Look at the lesson our bravery taught us
By Neil Palesh
Fourth Year Business Student
October 15, 2008
Some may recognize this title as a line from a rather popular off-Broadway musical titled “Children of Eden.” The play (very) loosely follows the first few chapters of the Bible dealing with Adam and Eve, then Noah and The Flood.
In the song, Adam in frustration looks at his current life with Eve and his children outside of the Garden of Eden, and in frustration proclaims, “Look at the lesson our bravery taught us.” This line is a reflective statement of his frustration with the choice he and Eve made in the past which created all the pain he’s experiencing in the present.
This line I feel is perfectly analogous to what university students right now are all feeling post-WUFA strike.
Most noticeable during the strike was the response of students. A silent majority were complacent and simply trusted matters to the powers that be, waiting in expectation for a resolution.
Others were more violent in their responses and wrote nasty letters to the Windsor Star, and made other public proclamations of their disgust of the strike and what they thought was a huge thorn in our education and a scandalous rip off of the tuition we paid.
Still others acted in bad faith and poor etiquette by leaving during Dr. Wildeman’s town hall (meeting) and others camping out in his office until he granted them an audience.
Now that the strike is over, we’ve been faced with making up class time by relinquishing our reading week, adding a week at the end of the semester, and re-time tabling the final exams which now have us writing on weekends and as early as 7 a.m.
Those who have travel commitments may have to cancel as there is no official policy from the Registrar’s to let that slide as a valid reason to miss a rescheduled final – unfortunately the cost of this can be more than the tuition itself.
Are we honestly surprised the administration made this choice to extend our semester and re-time table the finals given the student’s public outcry against the university during the strike? I suggest we shouldn’t be surprised at all. By the time we were into the second week of the strike, it was reasonable and I think expected for us to be giving up our reading week. Extending the semester however caught us all off guard.
Publically, we’re told the week was added so that students would be able to still cover the content in their courses. What we won’t hear publically, is that the extra week is a slap on the wrists we all have to take for those students that choose to speak out in unprofessional ways during the strike.
Faculty and administration alike have the interests of the students at heart in times of labour unrest especially – for it is us that pays at least a portion of their salaries. They realize it would not be in anyone’s interest to be the first university in Canada to cancel an academic semester and so I suggest it never entered anyone’s (rational) mind. During the strike, a minority of students acted irrationally and out of emotion and not trusting the situation in the hands of those that can best resolve it, and who coincidentally also have our best interests at heart. Shame.
Another song from the play proclaims “Paradise seems strangely close, close to home.” The semester will end, our education will continue, staff will continue to get paid, and soon this will all be a coffee stained page in history.
My fellow peers, let’s please be honest with ourselves, and diligent to at least take something of good away from all this mess and to truly “look at the lesson our bravery taught us.”
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