infringe upon the academic freedom of professors.

"We are hoping that when MUN sees how many students are affected and upset by this, it will be enough to bring some regulations in."

No say in decision, MUNFA says

In a letter to MUN president Vianne Timmons on Wednesday, MUNFA said 72 per cent of respondents in a survey of its membership said "no" when asked if the health, safety and guidance from MUN is adequate to ensure students, faculty and staff are safe on campus.

He said MUNFA members have had no part in the decision-making process, something they have lobbied for since the beginning of the pandemic.

"The planning around the return could have been done in a much more patterned and nuanced way where we prioritize bringing students and faculty back into situations that really do need to be on campus," he said. 

"For example, [to] access specialized equipment that you can't access from home, or to engage in pedagogical techniques that really need to be in person. That can cut across a variety of different faculties and departments."

MUNFA is requesting that in-person teaching be delayed until Feb. 28, when classes are set to resume following the winter break in the schedule or that instructors be given flexibility to decide whether they will continue to deliver their courses remotely. 

"That gives us roughly four weeks from today to start that staged and patterned process back," said Lepawsky. 

"The front-line workers — the teachers and researchers — have for two years been forced into situations by the administration to repeatedly turn on a dime to switch the ways they do their teaching and do their research."

Decision made with student interest in mind: MUN

Florentine Strzelczyk, MUN's provost and academic vice-president, said the university's return to in-person classes falls in line with other Canadian university plans. 

"We believe that the in-person experience that students have is a quintessential piece of student experience. Going to university, of becoming a university citizen, being with other students in the class learning directly from your instructors," said Strzelczyk.

She said faculty members who are immunocompromised will receive a medical accommodation and there are continuity plans for every unit to account for absences. She said health and safety measures are in place to keep the campus community safe. 

"We are almost 100 per cent vaccinated, most people with a booster even," said Strzelczyk. "So we feel it's actually safer on campus than it is in other parts, possibly, of the community, knowing we have high vaccination rates in Newfoundland anyway."

Strzelczyk said officials are asking for patience as the campus reopens, saying the decision was made using the best available information and the best interests of students in mind alongside meetings with students and faculty.

She said students have the right to protest but reiterated that it's safe to return to class.

"Come to class. Be safe," she said. "We've given pretty clear instructions on how to behave in a lecture room, how to behave in labs. We're trying to be as safe as possible understanding there could be outbreaks and we have measures in place to be able to deal with those."

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