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.

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