IN THIS ISSUE
Law 14 Petition
Upcoming Events
27 Pays – Permanent Teachers
Salary Increases and Retro
French Language Training Release
Student Accommodations and Issues DTU By-ElectionsPARC Activities are now free!
As announced at the DG’s Welcome Assembly, the DSU has launched a petition to exempt Indigenous Students from Law 14 which will be presented at the National Assembly by Jennifer Maccarone – MNA for Westmount-Saint Louis.
To learn more about the impact that Law 14 will have on Indigenous students, you can hear them speak about it in their own words in the following video produced by the anglophone Cegeps.
We encourage you to add your name to the hundreds who have already signed to show your support for our Indigenous students. You can sign the petition here anytime before September 30th.
As a reminder, this year there are 27 pay periods; the College sent out a Memo about this on May 28th. As a result, permanent teachers received an “advance” pay for the period August August 4th to 17th; this “advance” is then spread out over the remaining 26 pays. This is represented on your pay statement as 62.5 hours per pay period. However, it is important to note that permanent teachers earn an annual salary; they are not paid hourly, and the hourly rate that shows up on the pay statement is merely used for administrative purposes. The bottom line is, the annual salary remains the same and thus teacher remains the same (i.e. 32.5 hours per week).
The other impact of 27 pay periods is that there were no deductions for RREGOP or Union dues on the pay of August 15th. The deductions for these resumed as of the current pay period and the annual deductions will be spread over 26 pays.
Although the Collective Agreement was signed on June 9th, faculty are still waiting to see the impact of our hard-won salary gains.
Before the faculty vacation period, the College had informed the DTU that they intended to implement the new salary scales as soon as possible; however, in an email sent to all faculty in the summer, the College stated that the new scales and the retro pay will only be implemented on the pay of September 12th.
The Collective Agreement allows for a delay of up to 120 days for Colleges to pay out the retro salary; while faculty at some other Colleges have already received their retro, Dawson’s decision to pay it out on September 12th falls within the deadlines allowed for. FNEEQ has developed a calculator that allows you to estimate the amount you should receive in retro payments for the period of April 1st 2023 to June 9th 2024. (Note: this calculator only works with the latest version of excel, for example using Office 365 available on Omnivox.) The calculator does not include the significant sum of retro pay for the period of June 9th 2024 to Aug 30th 2024.
The salary increase should have come into effect on the date the Collective Agreement was signed, but faculty have waited almost three months for these increases. The Union has filed a grievance on the delay and has informed the College that we expect to receive interest for the period from June 9th to September 12th. The College has not yet confirmed whether it will pay the interest. We hope that it will agree, but if not we will explore the options to pursue this through legal channels.
In addition, for those who were on contract with the College on July 1st but not yet at the top of their salary scale , there should have been an echelon increase on July 1st. It appears that the College has applied the echelon increase on this week’s pay (August 29th). If you have received two separate pay statements for this pay period, then you have most likely received the July 1st echelon bump; the second pay statement corresponds to the retro for the echelon bump from the period of July 1st to August 16th (inclusive). The College has not included any interest with this retro payment; we will be filing a grievance and asking that the College pay the interest for the period July 1st to August 30th. Note that this is not the full retro that you will receive since the College has still not applied the main salary increase. Moreover, if you would normally go up an echelon at the start of the academic year due to your experience accumulation, you will have advanced two echelons. Since the “second” echelon only comes into effect in mid-august, there is no retro associated with this.
You can consult the new salary scales on our website.
To assist teachers with the transition to teaching courses in French, English Colleges have secured some funding from the government. The College and the Union have collaborated on a process to distribute these resources so that teachers can be released to take a recognised French course.
Information regarding the application process was recently sent out to all faculty. The release is intended for teachers who need a little additional support in developing their French language skills so that they can be ready to teach their discipline courses in French starting in Fall 2025. If you are in a department that will be providing courses in French as of Fall 2025 and you require some training to elevate your French skills, we encourage you to apply for the release. The application form is available on Omnivox under “What’s New”; click on “1 survey or vote not completed” and it will bring you to a link for “Application for release for French-language training”. The deadline to apply is Monday, 16 September 2024 , at 5:00 p.m.
SAAC Accommodations
You may soon start receiving notifications from Student AccessAbility regarding accommodations for your students. While the College has a legal obligation to ensure that students who have a documented condition receive accommodations, the nature of the accommodations should be determined in consultation with the teacher. If there are specific accommodations that are not viable in the context of your course, you should discuss alternatives with either the student or the SAAC Pedagogical councillor listed on the accommodation.
Recordings
Recently there have been some instances of student accommodations requesting that the student be permitted to take photos of or record the class. If you have concerns about this from a privacy or health perspective, we would encourage you to go back to the SAAC Pedagogical counsellor to request an alternative accommodation be found. If no alternative can be found, you can reach out to your Sector Dean or HR to inform them of the issue; you should also copy dtu@dtu.qc.ca .
Absences and make-ups
As announced by the Academic Dean (Aug 21, 2024 Student Memo – Absences of less than five days) teachers can no longer require medical notes for absences of less than 5 days. As of this semester, the College has implemented its own internal system for students to report an absence due to illness for which they are requesting an accommodation. This new process has two important implications for teachers.
Firstly, if a student for whom you received an “Absence Declaration” notification is present in your class, you should inform yoursector Dean. It is important that the College is aware of these situations to correct any issues that arise from the implementation of the new procedures and to avoid possible abuse.
Secondly, teachers may experience an increase in requests for accommodations, particularly for missed in-class assignments or tests. While there is an expectation that we would accommodate students, this does not necessarily mean you need to write a new test or assignment for the student.
You can provide an accommodation in whatever way seems appropriate for your course; for instance, you could add the weight of the missed assignment to a later assignment, you could choose to exclude the weight of the missed assignment from the overall grade calculation (in cases of small assignments), you could ask the student to do a similar but different assignment or task that addresses the same competencies.
In situations where the accommodation does require you to write a new test or assignment for the student, we understand that this involves additional work. A certain amount of this type of work falls within the bounds of what is considered a reasonable part of our workload; however, if you find that the number of requests and the amount of additional work required is excessive, we invite you to contact your Sector Dean to discuss the situation and keep us informed.
Student Behaviour Issues
While we hope that you won’t need it, if you experience issues with a student’s behaviour that are disruptive to your teaching, you can ask a student to leave the class. In addition, if you feel the situation warrants it, you can send an email to studentbehaviour@dawsoncollege.qc.ca and Student Services will follow up with the student regarding their behaviour.
The DTU will be running a by-election to fill a vacant seat in the Senate for the Medical Technologies as well as for the five vacant seats on the Executive Council: Medical Technologies, Social & BusinessTechnologies, Arts Technologies, Retirement Committee Coordinator, and Social Activities Committee Coordinator.
The Senate takes decisions on academic matters that directly impact teachers, so it is important to have representation from all sectors of faculty. Senate meetings are usually held once a month at 4pm on Tuesdays in semester time.
The Executive Council is an important decision-making body of the DTU and directs the operations of the DTU Executive between General Assemblies. The Executive Council meets once a month at 4pm on Wednesdays in semester to discuss issues that are important to DTU members.
The nomination and election period will be announced in an email to all faculty towards the end of September. If you would like to know more about any of these positions, feel free to reach out to dtu@dtu.qc.ca .
In addition, the College has sent out a call for nominations for members to Senate committees. It is important to have faculty representation on these committees. If you are interested in joining any of the following committees, we encourage you to contact Cathy Giulietti:
Institutional Student Evaluation Policy (ISEP); Institutional Policy on the Evaluation of Programs (IPEP); Academic Planning Committee (APC)
The College’s Campus Recreation offerings are now free for all employees! You can sign up for group classes such as pilates, yoga, circuit training and Wing Chun Kung or simply to use the gyms. Registration is available online through MyDawson (under Student Services).
