YUFA
Free Speech
Were Classes
Cancelled and Exams Disrupted in Vari Hall on Jan. 20? YUFA Members
Respond
2 Mar 05
– At 11:55 a.m., Jan. 27, YUFA
sent out the following e-mail note to its members via YUFA-M:
Dear Members,
YUFA is interested in hearing from any its members who had classes or exams scheduled in Vari Hall on January 20th (the day of the 1st GRAIN demonstration). Did you cancel your class, and, if so, why? Was your exam disrupted, and if so, how?
Thank you,
YUFA
This query was in response to Media Releases at York's website, in particular the following quotes:
Jan. 20. ‘classes had to be cancelled’
Jan. 21.‘exams were disrupted and some classes held in Vari Hall had to be cancelled’
Jan. 25. ‘classes were cancelled and examinations were interrupted – affecting approximately 650 students’
Sent out at 11:55 a.m., the query preceded President Marsden's statement at Senate 3:00 p.m., Jan. 27. As conveyed in a York Media Release, Feb. 1, the President's statement included the following quote: ‘a faculty member came to complain that she had had to cancel her class.’
Results:
No YUFA members indicated that a class was cancelled, and none indicated that an exam was disrupted.
The rooms/instructors/courses involved were compared with information available from the lecture schedule, classlist etc., and there would seem to have been about 125 enrolments in the classes for which there were responses from full-time faculty members. However, because there seem to have been room changes since the lecture schedule was 'frozen,' this number might have been ca. 225, as it is not certain whether a tutorial or lecture was involved with regard to one of the responses.
The faculty members' responses were otherwise consistent with lecture schedules etc. and generally quite clear. The only response that was vague on a point germane to the query involved a class that the instructor seems to have dismissed a little earlier than usual: specifically, it is uncertain whether the time when the students were dismissed for this 11:30-2:30 class was 1:35 or 1:45.
The responses involved classes on all three floors.
Anecdotal Accounts:
Also received were anecdotal accounts.
Concerning an 11:30-2:30 class: 'although we heard some commotion, it did not disrupt our class in the slightest.'
'I had a class in Vari Hall xxx. It was NOT cancelled. There were absolutely no disruptions.'
Concerning an 11:30-2:30 class in one of the small seminar rooms on the first floor: 'I did not cancel my class but found the noise level to be very disruptive.'
Concerning an 11:30-2:30 class in one of two classrooms at the foot of the staircases in VH (one on each side of the Rotunda hall): 'After the demonstration speeches began in the Rotunda area, I made an adjustment to the volume of my voice as I continued to give my commentary/lecture to my seminar xxx - - which went through right through to the end of the seminar at 2.20 without disruption or interruption.'
Additional Accounts:
Responses were also received from faculty members who were not teaching in Vari Hall at the time of the demonstration:
'What WAS disturbed
was the whole transit system around the "Common", because four police
cars were blocking the U and preventing all GO and TTC buses from
moving. (WHY?) Buses filled the whole U when I was there around 2:25; no
one knew what was going on; is the road around the "Common" a public
roadway or not?? I hiked out to Keele and luckily found a cab to take me
to Downsview station, but many others I'm sure had to wait for half an
hour or more until transit was moving again.'
'My colleague xxx (untenured) teaches a big xxx undergraduate class in
Vari xxx, right off the rotunda, on xxx afternoons. I asked him if his
class has ever been disrupted due to noise from the rotunda, and he said
NO. The double doors keep out all noise.'
'Yesterday [Jan.
21] I gave a guest lecture in xxx's class, and students were gathered
right outside the doors of Vari xxx watching the video of the Jan. 20
events, which was turned up quite loud; you could not hear a thing
inside the lecture hall.'
'I have taught in Vari yyy, which is right at the end of the hall on the
second floor front, and noise from the hall or the rotunda was never a
concern. The rooms are soundproofed and the doors are tight.'
'I find it hard to imagine that even a loud demonstration inside Vari
rotunda would cause disruption to nearby classes.'
Caveats:
Although those who responded are fully represented in the above account, there are an additional 12 classes scheduled in Vari Hall during the Thursday 1:00-2:00 period . For 3 of these classes, the instructors listed in the lecture schedule are not listed in the York Directory. Because 2 others are TAs, they would not have received the query from YUFA. (YUFA has not received results for CUPE instructors, although a parallel query was apparently sent from 3903 to its members). Another person among the 12 is an instructor and yet another is possibly untenured or a CLA. In sum, about half of the tenured/tenure stream instructors who taught there/then responded to the query as summarized above.