PDF: LFA Report to BOG September 21, 2026 (1)

LFA Report to the Board of Governors, Langara College

September 21, 2026

Submitted by President Pauline Greaves, on behalf of the Board of Directors, Langara Faculty Association

1. Faculty reductions and reappointment

As of September 1 this year, we have 550 faculty currently employed at Langara. This is down from 750 one year ago, and nearly 900 three years ago. These totals do not include regular faculty on temporary contracts who do not get counted during semesters when they have been informed that they do not have work.

The LFA continues to work towards fair treatment for those who have been laid off in terms of their right to reappointment when work is available. Currently, the College administration has instructed department chairs to bypass laid-off faculty when assigning available work, and offer the work instead to faculty with less seniority on short-term temporary contracts. In cases where there are no faculty in the department available for these temporary contracts, the work must be posted. In this situation, laid-off faculty must apply, and be interviewed for, the work they just recently lost, but with no guarantee that they will be given the work. Some of our members, with as much as 10-15 years of service at the College, have faced this exact situation this fall, while others with many fewer years of seniority are being offered work that should be available for reappointment.

The LFA maintains that the College’s extremely narrow interpretation of reappointment rights does not match the spirit or intention of the collective agreement. There is a sense that it divides faculty against each other – a division our members have roundly rejected. Even to those who have not lost work, the long-term impact of the College’s action is clear: long-term career-building employment at Langara is being eroded and replaced with short-term contracts. This leads towards casualization of the faculty at Langara, which undermines all faculty members’ opportunities over time. LFA members understand this, no matter what type of contract they currently hold.

The loss of long-term, dependable work hurts the quality of education and the opportunity for strong faculty commitment to the institution. Casual contracts mean more faculty face precarity, with less time available to invest in improving their courses or to spend with students. The working experience of faculty produces the educational experience of students. Shifting to short-term, low-commitment contracts for faculty will undermine Langara’s quality over time.

While we have been holding discussions with college administrators about these issues, we have not yet reached any resolution. Meanwhile, the cost of this decision is rising, and the clock is ticking. Faculty who have lost work and had their careers cut off are waiting to see if they might be scheduled for available work in January – a schedule that typically will be developed and finalized in the next four to six weeks. Talking is helpful when it leads to solutions; however, in our experience, discussions that appear to be fruitful sometimes result only in delay, followed by a decision by the College to end the talks. Our hope in this case is that continuing in good faith to work together with the College will bring a swift resolution that is fair and in keeping with the spirit of the collective agreement.

Delay is not acceptable in this case: our members are seeking action now. The issue of reappointment rights is the top, and central, issue for our members at this time.

2. Next-step procedures for suspended programs

At the last public Board of Governors meeting, in June 2026, the Board discussed changes to policies and procedures related to Evaluation of Programs and Educational Services (Policy 440) and Program Suspension and Cancellation (Policy 441).

Policy 441 states that a program that has been suspended “will be considered for reinstatement, cancellation, or further suspension.” However, there is no mention of a timeline within which the Board of Governors will receive updates about suspended programs, or take any next steps, after it votes to suspend a program.

As an example of what can happen without such a process in place, consider the BBA program. Here is the timeline of actions taken:

• June 2023: faculty were told to stop work on the revised BBA program proposal for the Degree Quality Assessment Board (DQAB).
• January 2024: Board of Governors votes to suspend admissions to the BBA program, effective January 2025, “to allow time for finalizing the new full program proposal to be submitted to DQAB for approval.”1 Despite repeated faculty inquiries, no further work is undertaken on the program for the next 19 months.
• January 2025: Enrollment in the BBA, which had an average enrollment of approximately 580 domestic students per year 2021-2024, begins to decline.
• June 26, 2025: Langara’s Institutional Accountability Plan and Report (IAPR) 2024-2025, filed with the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education, states that the College paused BBA admissions while it “conducted a full program review of the BBA and its related programs” and that “Langara intends to put forward a revised BBA degree proposal to DQAB for approval not later than Fall 2026.”2
• August 2025: A team of faculty is convened to resume work on the BBA. This work continues through spring 2026.
• June 26, 2026 (the day after the June 25 Board of Governors meeting): Dean David Wright informs School of Management faculty via email that BBA redevelopment work underway is being paused, with reasons including provincial post-secondary uncertainty, a DQAB trend towards focused degree proposals, limited faculty engagement (during a time when many business instructors were about to lose their work and leave the college), a need for more data, and the organizational pressure caused by implementation of Workday Student. The email states that the Dean does “not anticipate a return to the process of redeveloping the BBA in the near future.”
• June, 2026: Langara’s draft Institutional Accountability Plan and Report 2025-2026 included in the June Board of Governors package, makes no mention at all of the BBA program, removing it entirely from view without explanation.

This timeline of the BBA program demonstrates a problematic handling of suspension decisions by the Board of Governors. It has been 32 months since the Board took the decision to suspend the BBA, without this decision being revisited by this body. Enrollment ended 20 months ago (or in terms of enrollment intakes, two years (six semesters) ago). A full program review of the BBA was described in the 2024-2025 IAPR, but this review has not been shared. Faculty in the School of Management have disproportionately lost their jobs due to the suspension of the BBA, compounding the impact of declining international enrollment. Now, as demonstrated by Langara’s most recent Accountability Report, the BBA program has been effectively been written out of the College’s narrative. And yet there has still been no follow-up by the Board of Governors on its January 2024 decision to suspend.

We believe this is an egregious lack of governance follow-through and accountability that has potentially cost Langara both revenue and reputation. We bring it to the attention of the Board of Governors seeking both to understand what the true intentions are with regards to the BBA, and to seek a clear and transparent process for handling all program suspensions so that they do not become de facto cancellations with no accountability for decisions made.

With respect,

The Langara Faculty Association Board of Directors

1. Board of Governors meeting minutes, January 25, 2024.

2. The full statement reads: “The Degree Quality Assessment Board (DQAB) advised the College that changes proposed for the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) program constituted a new degree and would therefore require Ministerial approval. The decision was made to pause admissions while the College conducted a full program review of the BBA and its related programs, providing an opportunity to ensure programming that best serves the needs of our students. Langara intends to put forward a revised BBA degree proposal to DQAB for approval not later than Fall 2026. In the meantime, the College continues to support student success as they move through the current BBA programming.” Page 4 footnote, Langara Institutional Accountability Plan and Report 2024-2025, emphasis added.