Massive student strike in Quebec

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
DinoDoc, students have no problem vandalizing cars and offices. The professors know this. A strike is a two-way game.

Awesome! Not only do they get to fail the slackers, they get the dangerous ones that have no real buisiness being at a university thrown out.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's Quebec, I'm sure they reward the troublemakers .

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by nostromo
Since it's crunch time for my PhD thesis, I haven't followed it closely. But I didn't have to teach last tuesday, so that was a quite welcomed break! I will teach next tuesday, however. Don't know if there will be anybody, though. I'm somewhat sympathetic to their cause: I owe tons of cash. But I heard that some student representatives are also aiming for a free education. In other words, they don't want to pay for anything, just like the public universities in France. I've been to France, and thrust me, you don't want to go there.

IIRC, the problem of French universities is that the real elite education doesn't happen there but in other institutions.
In Austria, we had almost 100% public universities free education and it worked well in matters of quality. Of course, it was a pretty expensive thing for the state and fees were introduced - causing student strikes, but not big enough so the reform passed without too much resistance.
Ironically, the govt. said the money collected from the fees would go 100% to the now autonomous university budgets, yet for some reason now most faculties and university libraries suffer from shockingly low budgets, cuts in all kind of expenses, lack of courses etc. The library of the "Institute for South Eastern Eurean History" here in Graz for instance couldn't afford to buy a book its very chairman was editor of.

The minister of education says it's got absolutely nothing to do with her innovative reform that will lead Austria's universities to the "global top", it's all mismanagement of the autonomous budget on faculty level - in Graz, Vienna, Innsbruck, Linz, Salzburg, Klagenfurt, in social sciences and philosophy, natural sciences and economics, arts and law. Her performance is beyond critique.

[DinoDoc]

I'd still fail thier asses. Unless the professor is a coward in the face of spoiled brats, he has to maintain a position of authority and stick to the policies he laid out at the begining of the semester.

[DanS]

In Austria, we had almost 100% public universities free education and it worked well in matters of quality.

A low percentage of Austrians go to university, about 1/3rd the rate of Canada. As and if the percentage goes up, the government will be increasingly unable to fund university education without raising taxes, upping student fees, or decreasing quality.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Ah yes, a culture of lawlessness, only promoted by students. And you wonder why people hate stiking hooligans.

In the US, the police will investigate the vandalism. At the very least, the university police will and those responsible will get booted off campus.

I wonder how that isn't intimidation of professors? Nice to know that your ilk are on the same moral plane as the mafia.

Students are not asking much, if only that exams and assignments don't have to be handed. Professors are receiving their salary anyway, so why would they be looking for trouble with the students?

So that's it. Almost all professors are cooperative anyway, but ignoring the democratic decision of a student association is at their own risk.

It's like union thugs beating the guy who hires scabs. It's been done before.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'd still fail thier asses. Unless the professor is a coward in the face of spoiled brats, he has to maintain a position of authority and stick to the policies he laid out at the begining of the semester.

It's certainly going to look good on the university records, 25 000 students getting Fs.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
So that's it. Almost all professors are cooperative anyway, but ignoring the democratic decision of a student association is at their own risk.

Doesn't civil disobedience usually entail a willingness to accept the consequences of your actions and not resort to mafia style tactics to escape the consequences of policies that were explained at the begining of the semester?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
It's certainly going to look good on the university records, 25 000 students getting Fs.

Presumably they would also know the context, especially if it were in the news...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
So that's it. Almost all professors are cooperative anyway, but ignoring the democratic decision of a student association is at their own risk.

Last time I checked, the democratic student association didn't employ the professors...

Clearly, Congress should bow down the the democratic decisions of the Libertarian club at my school.

It's like union thugs beating the guy who hires scabs. It's been done before.

@ using violence to force people to give you money

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Doesn't civil disobedience usually entail a willingness to accept the consequences of your actions and not resort to mafia style tactics to escape the consequences of policies that were explained at the begining of the semester?

Student associations have a legal standing, with mandatory contributions & Co - student strikes are clearly more than mere acts of "civil disobedience". Moreover, even though it's not the case everywhere, professors here have an explicit clause in their work contract saying that they don't have to teach if there's a strike, as long as there are protesters in front of the door.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Last time I checked, the democratic student association didn't employ the professors...

Let me ask you: if the professors go on strike, is it the students' right to break into their office and ask them to do the course?

[Kuciwalker]

Why would it ever be the right of the students to break in to (by nature illegal) the professors' offices?

The university might fire them, but I don't see how the students would even have anything to do with it.

[Fake Boris]

Don't consider the precise legal standing involved here, I'm talking at a more abstract level.

The question here, is that a prof still requiring that the work be done, is clearly ignoring a democratic choice, and using the means at his disposition to revert it.

Despite being legal, they still have the same effect: they coerce students by forcing them to give up their association right. I doubt the legitimacy of something, even legal, meant to undermine popular will.

[Sava]

I'd have to read more about this situation to have an informed opinion on it.

But I must be honest, I can't seem to get myself motivated to argue about some local Quebec education issue.

But I like how most people arguing vehemently in this thread are doing so without really being informed. But that's to be expected from some.