Many questions asked as UPEI holds listening session tied to hard-hitting report

Hundreds of people flooded into a theatre on the UPEI campus Monday afternoon as administrators offered members of the campus community and former students a chance to speak their minds. 

The town hall came less than two weeks after the release of a scathing third-party review looking into harassment, discrimination and other workplace issues that were allowed to fester over the last decade at Prince Edward Island's only university.

Monday's session was billed as a chance for the university to listen to the community while developing a path forward to make the necessary changes recommended by the report's authors, the Toronto-based law firm Rubin Thomlinson.

Some people leaving Monday's meeting said they are waiting to see what happens next. 

"It will take a lot of work, and real work — and accountability and transparency and effort — to even start to build that trust back," said Ashley Clark, a former UPEI student who now works at the campus and is the provincial president of the Canadian Union of Public Employeees. 

"Was it a meeting to check a box or was it the first step toward real change? That won't be apparent today."

The open house at the performing arts theatre in UPEI's new residence building was closed to members of the media, but alumna and former provincial MLA Hannah Bell were in the audience, tweeting questions as they were brought forward.

She said the event started with an apology from interim president Greg Keefe. 

That's something people said they were still waiting to hear, nearly two weeks after the release of the report.

Keefe later confirmed to reporters that he had apologized, saying: "What I did was apologize to anyone who had suffered harm, under either the previous administration or who continue to suffer harm at the university. 

"It's a sincere apology given by myself on behalf of the university."

Margot Rejskind, the executive director of the UPEI Faculty Association, said that in her mind the apology didn't go far enough. 

"There wasn't something saying, 'We see it, we're sorry, we're going to do better starting now,'" she said. "I really think that it's really that simple. Those are the words that need to be spoken."

Still fearing retribution

The faculty association said some people working at the university remain concerned about retaliation if they speak their minds openly, so it asked them to submit questions the union could ask on their behalf. Some of the themes were: 

• Will more people in the administration step down, as board of governors chair Pat Sinnott and fellow board member Andrew Barlett did on June 14? 
• Will there be any further investigation of any of the allegations of wrongdoing included in the Rubin Thomlinson report?
• Will people who signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with the university over the last decade be released from their confidentiality provisions? 

Along with the 400 people who filled the theatre, many more were able to follow online through Zoom, as long as they had a UPEI email account. 

Sandy MacDonald, the president of Holland College who holds an ex-officio seat on the UPEI Board of Governors, described this as a "disappointing" time for the campus, adding of Monday's meeting: "The mood in there is appropriate."

Asked whether he thought Keefe was the person who could guide the university through a time of recovery, MacDonald replied: "Comes the hour, comes the man."