All classes will soon resume at Dalhousie University after the faculty was locked out for nearly a month, but some dates for the semester are still up in the air.

The university and the faculty association voted to ratify their agreement Wednesday with classes starting Tuesday.

DFA president Dave Westwood says they made some gains for their members.

“I think we were able to make some gains in areas that were priorities for our members throughout the process. So it feels good to be done and happy to get folks back into classrooms and back to work,” said Dave Westwood, president of the Dalhousie Faculty Association.

The new deal includes:

• salary increases of 3.25%, 3.25% and 3.5% for a total of 10% over the life of the contract;
• a total of 16 positions that have been limited-term for 6 years or longer will be converted to tenure stream/career stream positions;
• salary adjustments of between $1,500 and $5,000 for early career faculty who join Dalhousie at a rank other than full Professor;
• each Faculty will develop workload policies to ensure a more fair and equitable distribution of workload;
• parental leave top-up increased from 14 to 35 weeks (total combined pregnancy leave top-up and parental leave top-up will be 52 weeks);
• 5 days of paid leave for Indigenous faculty to observe cultural or traditional days of importance

Westwood says they were disappointed they could not get a deal to expand child care on campus. But moneywise, the improvements are similar to what other unions have settled for, he said.

Schedule, tuition questions remain

However, some dates are still up in the air.

Dates around the fall break and the December exam schedule must be approved by the senate, which will meet on Monday.

Students are also still calling for a reduction to their tuition based on the time they have missed. They have a petition on the Dalhousie Student Union website.

“The students are going to lose probably about three weeks of their education. The content will be missed or dropped. The schedule will be compressed, and therefore more difficult. So yeah, I think a tuition refund is deserved,” said Westwood.

The student’s union had a sit-in planned for Thursday between 10 and 4 p.m. in the Studley Quad.

While feelings can get hurt on either side during bargaining, Westwood said he is optimistic the faculty and the university will get to a place where they can work effectively together.

“The university is facing challenges in terms of funding from the province, and we need to be working and pulling in the same direction. So I think as a union, we’ll be committed to trying to rebuild that, but while still acknowledging that this was a very difficult situation our members were put in.”