The Carleton University Senate has voted to implement the SAT/UNSAT revised grading policy for students due to the CUPE 4600 strike.
The motion passed with 15 votes against and eight abstaining. The university said 41 votes were in favour, but the vote was conducted via Zoom chat, and only abstentions and opposition votes were requested.
Any Senate member who did not explicitly indicate opposition or abstention was said to be in approval, raising questions from members that were quickly dismissed by the administration.
Many Senate members raised concerns about the policy, which was first implemented as a pandemic-era measure, citing concerns over the potentially precedent-setting move.
Course instructors are still expected to submit all earned course grades, but all students will now have the option to convert any passing grade this term to a grade of SAT, while failed courses will automatically be converted to an UNSAT.
Grades converted to SAT or UNSAT wouldn’t count towards students’ CGPAs, but UNSAT grades will result in ineligibility for some scholarships. Graduating students have until May 19 to request the change. Other students have until May 29.
The Carleton Academic Student Government, which was consulted in the recommendation process, supported the motion. The Carleton University Students’ Association, which represents all undergraduate students at the university, also supported the motion.
The decision comes one week after teaching assistants and the university reached a tentative agreement, ending the CUPE 4600 strike.
The union has opposed the implementation of a revised grading policy and had hoped the ending of the strike before the term was over would deem such a move unnecessary.
Union says revised grading policy hurts members, students, amid pay dispute
The university and the union have been at odds over compensation for the end of the term period as the two sides did not agree on back-to-work terms following the strike, according to CUPE 4600 president Noreen Anne Cauley-Le Fevre.
On Wednesday, the union informed members the university had decided not to pay them for the time they were on strike—eight weekdays for contract instructors and nine weekdays for teaching assistants (TAs).
The university also delayed April 13 paycheques until the next pay period on April 27 due to administrative issues following the strike.
In a statement to the Charlatan, Carleton spokesperson Steven Reid confirmed the university would not be paying striking workers for time off work.
Cauley-Le Fevre said the university is clawing back wages and implementing the revised grading policy to retaliate against members for striking.
“The work didn’t disappear while we were on strike, it was all still waiting for us when we came back,” she said. “And so this blanket approach doesn’t actually account for whether there was work that was missed.”
“It is very significant to lose thousands of dollars unexpectedly,” Patricia Kmiec, a Department of History contract instructor, said. “It really is hard to show up for work when you’re not getting paid … it’s very discouraging.”
CUPE 4600 members who spoke to the Charlatan said they had already completed a majority of their duties prior to the strike or were in the process of making up for them following the return to work.
Rachel Kashul, a TA in the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation, said she only missed out on about two hours of work during the strike, but is being deducted 15 hours worth of pay.
Kashul already works two other jobs because her pay is inadequate, she said. Her partner is also a TA at Carleton, so together, they’re losing about $1,200 in pay.
“It’s more than half a month’s rent for us,” she said. “We’re going to be working even harder to make up for that potential loss when we’re still recovering from the emotional and physical exhaustion of the strike.”
Emily Quaile, a TA in the Department of Political Science, said the missing hours make up a significant portion of her 65-hour contract.
“I actually didn’t miss any work during the strike period,” she said. “It seems like just outright punishment for going on strike, because no assignments were due during the period that I was out.”
She added she has had to budget her funding package carefully as a parent to two young children.
“[The university is] not even directly communicating to us … not just as their employees, but also as the grad students that they admitted to this program, that they use for this kind of cheap labour,” she said.
Lowell Gasoi, a contract instructor for the School of Journalism and Communication, said the issue boils down to “doing the morally, ethically, and academically right thing to do—which is to pay people.”
“We’re not a diploma mill here, right? That’s not what we signed up for,” he said.
The Carleton University Academic Staff Association, which represents full-time faculty at the university, has expressed its full support for contract instructors and TAs, with hundreds of members signing a letter calling on the university to pay members their full wages.
CUPE 4600 members and other concerned students rallied on Friday before the Senate meeting, demanding the university pay members for the hours they expected to make up.
The group delivered a letter to the office of provost and vice-president (academic) Jerry Tomberlin, calling on him to explain the rationale behind “clawing back” wages and implementing a revised grading policy when TAs were prepared to complete their duties.
The tentative agreements agreed upon include retroactive pay of 3 per cent for teaching assistants and 5.5 per cent for contract instructors going back to September 2022.
Undergraduate teaching assistants will receive an extra 1.5 per cent while contract instructors will receive an extra 2.5 per cent for the winter term.
Cauley-Le Fevre said the current pay dispute is a separate issue from the tentative agreements, which members will vote on at the end of next week.
Results are expected April 26, she said.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated students could only convert one passing grade to a SAT grade. The Charlatan has confirmed there’s no limit to the number of passing grades that can be converted to a SAT grade, as long as they were taken in the winter term. This story was last updated April 14.
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
