yvolme iv
Number;
12

douglas

 

 

college student newspaper

ets their lollipop

New Westminster,

 

 

 

 

 

weg The last two original New Westminster buildings remaining see page 10

Anti—calendar
shelved for this year

by Brian Jones

The student society spon-
sored anti-calendar, sche-
duled to be released to stu-
dents in time for spring
semester registration, has
been shelved.

‘‘The intent was there, I
just didn’t get it done,”’
student council president
Dave Johnston stated Fri-

day.

The anti-calendar ques-
tionnaire would be given to
each student and record his
or her opinion on such things
as course content, method of
instruction and knowledge
gained from courses. The
results were to be correlated
to form the anti-calendar,
giving a student registering
for a course the benefit of a
previous student’s opinion.

The concept of offering
students an  anti-calendar
was brought forward by
Johnston, with a committee
being struck in October to
work on the project.

Johnston said that the
project would be directed by
him because of his expe-
rience and basic knowledge
of the workings of an anti-
calendar.

“I will put it together, and
then bring it (anti-calendar)
to. the committee and they
will decide,’’ he said.

Johnston said the reason

the anti-calendar is not ready

for this term is because he
had underestimated the time
and work involved in putting
a project of this size to-
gether.

‘In New Westminster a-
lone there are 237 different
courses, excluding the non-
credit ones and that still does
not take into account courses
that have more than one sec-
tion,’’ he stated.

The idea of the anti-
calendar is to make a ques-
tionnaire available to every
student for every course
taken.

Johnston said the ques-
tionnaire would have to be
worded positively so as to
help a student select his
courses and not just be
negative criticism of the
courses offered.

‘*‘We won’t do it if it is not
positive, it has got to help
you pick a course,’’ Johnston
stated.

Johnston said the com-
mittee had drawn up a
possible 50 questions that
could be asked on the anti-
calendar questionnaire and
took them to the faculty
association for their appro-
val.

“It is not imperative that
we have their (the faculty
association’s) consent, but it
would make the problem of
distribution much easier,’’

he said.

Johnston hopes the faculty
will distribute the ques-
tionnaire to their students.

Johnston said the faculty
association agreed with the
idea of an anti-calendar, but
could not give their consent
to the diverse set of ques-
tions they were shown.

That, Johnston said, ‘‘is
not surprising.’’ He reite-
rated that the faculty does
not have to agree on the
anti-calendar to have it pro-
duced.

The administration has al-
so shown favour to the
project.

Johnston stated that he
did not intend to abandon the
project and said that the
anti-calendar should be
ready for next fall’s registra-
tion.

‘“*We could try a dry run
questionnaire during the
spring term here on New
Westminster just to see what
problems we will encoun-
ter,’’ Johnston said.

He also stated that the
whole project was initiated
too late to be completed in
time for the spring registra-
tion period.

‘*“We would have had the
questionnaires distributed
and collected by now, if we
were to be ready for Jan-
uary,”’ he said, ‘‘(Besides)
the anti-calendar is no good
if it is not done right.’’

 

  

Surrey, iKichmond, Coquitiam and Maple Kidge

  

 

But who gets the stick

by Keith Baldrey

‘The long and bitter con-
tract fight between Douglas
College and the Douglas
College Faculty Association
(DCFA) came to an end last
week when both parties rati-
fied a new collective agree-
ment.

The new two-year agree-
ment calls for a six per cent
increase in the first year,
retroactive to April 1, 1977.

Last Wednesday, the
DCFA voted to accept the
new contract and the college
followed suit on Thursday by
voting to accept.

Of the six per cent in-
crease for the first year, five
per cent will apply equally to
salaries of all 40. faculty
members.

The remaining one per
cent will go to the part-time
faculty, eliminating former
salary inequalities.

In the second year of the
agreement, the salary in-
crease will be the maximum
allowable under the Anti-
Inflation Board guidelines.

Both parties were happy
that the negotiations were
finally over. College council
chairman John Sutherland
said, ‘‘I look forward to a
healthy working relationship
with faculty members over
the term of the agreement
and I’m happy to see a
satisfactory conclusio..
reached after long and diffi-
cult months of negotiation.”’

A tired Jim Gunson,
DCFA vice-president and
head of the negotiating team
for the faculty, was also
pleased that an agreement
was finally reached.

‘“‘We did a lot of work,’’ he
said. “I’m happy that the
whole thing is over because
it’s a considerable strain on
those taking part in the
negotiations.”’

Before the Wednesday
meeting, Gunson was unsure
whether or not the faculty
would approve the contract.
“*You’re always a bit appre-
hensive coming into these
meetings,’’ he said. ‘‘You
feel either like Moses
bringing the tablet down
from the mount, or Neville
Chamberlain with his letter
from Germany.’”’

Although the agreement
was approved, there was still
considerable debate and con-
cern by the faculty over two
clauses in the contract.

Section 13 of the agree-
ment is concerned with the
pending reorganization of
the college and some faculty
members felt it presented a
potential danger to the fa-
culty.

The section calls for the
set-up of a two-party com-
mittee to deal with any nece-
ssary changes in terminology
or issues involved in amen-
ding the agreement to deal
with the reorganization.

if the two parties cannot
reach an agreement the sec-
tion states, the matter is
submitted to binding arbi-
tration, now consisting of a
eingle me¢iator.

Some faculty members
were concerned that the
college could use this clause
to change many items in the
contract, even those not
having anything to do with
reorganization.

Roger Elmes, a_ faculty
member, at the meeting
said, ‘‘I just don’t trust those
people in the college any-
more.’’ He received a large
round of applause from the
other members for his re-
mark.

The other clause that wor-
ried the faculty was the
“‘positive evaluation’’ mat-
ter. Here, the two parties
have agreed to develop a
system of performance ap-
praisal involving all em-
ployees of the college for the
“*sole purpose of improving
the quality of the learning
experience/environment.”’

There was concern whe-
ther the college could use
this clause in any way
against the faculty, and whe-
ther the appraisal would be a
unilateral one by the college.

The agreement also clari-
fies such issues as formal
complaints against the fa-
culty or administration, edu-
cational leave, leave of ab-
sence, professional develop-
ment, and establishes a
single arbitration process in-
stead of the former three
member arbitration board.

There were also several
items agreed to in the nego-
tiations which did not form
part of the collective agree-
ment.

Perhaps the most signifi-
cant is the conflict of interest
policy, which was one of the
biggest stumbling blocks in
the negotiations.

The college has agreed to
reexamine the policy and
guarantee faculty input on it.
They have also agreed to
embody a rational and clear
definition of the policy as
well as a due process for
determining if conflict of
interest exists in a particular
case.

 

 

 

piers ae ees