TRU Faculty votes on non-confidence motion

Apr 12, 2016 | 5:30 AM

KAMLOOPS — It has been a long standing divide between faculty and administration at Thompson Rivers University.

“We’ve seen example after example of a failure of leadership,” said TRU Faculty Association President Tom Friedman.

“We are not communicating. They are not reaching out to us,” said Vice President of Advancement Christopher Seguin.

And while a new contract was signed earlier this year, that hasn’t eased the tension between the two sides. 

“Things have to change, there has to be a change of attitude,” said Friedman.

Friedman says senior administration often doesn’t consult with faculty on academic decisions, and now faculty is reacting with an online vote to see whether their members have confidence in their administrators. 

“We’ve seen too many examples of arbitrary decisions made by administrators without consultation with the faculty members that are involved and without adequate assessment of the impact of some of these decisions on our students,” said Friedman.

In February of this year a collective bargaining agreement was reached with 90 per cent of TRU faculty association members voting in favor – but now administration is frustrated the vote hasn’t led to any improvement in communication.

“We are getting our information from YouTube videos and websites – we would much rather they give us a call, sit down with us, and walk through what they need to move forward,” said Seguin.

Seguin says they’re disappointed that the faculty felt the need to hold the vote but will look at the result closely to see how they can get back to working together. 

“When we work together we build libraries, we build law schools, we come up with new programming, we come up with amazing things – we need to get back to that place.”

“We have to see evidence of concrete actions that back up those words,” countered Friedman.

The non-confidence vote will be held online over the next week.