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wildcaat:winter2016:wildcaat8



Accommodation Redux

David How

Sometimes thing happen in our personal lives that need to be attended to. If those things are in conflict with teaching commitments, they could meet with their manager and sort it out. An accommodation is a way for faculty to honour their commitment to the college while allowing some personal leeway. It should be fair and available to anyone who requires it.

This used to be a most simple process that was negotiated between faculty and their manager. There was usually a meeting of the two and without a lot of fuss, it got done. Many conscientious faculty, without being asked, go above and beyond their formal SWF as there are things that come up such as program reviews, open houses, trade fairs, mentoring new faculty, meeting with students and more.

Well, welcome to the New Sheridan.
The days of civility seem to have slipped away and now when someone requests an accommodation, the faculty member, the union and the manager must meet. I’ve attended several of these over that past year and sometimes up to 7 people sit for an hour or two and review the request for one teacher who might need a small scheduling modification THEN it goes before executives who make the final call. This new process is at times demeaning, embarrassing and frankly strips away motivation and incentive to do those extras we all do.

The managers don’t like this, HR feels awkward about it and the Union fails to see how what used to be a discussion can now feel like an interrogation.

I can only think of the old axiom, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t try and fix it’.

wildcaat/winter2016/wildcaat8.txt · Last modified: 2017/09/05 20:36 (external edit)