Archive for category: UVSS Statements

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the UVSS has continued to advocate for the safety and accessibility needs of students at the University of Victoria. We support UVic’s decision to shift from in-person exams to online exams or alternative arrangements — something that students have been asking for since last week’s rise in COVID-19 cases on campus. 

Many students were alarmed by the recent outbreak and lack of support, transparency, and notice provided by the University of Victoria. Exams are already a stressful time for students, only made more stressful by concerns over potential COVID-19 spread. We were glad to see decisive action from the University on Sunday evening—and although many students wish it had come sooner, the decision to no longer have in-person exams helps to ease student concerns and keep us safe. It’s important to note that the Access4All campaign, run by the Society for Students with a Disability, has been advocating UVic to implement a hybrid mode of class delivery for many months now. Hybrid classes would alleviate some of these barriers to education and stress inducing factors caused by the shift to online examinations. Many students, staff, and faculty have expressed support for hybrid classes!

The UVSS appreciates the effort from UVic to be more transparent about COVID-19 cases on campus and hope they continue doing so with more contingency and pandemic planning measures, informed by students, staff and faculty, in place to prevent sudden and stress-inducing shifts in the future. The emergence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant demonstrates the heightened importance of having contingency planning in place, ready for swift and responsive action at the onset of an outbreak. We are all trying to navigate these unprecedented times, and the UVSS’ objective is to seek a clear and transparent process that ensures that the students and the UVic community at large are safe. Below we have outlined our asks of the UVic Administration following this most recent COVID-19 outbreak and other actionable requests as we move forward into the new year.

UVSS Asks:

• The University should be taking transparent proactive, not reactive, measures to ensure the safety of UVic students. To ease stress for students, staff, and teaching assistants, we request that UVic have a concrete action plan, accompanied by a communications plan, to proactively manage future outbreaks. UVic community members should be made aware when cases occur and should know what steps the University plans to take to keep them safe.
  • Information on cases, clusters, and outbreaks should be located at a centralized, up-to-date webpage accessible to the campus community. Clear messaging and an action plan should be immediately communicated across UVic’s platform when COVID-19 cases occur within the campus community.
• We ask UVic to communicate their plans for the Winter 2022 semester as soon as possible, as many students need to plan ahead for January.
• We ask professors to give grace for students during this December exam period by allowing faculty to grade holistically (i.e. reflect on student’s performance throughout the term).
• We ask that the administration look into pass/fail options for future semesters to give students more grace and options.
• • In addition to this, there are many students whose studies have been affected by COVID-19 for various reasons that pass/fail options don’t work for. For example, students moving on to grad school who need grades on their transcript and students who have renewable scholarships who need certain GPA averages to renew their scholarships.We ask that UVic also create alternative options to pass/fail for students whose grades have been affected by COVID-19, but still need their GPA to be accurate.
• We ask that UVic continues to include on transcripts the note stating “this semester was taken during COVID-19 pandemic” on the affected semesters.

The safety of our campus is a shared responsibility and one we hope everyone in the UVic community will continue to take seriously. We know many students have been cautious throughout these months, but we are also seeing how quickly transmission can occur and a situation can escalate. UVic is responsible for managing the university with the safety of students, staff, and faculty at the forefront a during a global pandemic, which is undoubtedly difficult. The UVSS remains committed to advocating and working with UVic to ensure our campus is safe and accessible for all students. 

Long before this recent event, the Society for Students with a Disability’s Access4All campaign has requested and advocated for hybrid learning with online options to ensure students at greater risk for COVID-19, or who face barriers from in-person learning have equitable access to education. On Friday December 17th 2021, the SSD released this statement regarding this issue and how it disproportionately impacts students with a disability and the UVSS continues to support their actionable requests.

September 30th is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. This new statutory holiday, also known as Orange Shirt Day, was established to recognize lives lost to and survivors of residential schools across so-called Canada. As students who work and study at an educational institution, the UVSS Board acknowledges the connection our education system has to places of violence that claimed to be ‘schools.’ Colonialism continues to permeate many of our institutions. This includes our education system, but also other institutional systems, such as: the (in)justice system, healthcare, the environmental sector, and access to clean drinking water and food security. 

The UVSS occupies space in the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, which is situated on the unceded, unsurrendered, and stolen territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples. Decolonization and Social Justice are key UVSS values, which direct our commitment to educate our members, create open dialogue, and take action to dismantle colonial systems. September 30th is an important day for  settlers to lean into unlearning the stories we are often told about Canadian history, reflect on the ongoing cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples across Canada, and take action to dismantle colonial structures in our thoughts, our relationships, our workplaces, classrooms, and communities. For settlers, it starts with a lifelong commitment to discomfort and vulnerability, engaging in hard conversations, and educating ourselves and our peers. The UVSS is committed to initiating these conversations as an organization, and taking meaningful action to restore justice on campus and in our community.

To Indigenous students, faculty, and community: We see you. We support you. 

For all students, here is a non-exhaustive list of resources on decolonization, land back, local peoples & histories, and how you can get involved: 

• Being Here & Being Together – list of resources

• Beyond 94: this is an interactive website that outlines the 94 calls to action outlined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report published in June 2015.
• You can find the full Truth and Reconciliation Report and Calls to Action here: www.trc.ca 
• Here are some calls to action from this report that relate to post-secondary education:

1. 7. We call upon the federal government to develop with Aboriginal groups a joint strategy to eliminate educational and employment gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.
   8. We call upon the federal government to provide adequate funding to end the backlog of First Nations students seeking a post-secondary education.
   9. We call upon law schools in Canada to require all law students to take a course in Aboriginal people and the law…
   10. We call upon the federal, provincial and territorial governments, in consultation and collaboration with Survivors, Aboriginal Peoples and educators to:… ii) Provide the necessary funding to post-secondary institutions to educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms.
   11. We call upon the federal government, through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and in collaboration with Aboriginal Peoples, post-secondary institutions and educators, and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and its partner institutions, to establish a national research program with multi-year funding to advance understanding of reconciliation.

You can learn more about the local nations whose land on which we live, work, and play by taking a look at their websites:

W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council: https://wsanec.com/

• Tsartlip First Nation (W̱JOȽEȽP): https://tsartlip.com/
• Tsawout (SȾÁ,UTW̱): https://tsawout.ca/ 
• Pauquachin  (BOḰEĆEN): https://www.pauquachin.ca/
• Tseycum  (W̱SÍḴEM): http://www.tseycum.ca/

lək̓ʷəŋən Nations:

• Songhees Nation: https://www.songheesnation.ca/
• Esquimalt Nation: https://www.esquimaltnation.ca/ 

The SUB will be closed on September 30, 2021 and will reopen on October 1. 

June is National Indigenous History Month, and today is National Indigenous Peoples Day. 

Today, the UVSS Board recognizes the beauty, strength and knowledge of Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. We especially recognize the W̲SÁNEĆ and Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples of whose lands we do our work and our learning on. If you are on or near the University of Victoria campus, we urge you to check out the Native Students Union (IG: @uvicnsu) and review their story highlights and Territory Acknowledgment, which includes pronunciation of  W̲SÁNEĆ and Lək̓ʷəŋən. 

As a non-profit, social justice based organization, we acknowledge our responsibility to align our work, and our actions as UVic students, with the values of decolonization and Indigenous self-determination. As students we are working towards creating a healthier future for us all, and that can only happen once justice has been achieved.  We recognize that learning our history on these lands – both individually and collectively – is an important first step.

Recently, we have been devastated by the confirmation of the unmarked and undocumented burials of 215 children at the former Kamloops Residential School, and the tragic reality that similar graves exist at residential school sites all across so-called Canada. We bear witness to these events and we stand with the Survivors. We recognize the intergenerational trauma caused by not only residential schools but other ongoing genocidal policies in Canada that work to displace Indigenous peoples from their lands and waters.

On July 1st, we will not celebrate Canada day. Instead, we will be reading up on the history of the lands we are on, we will be digging deeper into the true meaning of decolonization and will be reflecting on our positionality on these lands that have been, and are still, being stolen from  the W̲SÁNEĆ and Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples. We invite you to join us. 

The picture in this post features two traditional freestanding cedar welcome figures that line the main entrance to the First Peoples House at UVic (IG: @uviciace), by Coast Salish artist Doug Lafortune. The figure on the right represents a traditional Coast Salish man with a boy, and the figure on the left displays a traditional Coast Salish woman and child.

Interactive map resources:

• Native-land.ca – to find out more about whose territories you live on
• First Peoples’ Map of BC – which showcases the language, arts, culture, territory and more of different First Nations
• Do you live near a residential school? – CBC interactive map

Watch:

• Decolonization is for Everyone with Nikki Sanchez (Ted Talk)
• Trick or Treaty (streaming)

Read:

• Beyond territorial acknowledgments
• Decolonization is Not a Metaphor [PDF] by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang
• National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
• National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation Reports
• Book: Settler Identity and Colonialism in 21st Century Canada by Emma Battell Lowman and Adam J. Barker