STATEMENT CLAIMS THAT NO STUDENTS WERE CONSULTED ON THE DECISION
On Mar. 21, 19 Recognized Students Governments (RSGs), including the International, Political and Policy Studies Student Association (IPPSSA) and the Engineering Students’ Society (ESS), shared a joint statement of concern regarding the university’s possible application of a $100 administrative fee to course evaluation deferrals.
The statement was originally published on UOSU’s Instagram account, stating, “While we can certainly appreciate the administrative strain this causes, this increase was entirely predictable.
”We are deeply concerned about the precedent which would be set by the University charging students for their failure to predict and prepare for the impact of policies it set,” the statement reads.
The application of an administrative fee comes nearly a year after the new ‘Declaration of Absence from an Evaluation’ system was originally approved in the University Senate, and implemented in September 2023. This form grants students the ability to declare a single absence from one course evaluation per semester, without supplementary documentation, such as doctor notes.
According to this news release, the project was completed on a four-month timeline. It aimed to support students, professors, and faculties including “increasing visibility into student requests to better support them in times of need and to ensure students complete their course requirements” and “reducing the administrative burden related to tracking current and prior requests.”
Although the university has yet to make a formal announcement for the fee implementation, UOSU president Delphine Robitaille said in an interview with the Fulcrum that she and other UOSU representatives first heard the news of changing the form as rumours, as well as from trusted secondhand sources over the past couple of months, before doing their own research.
“In all honesty, I don’t know where this…endeavour to change the deferral process started. I assume the central administration, but there was very little consultation with students or professors,” Robitaille said.
Carter Yacyshen, the president of IPPSSA, also heard information about this decision through trusted sources, and raised concerns to UOSU.
“As soon as [IPPSSA] heard it from like several sources — it wasn’t just one main source — our immediate response was just to bring it to UOSU because they have the manpower to make this a university-wide statement,” he said.
The statement outlined five options the university considered to modify the large amount of deferral requests they received over the academic year:
- Re-weighting evaluations for students having approved deferral request;
- Making professors responsible for the management of all deferral requests except final exams;
- Modifying the deferral request form to require documentation for any deferral request;
- Adding an administrative fee to deferral requests;
- Having the Central administration manage deferral requests for midterms and not just finals.
One of the five demands from the signing RSGs is for a justification for the administrative fee selection. Robitaille believes that although not all of the considerations are ideal, the university has led with the “most inequitable option”.
“My personal opinion,” shared Yacyshen, “is the notion of re-weighting evaluations for students who have approved for all requests, and then the option to have the central administration manage deferral requests for midterms as well, which would take away some of the administrative load.”
“I think it was good in theory…the idea behind [the new form] was [because] so many people were flooding different doctors’ offices or clinics or whatever to get notes when they had COVID-19,” said Mackenzie Conrad, president of the Engineering Students’ Society (ESS), who was initially shocked by the news.
“But [the university] didn’t really think it through because they really did give students a way to cheat. (…) There’s definitely people that needed the form and were sick, but there’s also probably people that abuse the system, which I can I guess that’s the universities implementing this to try and avoid that. But that is not the right solution to it.”
Yacyshen hopes that the university administration will be provide “secure transparency and clarification” about their decision. “I think the university and a lot of faculty and administration meetings, they do lack a lot of transparency towards the student population that really relies on like our student representatives to go and transfer information. I personally don’t think it needs to be that case.”
“Obviously, the previous system had its flaws and it restricts students who are unable to access medical professionals in adequate time or things like that. But then adding an additional fee makes [deferrals] a pay-to-win system, which is arguably much worse.”
Jesse Robichaud, the spokesperson for the university, replied to the Fulcrum’s request for a statement.
“We are aware of the statement, and we will take the time to meet with the UOSU to discuss its concerns before responding to it.”
