Message from the Association President

Dear Colleagues,

As some of you may have heard, late this afternoon Senate approved moving the start date of the January term from January 6th to January 11th.  The  length of the teaching term will remain the same, but the exam period will be shortened by one day, and exams will also be held on the two Sundays during the exam period. I believe the university will be sending something out on this matter, but I thought many of you would want to know as soon as possible.

It is my understanding that most of you will be relieved to have a bit more time to prepare for

courses, and hopefully find a few days to rest between terms. For those who have already prepared your courses for next term, you should be aware that the term will be the same length, so hopefully any revisions should not be too difficult.

Thanks to all of you who filled out the Association survey at this very busy time. We had over 400 responses on many of our important questions, and close to 400 completed surveys overall. For those who are interested, I have attached the quantitative responses.

Your survey responses regarding moving the January start date forward helped us in continuing to advocate for you on this issue, as did your individual emails to me on this matter. The Association will be analyzing your responses, and using them to advocate on your behalf on a range of issues in what continues to be a difficult time for us all.

I apologize to those of you who got bounce notifications from us earlier today. We have been having some listserv technical problems. I hope that you receive this email without any more issues, but I did want to get the news of the delayed January start out before Monday.

I hope that the end of term brings some relief for you all, although I know that for most of you significant amounts of marking and course prep remain to be done. Nonetheless, hopefully you can start to look forward to Channukah, Christmas, solstice, and whatever other holidays you celebrate at this time of year.

All the very best,

Lynne Marks,

President, UVicFA