WINNIPEG – Kate Basford says most of the 870 agriculture students at the University of Manitoba consider themselves lucky. While other students wonder how they’ll make up for lost time because of a professors’ strike, most aggies are in class.
Professors are striking because they don’t agree with the way the university plans to cut teaching positions and salaries, and about 70 percent of them are on picket lines. But in the faculty of agriculture, about three-quarters are still teaching.
“I think it’s because we’re a relatively small faculty,” said Basford, a fourth-year animal science student.
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“They know our names, they know us, and they just felt that they really couldn’t use us as pawns in this strike.”
However, Basford said that first-year aggies and those who take horticulture or food science courses have had classes cancelled. Some students who plan to graduate in December or April are worried they won’t finish by then.
Dean Jim Elliot said 13 courses within the faculty are not being taught right now. Three of those are prerequisites for courses that start after Christmas, so the faculty is planning to bring in teachers for them.
Kevin Vessey is one of the agriculture professors who decided to strike. He said he understands why most of his colleagues chose to stay in class, but he said the university’s integrity is at stake. If the administration has the power to decide which professors to let go, those with unpopular opinions may be the first, Vessey said.
He said some students who cross his picket line are understanding, but others have said they feel professors still working care more about students. Vessey said that’s not true. “Students are my absolute number one priority,” he said, adding that students of the future are just as important as the current crop.
Vessey hopes the strike ends soon. He said if students pressure the provincial government, it will legislate the professors back to work.
