Queen's students, staff and faculty rally against cutbacks

Article content

KINGSTON — Students, faculty and staff at Queen’s University wrapped up a week of actions meant to draw attention to funding cuts at the institution with a rally Friday afternoon.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Queen's students, staff and faculty rally against cutbacks Back to video

Organized by the Queen’s Coalition Against Austerity, the events, including a rally Friday afternoon in front of Richardson Hall that coincided with a quarterly meeting of the university’s board of trustees, were meant to highlight the potential impact of cuts.

“The anticipated large reductions in the numbers of part-time instructors and staff will have a huge impact on the city of Kingston,” said coalition member Mary Louise Adams, a professor at the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies. “The principal of Queen’s often talks about how “the possibility and potential” of the place lie in the people who study and work here. The speed and depth of these cuts suggest we have lost our way in that regard.”

The cutbacks could include staff and faculty layoffs, larger class sizes, the deteriorating living, learning and working environment, rent hikes for Queen’s housing tenants, international student precarity, and attacks on collective decision-making and transparency, according to Adams.

Adams said the cutbacks are the result of years of underfunding by the provincial government.

“Unlike other universities, Queen’s has financial resources that could help mitigate the deficit without doing harm to the long-term sustainability of the institution,” Adams said. “Budgets are political. Different decisions about, for instance, how much investment income to apply to the operating budget, could save jobs. A longer timeline to a balanced budget could allow staff and faculty to collaborate to find effective ways to protect the academic mission. It’s what students, staff, faculty, alumni and the people of Kingston deserve.”