Several faculty from the University of Guelph are expressing dissatisfaction with the university following a much-anticipated vaccination announcement that left some questioning the provisions of the mandate.
Announced on Thursday, the mandate will be enforced through ‘‘voluntary compliance" with the universities president and vice-chancellor Charlotte Yates saying she is not asking for faculty members to act as enforcers.
Infectious disease specialist and professor at the University of Guelph Scott Weese tweeted out his 14-point manifesto for the University of Guelph which included “True mandatory vaccination with exceptions granted for valid reasons ('I-don’t-wanna-it is' not being one) through a formal process via Occ Health and Student Health Services.”
A member of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, Weese said he has been embedded with understanding COVID since it first emerged nearly 18 months ago.
“I am disappointed and confused as to why we are not taking measures that we know should be taken, and the evidence is clear we should be taking,” said Weese. “In a pandemic, you need to be brave, you need to take chances and you need to do things that you know are right even though you may face backlash.”
The manifesto published by Weese also calls for the mandatory reporting and recording of vaccination status for all coming on campus, the deferral to faculty to determine appropriate delivery model, including consideration of course content, class size, room availability and faculty (including family) circumstances and risk factors and a call for CO2 monitors available for all rooms with clear thresholds and response.
The university said in an email: "The health and safety of the U of G community is our top priority. The direction the university is taking for the fall semester, including our vaccination requirements, aligns with the approach being taken by many other Ontario universities. Mandating vaccination helps mitigate some of the risk posed by COVID-19. Those who are unvaccinated and who need to access our campuses or research stations will need to follow additional safety protocols, which includes regular COVID-19 testing."
Further, the university said its vaccination requirements are supported by Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health and Chatham-Kent Public Health, as are our other continued safety measures.
University of Guelph school of computer science associate professor and statistician Daniel Gillis vocalized his call for a proper vaccine mandate ahead of the university's announcement.
Following the announcement and town hall meeting, he said he has "very little trust right now with what is happening.”
“The people that I’ve chatted with, that includes staff, faculty, alumni and people from the community, everyone is rather disappointed in the announcement that was made,” said Gillis. “From my point of view, it doesn’t go nearly far enough, and many people I chatted with said similar things.”
A survey of his students conducted by Gillis revealed at least 25 per cent refused to come to campus, 25 per cent are not able to be in class and a significantly large proportion of students indicated they were extremely nervous and uncomfortable about being in a classroom with no vaccine mandate or know the proportion of students that are vaccinated.
“Outside of the safety issue, that is no environment in which to learn,” said Gillis.
A town hall held by the university's staff on Thursday following the announcement of a vaccine mandate prompted a response from the University of Guelph Faculty Association in which they said: “The long-predicted 'fourth wave' is now upon us, and the newly-announced vaccination mandate, for which Interim President Yates told us the administration must still 'develop the details,' is further evidence that the administration’s sanguine assurances that everything would be fine were ill-founded.”
"We remain concerned about the health and well-being of all our members and were disappointed that the administration was very short on answers at the town hall meeting to urgent questions," said Mary-Michelle DeCoste, associate professor of Italian studies and president of the University of Guelph Faculty Association (UGFA). "Surely the situation in which we now find ourselves is not a surprise, and yet the administration seems to be scrambling.
"The UGFA had attempted to negotiate a letter of understanding with the administration in the spring. We believe that had we been successful, our members would be feeling somewhat less worried about the fall semester. Unfortunately, the administration abandoned these negotiations before an agreement could be reached. The UGFA continues to urge the administration to address in a meaningful way the many concerns that we and our members have raised."
And while some faculty are unable to vocalize their opinions due to constraints, those who spoke out echoed each other's statements in saying they want a safe return to campus, and the university's vaccine mandate announcement does not facilitate a safe learning environment.
“There is a different epidemic in higher education where we do not have good decision-makers in the senior roles,” said University of Guelph school of computer science associate professor Andrew Hamilton-Wright. “Clearly no one wanted to move on this. They were all waiting for someone else to move.”
A survey of students conducted by Hamilton-Wright, which garnered 37 responses, showed two students felt safe under the current plans, one third said under the current plan they didn't feel safe setting foot on campus and 15 contacted Hamilton-Wright outside the survey to say they feel terrified.
“We’ve got this claim that we care about student mental health, but we are putting them in a situation where they are terrified. It just makes no sense,” said Hamilton-Wright.
The university's decision to implement a significant number of courses at all year levels to be offered face-to-face or to include in-person components such as labs or tutorials was a highly contested point which some faculty members questioning how this could have been handled better. The university said to help reduce classroom densities, face-to-face course sections will have an enrolment cap of 250 students.
“We are too close to the beginning of the semester to do the best of all options. It means that now, we have to revise our plans to ensure that we all stay safe and that we can all learn,” said Shoshana Jacobs, associate professor in the department of integrative biology and an adjunct associate professor in the department of management. “The best option would be to go fully remote, with some exceptions for labs where in-person is required. This would give those lab courses extra space to spread out and allow everyone to maintain some distancing.
Jacobs continued: “The next best option is for students to choose as many (all?) remotely offered courses. This is because remote courses are being prepared to be remote. It means that if there is any need to 'pivot' after an outbreak on campus, the course will not be disrupted at all. It means that they can count on being able to continue in an equitable and constant format. It means that their instructors will not be flustered and that all the assessments will be the same.”
