Strike leaders and student association representatives told MTL Blog that they feel the university administration has dismissed their concerns about physical attendance in courses.
"The return to class was just very rushed, very premature," Claire Downie, Students' Society of Mcgill University (SSMU) Vice President University Affairs, told MTL Blog. "We've been back for two weeks and I've already been hearing about outbreaks in classes."
Here's what's happening.
What's McGill's policy?
Quebec government regulations allowed post-secondary institutions to reopen as of January 17. McGill returned to in-person classes on January 24, though "most" lectures with over 200 students continued online, university spokesperson Katherine Gombay said in an email to MTL Blog.
She explained that McGill provides "accommodations" for students "who are vulnerable to severe illness from COVID infection" and has also made alternative arrangements available to students who are in isolation or test positive.
Students have to submit online requests for short-term academic accommodations, however. Gombay also made clear that instructors are "encouraged" but not required to record lectures. Online participation in classes is up to individual instructors, too.
And though McGill allows instructors to teach up to 20% of their courses remotely, individual faculties can set additional caps.
"The health and wellbeing of our community remain our top priority, and all necessary health and safety measures will continue to be implemented to ensure that our campuses remain safe places to learn and to work," Gombay said.
The university nevertheless "[understands]" the concerns of students and faculty members who are "anxious about in-person activities," she continued, and recognizes their right to protest peacefully.
Students are concerned about spreading the virus in the community
Many students, meanwhile, feel the university isn't doing enough to protect both the people who work and study on campus and the city more broadly.
"At times when our healthcare system cannot handle any additional influx of patients, keeping classes online seems like a small and manageable sacrifice," the EGSS wrote in its January strike resolution.
Both the LSA and SWSA cited their commitments in the community as a key reason for their strikes.
"Many of our students have to do field placements during the week and then also go to school," said Jo Roy, one of the School of Social Work strike organizers. They said it doesn't make sense for students to spend half of their week in classrooms, potentially spreading COVID, "especially since some of the folks who are in my cohort work with COVID patients in hospitals."
McGill law student strike organizer Chris Ciafro said some students are also working with members of vulnerable populations in legal clinics.
"This strike is not only for the benefit of our fellow students, but for the community at large, at a time when Québec's healthcare system is already overwhelmed," the LSA said in a press release in late January.
Solidarity with vulnerable classmates was another key motivator for the strike.
"What might be safe for one person isn't safe for another person, and that's really what all of the strikes have been about — making sure everybody can access McGill education, even if they're not able to safely come to class right now," said Downie.
The EGSS pointed to the continuing "risk of serious illness" for immunocompromised and disabled people, as well as what it described as the need to protect community members who are unvaccinated.
In a proposed motion to oppose McGill's reopening plan, Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) representatives assert that school policies "incentivise students to attend class even while they are ill" and thus jeopardize the health and safety of vulnerable students. The motion passed at a February 2 AUS general assembly. It's now before the student body for a vote.
What's the reaction from McGill faculty and administration?
A handful of social work professors have voiced their support for their students' strike.
In a January 28 letter to Faculty of Arts Dean Mary Hunter, 12 School of Social Work faculty members expressed concern about what they said was a "lack of acknowledgement" in the university's return-to-class policy "for the diverse realities of the needs and wishes of members of our university community."
They further called the "lack of flexibility" in the policy a "failing" in the university's "duty to protect the communities outside our gates in which our campus is embedded."
Roy told MTL Blog that all social work teachers appear to be respecting the strike.
More than one strike organizer described the university administration's response to the strikes, however, as dismissive.
The strike in the Faculty of Law ended on February 6 after instructors in "targeted classes" met "students' demands for hybrid and alternative methods of course delivery," the Law Students' Association said in a Feburary 8 statement. But strike organizer Chris Ciafro told MTL Blog that students "remain concerned about the lack of transparency and tendency towards top-down decision making seen at the university."
"Our strike mandate was a clear demonstration of students' dissatisfaction with McGill's dismissive approach to our concerns," he said.
Roy said McGill's response to the School of Social Work strike consisted of "propaganda and dismissiveness."
"There's a large history, especially in Quebec, of student strikes that are very impactful," Downie said. "The goal is to be in solidarity with people who aren't able to safely come to class right now. The administration has been trying to downplay the efforts when really they're very significant."
"We are doing what the school has taught us to do," said Roy. "That is why we are on strike — because of the advocacy and values that the school and social work as a field expects of us and demands of us. It kind of boggles my mind that anyone would try to disparage us for doing what we're being taught by McGill to do."
