Before the Undergraduate Solidarity Society (USS) was founded in June at the beginning of the Teaching Support Staff Union (TSSU) strike to get undergraduate students involved with strike action. Over the course of the strike, USS members joined TSSU on picket lines, helped inform students of TSSU’s goals, and supported their job action. However, since the strike ended in October, the USS is now organizing undergraduates for a tuition refund. The Peak interviewed two USS members, Artin Safaei and Ida, to discuss the USS’ goals.
Ida described USS organizing as “a way to reclaim ownership over the school.” She said the university follows a “transactional model” where undergraduate students are merely customers in a business, rather than active members of a community. “This model is not how a university is supposed to function.”
“This organization started as a strike solidarity movement among undergrads, but we quickly realized there is a lack of a base or core [ . . . ] and we see that energy going to waste,” Safaei said. Ida noted, “The culture at SFU of student organizing has been declining,” citing SFU’s former reputation as a radical, protest-oriented university since the school’s foundation in the mid-1960s.
According to the statement SFU provided The Peak, the SFU administration considers labour strikes and job action to be uncontrollable events and refunds will not be offered because the university is not responsible for it.
However, the USS argues that SFU is responsible for the prolonged strike action due to their unwillingness to meaningfully bargain over months. “The measures taken by the administration were not measures that considered the effect and impact the strike had because of the catastrophic management of the administration,” Safaei said. “We don’t want to be paying tuition for a term we didn’t really have.”
In response, the USS started a petition for a tuition refund, which the administration has “completely ignored.” Safaei elaborated, “That’s one of the main reasons we’re asking for a tuition refund.” The USS believes “this strike in particular was mismanaged in a way that the university had a lot to do with the suffering and the frustration that was felt.”
Ida said most of the signatures for the petition occurred within a two-week period. At the time of writing, the petition has reached 2,722 signatures, which she said is 8% of SFU’s undergraduate body. “The petition tells us the student body is ready for a tuition refund. The student body is ready for accountability from the school.”
USS members are also discussing hikes in tuition costs, which have been raised over the past two years by 2% for domestic students and 4% for international students every year. “Our school has a budget surplus every year, a surplus that is growing, but we are forced to pay the maximum amount of tuition dues every year and it’s rising. Inflation is not considered, which is a huge problem,” Safaei said.
“When we crunch the numbers, we see a picture that is rapidly emerging that this [tuition] hike that SFU has chosen is not something that they have had to do,” Ida said, herself an economics student. “It’s a deliberate choice to create profit and to continue this model of the university as a profit-making institution.”
After the strike ended, the SFU Senate Committee passed a motion to install a “Pass/Credit/No Credit” system. The new system will allow students to opt in after they’ve reviewed their final grades. Grades equivalent to a C- or higher will receive a “pass,” grades equivalent to a D will receive a “credit,” and failing grades will receive a “no credit.” This grading system does not impact GPA.
“This is not a bad thing,” Safaei said, noting its significance to students who need those credits to graduate. “But academic security is one thing, and then financial security is another.”
He also noted the deadline to drop a class has been extended, but even that has its problems. “If I’m dropping a course but paying full for that course, that again was taken from me, why aren’t we talking about that? [ . . . ] This is an injustice that no ‘credit or no credit’ system can fix.”
While the TSSU strike is officially over, Safaei said he noticed a sense of “momentum building” over the course of the strike. “Now that we can see TSSU fighting for their rights, maybe we should be fighting as well [ . . . ] Our main goal, as the USS, right now, is to get what is rightfully ours. To get our tuition refunds back. And to start a real, constructive dialogue about tuition raises.”
The USS is currently organizing a rally on campus in mid-November to raise awareness for undergraduate students’ rights, the tuition refund, and yearly tuition hikes.
