Open letter delivered to President Burns with 220+ signatures

Name	Comment
Shanti Udit, Student
Cameron Lewis, Student	Langara faculty make the college what it is, and removing them from the equation only harms the culture, student experience, and credibility of Langara. Losing long standing faculty members means losing the connections that students can make with seniors in their field of study.
Emily Der, Staff
Shatha Sabri, Student	Our instructors work hard to give us the best education possible! They make sure we understand the material and care about our mental health and well being
Taniya Ranauta, Student
Fatima Arya, Student
MingTong Li, Student
Elliot McInnis, Student	faculty are the heart and soul of Langara. These actions cheapen the experience of learning at the college which is not the way to make Langara as an institution more sustainable. While it’s understandable that there is a crunch with the capping of international students, playing with the livelihoods of the very people that strengthen the essence of Langara is an extremely short sighted solution. Surely there are more creative solutions.
Khushi Sharma, Student	Please do something good for international students
Blake Monton, Student
Lauren Vedal, Faculty
Marina Fuhsl, Student
Ikhmat Olatilewa, Student
Victoria Decaire, Student
Margel Salvador, Student
Nam Page, Faculty	Students deserve knowledgable instructors. Instructors deserve to work if work is available!!
Ari Crossby, Staff
Sara Rodriguez, Student	I think it is understandable that the school need to cut on expenses but to think that teachers are an option is not reasonable. We are here to study and learn, we need them. “It’s always needed or necessary until is your job that is on the line”
Thor Zimmerman Reynoso, Student
Ethan Chu, Student
Elizabeth Kemp, Student
Ilia Nasseri, Student	Ms. Burns, my name is Ilia Nasseri and I am worried that the staff layoffs are hurting the quality of education in the college and I want something to be done with so yeah frustrated and everyone feels the same thing as well
Samuel Mayson-Dobson, Student
Chaeyeon Park, Staff
Sean J, Staff	Our unions will never be busted. CUPE and LFA are here to stay.
Liz Jackman, Student
Eliana Khoo, Student	I strongly believe it is in the best interest, of students and Faculty alike, for the Langara Administration to respect the LFA collective agreement and respect the staff body as a whole. While it may (for whatever reason) be easier to lay-off Faculty, it has negative impacts on the Langara community. Students rely on staff to share knowledge and experience, but also to be a consistent anchor in their development of skills. When the Faculty are unable to feel confident in their employer’s intentions to better their community, that sense if unease trickles into the learning environment. Increased employee turnover also makes it harder for staff to connect with each other, limiting the collaboration and communication possible within the faculty. I’m sure that as administration, it would be less productive, less efficient, less enjoyable and (long term) possibly even less cost efficient to have to train new people in the workplace frequently. Turnover in administration has the possibility of making a major impact on the jobs of staff and the learning experience of students. A similar line of logic goes for our current Faculty, as talented as they are, increased stress due to job instability is not beneficial for health or work productivity. As students, we can feel professors on the path to burning out and the sense of distrust it creates in the leadership when the Faculty feels like they are one term away from being let go. Additionally, entering a new job is often a rough and tumble process even for experienced professionals. Learning the community and culture is not something you can do overnight, especially somewhere as beautifully diverse and collaborative as Langara. With all the respect to new lectures and professors that the administration may want to add to the staff, I strongly believe it should not be at the detriment to our current Faculty’s employment. Each individual has something unique to add to the community, and I hope you would agree that it better when everyone has the chance to grow in their role and thrive in their workplace. However difficult it is to balance budgets and timetables and everything else that goes with administration, I hope you are able to see the positive impact long term staffing has within a community. As people, we are drawn to connect with others and to grow alongside each other. I hope commonality between administration, staff, and students will draw you to a similar conclusion. I am thoroughly enjoying my time here at Langara and would be disappointed if I could not take future courses with my professors due to them being laid off from a job they so clearly devote their lives to.
Merike Bruen, Faculty
Ryan Vernon, Faculty	I am heartbroken for my colleagues who are losing working due to what seems like a hostile and incorrect interpretation of the LFA collective agreement. You talk about compassion and caring, but your actions show a disregard for basic fairness and the wellbeing of our colleagues. This is destroying colleagues’ lives, and feels very unfair. I implore the college to do the right thing and respect both faculty and our negotiated reappointment rights.
Maja Grubisic, Faculty
Rebecca Slaven, Faculty	How is Langara expected to attract students and provide quality education when experienced faculty with deep institutional knowledge are bypassed for work? How do you not see that this strategy will tank Langara’s reputation and therefore, further tank our revenue? Investing in faculty means investing in students and community.
Leslie Horita, Faculty
Janet Douglas, Community member	Engaged faculty make for an institution that survives and thrives. The brain drain that is occurring at Langara is costing the college more than you think. Bringing back laid off faculty is advantageous to administration and of great benefit to students and student retention.
Negar Kaviani, Faculty
Rawa Ibrahim, Faculty
Helena Wadsley, Faculty
Peter Babiak, Community member	As a recently retired Langara faculty (24 years teaching in the English Dept), I have been and still am privy to Langara’s faculty “issues” these last handful of years, and it saddens me to see Langara opting for such shoddy hiring, and ergo, teaching/learning practices. Just yesterday at an AGM, I was told by a colleague who went to Langara and still knows many Langarans, “congratulations on your retirement; from what I hear, it’s a sinking ship.” That’s remarkably sad.
Stefan Haag, Faculty	I know from working as a sessional lecturer at UBC how destabilizing short term contract teaching is. That Langara is going this route is shameful !
Greg Holditch, Faculty
Nina Winham, Faculty	Some job loss was inevitable. But how Langara leadership handles it is a choice. This decision is unfair, unreasonable, and undermines the long-term wellbeing of the college. Offering ongoing, dependable jobs is how you ensure that those who mentor generations of students have the stability required to do their best work. And allowing those who were laid off to return to work when it is available is simply fair.
Noel Currie, Faculty	The LFA and college administration used to have the best working relationship in BC’s college sector. Disagreements and conflicts were handled respectfully and collegially. This administration’s violation of the right-to-recall language in the LFA Collective Agreement has damaged that relationship and working conditions significantly. I call on President Burns to observe time-honoured practice ratified in the Collective Agreement.
John Doe, Student	Treat your staff with respect!!
Kelin Emmett, Faculty
Gillian Corbo, Faculty
Nora Franzova, Faculty	There are courses that not all the faculty can teach, even though they have expertise, they might lack the passion and excitement for the course and thus some faculty can not and should not be let go, without seeing the consequences.
Sara Beiggi, Faculty
Gavin La8ng, Student
Jesica Ortega Nava, Community member
Janaina Brusco, Faculty	Hiring and firing is also a waste of focus and energy decreasing the actual hours of work to improve teaching, and to improve learners experience in the college. You might believe you are saving money, but the college is “shooting it’s on foot ‘.
Melisa Hamilton, Faculty
Danielle DeGagne, Faculty
Andrew Roberts, Faculty	Over the past two years of crisis faculty and staff have paid the price for the policy and planning missteps of others. Ultimately, it is our students that suffer. After two difficult years faculty should be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, we are seeing our basic right to recall being taken away by an administration that claims to care for faculty, students, and staff but fails to back this up in their actions. It feels cruel, unnecessary, and like being kicked when we are down. This free choice by our administration will end careers unnecessarily and harm the future of Langara. I implore our administration to change direction, admit when they are wrong, and honour the spirit of our collective agreement.
Annie Jensen, Faculty
Suzanne Cowan, Faculty
Trevor Newland, Faculty	I know there’s a business/practical side to running the college and that the realities of that sometimes clash with the perspectives of faculty, but please keep trying to help faculty as well. We’re all trying to maintain Langara’s reputation as a deeply academic institution. Thank you.
Ron Velin, Faculty
Jack Piskor, Student	I’m seeing programs gutted left, right, and centre, GOOD staff and educators losing their jobs. Student’s notice, and it will make them less likely to choose langara over another school.
Lilach Rosenfeld, Student
Isabella Medina Arias, Student
Linh Nguyen, Student
Madeleine LeBlanc, Student
MJ Holec, Faculty
Breanna Hawkins, Student
Heather Forbes, Staff	In solidarity.
Daayaats Morrison, Student
Dan Slessor, Faculty
Vanessa Brown, Staff
Helene Lestage, Faculty	Students are unlikely to choose or recommend an institution where instructors are exhausted, insecure in their employment, and not given the conditions they need to teach well. Protecting faculty is not separate from protecting Langara’s future, it is part of it.
Stellar Bigatel, Student	Education is now, more than ever, of utmost importance. Students and staff deserve to have the jobs, opportunities, and resources to build a better world for ourselves and for future generations. Knowledge is power! We are a college–it should be our topic priority!
Holly Adams, Student
Francesca Deveau, Faculty
Chu Myat Sandy, Student
Tyler Barn, Student	As a student it sucks to see such experienced professors not get to teach their preferred courses. The school not taking proper care of it’s most senior professors has a direct impact on the quality of education being delivered to its students. Really sends a message that they don’t care…
Brian Howard, Student
Collin LI, Faculty
Johnathan Hanes, Student
Sebastian Lawley, Student
Nicholas Faulkner, Student
Celise Lee, Student	As a full-time student of Langara I value the time, effort and expertise of our instructors. I do not appreciate the unfair treatment and of laying off of workers. This goes against what I believe Langara stands for and goes against why I chose this school.
Farah Leplat, Faculty
Hlio Dimitropoulos, Student
Soo Jeon, Student	I am extremely disappointed to hear of the conditions that the Langara Faculty need to face. It feels extremely offensive and out of touch in today’s socioeconomic landscape. As a fellow unionized worker, its very disappointing to hear that organizations are continuing to take advantage of workers and push the boundaries of worker’s rights. I can feel the shifting reputation that Langara holds as a public school, and I personally will be spreading the word of what is happening so that the public can stay informed and continue to make decisions with their education accordingly. Even in a department that has not been directly affected by what this letter is stating, there has been a growing dissatisfaction with how Langara is directing its education. The easiest way to get back on the right track is to honour the collective agreements and improve work satisfaction.
Anu Kumar, Faculty
Texi Wu, Student
Shirly Lobo, Student
Laur Lenaghan, Student
Priyanka Saxena, Student
Miranda Pozniak, Student	🩷
Basma Abdulaziz, Student	Faculty invest years of their lives teaching Langara’s students and building the college’s reputation. Stop treating senior instructors as disposable commodities and start valuing their loyalty and hard work. Ultimately, student learning conditions are inextricably tied to faculty working conditions. Everyone suffers
Yayoi Shinbo, Faculty	Every regularized faculty has a recall right for two years, and the available section(s) should be offered to the laid off faculty member with the highest seniority. There should be no need to apply for the position. Nor should s/he have an interview. Recently my colleague with more than twenty-year FTE had to have an interview. She is teaching right now but still has no access to Bright space and email. If a grievance is put in, the college definitely lose the case since it violates the Collective Agreement. It mentions seniority since this is the keyword to protect our recall right. If college hires people outside with no seniority, why would CA even mention seniority.
Evan Yang, Student	Dedicated and experienced instructors are the backbone of Langara’s academic excellence. Their patient guidance in academic writing and grammar has made a profound impact on my learning journey. Langara must prioritize fair recall practices and invest in the faculty who genuinely care about students, rather than bypassing laid-off instructors for available work.
Terri Evans, Faculty	Instead of modelling a best-practice for respecting labour rights, Langara leadership is entangling staff at all levels of the institution (department-level faculty, division leadership and staff, LFA reps, People and Culture managers) in unnecessary, time-consuming, unproductive processes to re-hire laid-off faculty and where they should be prioritized over sessional/term instructors who don’t have the same rights to work. Foisting us into a process akin to hiring a new employee not only disrespects our collective time, but signals to laid-off faculty, who have contributed to student success and moving this institution forward over many years, that they are second class citizens. It also takes time away from our working towards institutional priorities, including fostering greater connections into the community. Finally, by not respecting re-appointment rights, it works to further reduce Langara’s standing in the community, and the post-secondary sector more broadly.
Stephen Phillips, Community member	As a retired Langara instructor of 31-years’ standing, and Faculty Emeritus since 2025, I deplore the unjust and disrespectful manner in which the College has chosen to treat its laid-off faculty.
Milos Campbell, Faculty	I have been teaching at Langara since 2007, I have always been proud of how we treat your faculty with respect and don’t rely on a sessional pool. We are known within the teaching community for being a fantastic place to work. Our historic hiring practices are a reflection of our belief in community that filters down to our student body. Faculty are more invested in the student body and the strength of any given program if they are part of it long term. I have witnessed the erosion of community at other institutions that has effected the quality of their programming and student success. A short term solution to save money will have a long term damaging effect on student numbers. We do not have a beautiful building with state of the art facilities and equipment…but we make up for that with small class sizes, enabling a caring, one on one experience…provided by faculty that are invested in the outcome.
Taranjot Kaur, Student
Daphne Merritt, Student	I support fair treatment of laid off faculty and ensuring that available teaching work is offered in a fair and transparent manner. As a student, I am also increasingly concerned about the broader direction of the College. Langara is struggling to adapt to its changing enrolment environment. The government’s changes to international student policy created a difficult external circumstance, but I believe the College’s leadership has a responsibility to respond proactively and strategically. Students and faculty are both affected when programs and course availability become less stable. I hope the College will take a more proactive approach to protecting the quality and breadth of education at Langara.
Christina Dommer, Student
Khushpreet Kaur, Student	I am very concerned about the lack of courses being offered and the constant layoffs of professors.
Niall Christie, Faculty	The College’s wilful misinterpretation of the Collective Agreement is a clear attempt to try and casualize the workforce at Langara as much as possible. It is nonsensical, and does not even save a significant amount of money to address the deficit in our budget. It instead will produce a workforce who are stressed and insecure, possibly having to hold down multiple jobs, and unable to provide the best possible service to the people who matter at this college, by which I mean, of course, the students. And responsibility for any consequent deterioration in the quality of the teaching at Langara can be laid squarely at the feet of our administration. A much better approach would be to honour the Collective Agreement and abandon the current inappropriate practices. Then conduct a thorough review of the bloated college administration and remove positions that are unnecessary. This would generate significant savings in our budget.
Marina Toledo, Community member	In solidarity
Haley Montgomery, Faculty
Emma Lawson, Faculty
Susan Marshall, Community member	Students benefit from more experienced instructors. If an instructor with a contract is laid off from that contract, they should still be hired back if work becomnes available after all. The college is shooting itself in the foot by not recalling these tried and tested instructors when work is available.
Alex Boston, Faculty
Itrath Syed, Faculty
Margo Nelson, Faculty
Paramita Banerjee, Faculty	Please hear and listen to your faculty to preserve quality education and transparency in your planning.
Andrea Dawson, Faculty
Davina Bhandar, Community member	I hope Langara shows the respect towards their academic workers that they deserve and upon which the college’s reputation stands!
Daniel Poirier, Faculty	This shameful treatment of dedicated faculty undermines what makes the college great.
Saima Salim, Community member
Tim Charters, Faculty
Elizabeth Milton, Faculty
Sharina Janif, Community member	Respect and abide by the Langara Faculty Assoc collective agreement!
Kai Mallari, Student	Over my tenure at Langara since 2015, the quality of care from the administration has gotten noticeably worse.
Levi J. A. Dhanaraj, Community member	Truly disappointed in my alma mater right now, Dr. Burns should have stepped down months ago. I’m embarrassed to have crossed the stage and collected my diploma from her. I have nothing more to add to what other commenters have said, an institution that gets high off hiring short-term lecturers is bound to stop producing quality graduates and scholarship.
Xyrylle Rosario, Student
Kristiana Balaouras, Community member
Hena Ahmad, Community member
Erin Robb, Faculty	A strong institution needs a strong foundation. For Langara, that foundation is not policy, not theoretical pillars, not fancy signs, but faculty—faculty who are dedicated to student success. Trying to dismantle part of the Collective Agreement to deny faculty their hard-earned rights is splintering Langara and destroying its reputation. Let’s focus on improving student services instead of disrespecting faculty.
Eugen Kuenkele, Student
Huma Ansari, Community member	Please respect fair labour and the Langara Faculty Association collective agreement. Protect the reputation of Langara, and quality education for its students
Marcos Finkelstein, Student	Accounting student here: whoever made the budget and financial planning for Langara College with the majority of revenue coming from international students, should be fired and be left without severance. That person or group of people, have screwed the lives of countless students, professors, and supporting staff. By having a sensible budget and sensible financial plan based on actual* and estimated* national* students, any and all revenue from international students can be used to support other efforts. If the numbers don’t add up, that means you must cut the stupidest and least cost effective diplomas and bachelor degrees. Get rid of a bunch of degrees that do not allow the student to be self sufficient and find good jobs or build their own business. Canada is going down the drain because of the horrible middle management culture and full on authoritarian policies by all types of administrative staff.
Lianrejo Sepnio, Student
Tyler Friskie, Community member	One of my favourite teachers was laid off. I was a local student, and the only reason I picked langara was because of all the language classes available. If i was picking today based on whats available, I would have went to a different college.
Isaac Keoughan, Student
Katie Hui, Student
Upneet Dhah, Student	Many of the best professors are getting laid off.
Leo Wen, Student
Kalina Kolarova, Student	Greed has no place in education. Teachers deserve better. Shame on you for lining your pockets with money while destroying people’s livelihoods and shame on the Langara board of directors for only caring about the bottom line. A 92% vote of no confidence is your legacy. I would not recommend Langara college as an institution to anyone. It is the teachers who care about their students who are the foundation of the college and the ones who are at stake to lose the most.
Liam Abreo, Student
Jodi B, Student
Shiwani Budha Shrestha, Student	My major is Accounting but after the mass layoff, most of the remaining Accounting professors haven’t been very organized and been good professors. Just listening to fellow peers I get hesitant to take classes with some professors and have been avoiding some main courses until now. It is my third year and I have hardly finished most Accounting classes because of that. When I started my Langara journey I was impressed with the Faculty of Management but all now left is disappointed and fear of getting a wrong professor.
Stefanie Thomas, Faculty
Shannon Page, Faculty
Maya S, Student
Mayra Tovar, Faculty
Ausha Kang, Student	I have been a student at Langara College since September 2022, and from when I began my education at the college to now, there have been drastic changes, which I believe are not only detrimental to the students but also to the staff and the entirety of the Langara community. With massive layoffs, especially regarding the business department (LSM), students have been unable to take the required classes at the required time and have been forced to delay their graduation (which then delays future earnings/income) or transfer due to the limited class offerings. This has been extremely frustrating for many students such as myself, and not only has there been an abundance of students competing to try to get their classes, but many of the professors who were valued in the community and taught well have been laid off (presumably due to budgeting issues, diluting the education quality for students). I find it unjust that professors who were previously hired and then laid off must then apply and re-interview. The processes in place at the moment do not seem to be reflective of Langara’s core values of excellence, collegiality, innovation, and integrity. I hope that actions will be taken in the very near future to restore the values of the college that once rang true. Thank you.
Emma R, Student
Jennifer Duffy, Faculty	The auditor general review of Langara stewardship of assets and public funds should prove interesting. Workday has been an unaffordable indulgence and has made the degradation of Langara quality worse than it could have been had mitigation or diversification strategies been taken. I await the results.
Philip Grant, Faculty
Mike Ma, Community member	Respect for a collective agreement is good for everyone and makes for a better learning environment for students.
Alwyn O’Brien, Faculty
Henry Chow, Faculty	Please return Langara to what it used to be: a place to nurture students, faculties, and communities.
Bernie Maroney, Faculty	I want to see an audit of how the College burned through $160M in four years.
Tiffany Johnstone, Faculty
Bhavneet Sidhu, Faculty
Liliane Ekambi, Student
Aziz Rajwani, Faculty
Jen Oehler, Staff
Meaghan Rafferty, Staff
Aimee Yamazaki, Staff
Edmund Lee, Faculty
Catherine Glass, Faculty
Csilla Tamas, Faculty
Melisa Lavallee, Faculty
Mark Benos, Community member	Be honest and transparent with your affected members and don’t find excuses to give them work they are entitled to. These individuals were dedicated to the college for so many years and you are interpreting the contract as it suits the college and depriving rights to these dedicated instructors. As a former alumni and now a taxpayer this type of behaviour is unacceptable and demoralizing.
Alex Vickers, Faculty
Kevin McMillan, Faculty
Gaya Murthy, Faculty	It is heart breaking to see colleagues lose jobs and their livelihood at Langara, only to know that they cannot be hired based on how the reappointment rights are misunderstood. Faculty need to respected for an institution to survive and thrive. It is unfortunate to see that there is no heart in any of the decision making but the least one can do to adhere to the collective agreement.
Anthony and Marjorie Glass, Community member	We are appalled by the lack of concern for the plight of laid off Langara staff and the failure to honour the collective agreement.
Carmen Miranda-Barrios, Faculty
Jordan Miller, Faculty
Erfan Rezaie, Faculty
Josue Menjivar, Faculty	The decision to not allow laid off workers to apply for new positions is so cruel. I thought Langara always looked out for their faculty. This is not right.
Joanna Clarke, Faculty
Sean Gray, Faculty
Eugene Belchev, Faculty	The way Langara’s administration chooses to interpret the reappointment rights makes no sense.
Neil Amsler, Staff
Chantal Faucher, Faculty
Jill Goldberg, Faculty
Koopa Hakimi, Faculty
Fiona Hunt, Faculty
Jenny Francis, Faculty	If we cannot convince you to the right thing on moral grounds or through appeals to fairness, perhaps consider your own self interest. You get what you give, Paula.
Jeremy Chiu, Faculty	I’d rather see our classes taught by colleagues who have already been vetted and have passed Langara’s rigorous screening and evaluation processes. New short-term hire brings real costs to the College: recruitment, onboarding, training, and the formal reviews needed to confirm their teaching meets our standards. I believe that rehiring experienced instructors is the better investment for our students and for the College.
Deland Jessop, Faculty
Sabrina Chahal, Faculty
Stacey Collins, Faculty
Shervin Shahriari, Faculty
Gregory De Rocher, Community member	Langara is a beloved institution in our community and a place of quality higher education I hope my daughter would consider in the future. Respect for expertise and experience is the basis of success for such an institution and it’s disheartening to see it being dismantled.
Erin Lea, Faculty	I remain confused by this administrative decision, and remain unclear as to why the easiest pathway (rehiring qualified, dedicated instructors) is not being followed. Please hear the faculty on this issue – and bring our amazing colleagues back when you can.
David Borys, Faculty
Nadia Vidas, Faculty
Philip Wong, Faculty
Christian Ashe, Student	One of the most important things I think students need to recognize about the current situation at Langara is that when instructors are treated poorly, students are inevitably treated poorly too. The conditions faculty are being forced to work under do not exist in isolation from the student experience. When instructors lose resources, stability, support, time, and reasonable working conditions, the quality and accessibility of the education students receive is affected. When departments are stretched thin, when classes become difficult to access, when supports are reduced, and when instructors are expected to carry increasing institutional responsibilities with fewer resources, students are the ones sitting in those classrooms and absorbing the consequences. What makes this particularly frustrating is how visible the contradiction has become. Langara can publicly emphasize inclusion, student success, reconciliation, accessibility, and community while the people actually responsible for delivering students’ education are increasingly being placed in untenable conditions. The institution can produce polished statements about its values, but students experience those values—or their absence—through the instructors standing in front of them. I have also become increasingly aware of how institutional priorities can become disconnected from what students actually need from their education. I value learning about different cultures, perspectives, and histories, and I have no problem with Indigenous scholarship or contemporary Indigenous writers and artists being taken seriously. But there is a difference between meaningfully incorporating those perspectives into education and making the transformation of a student’s personal perspective itself an institutional objective, particularly within a course whose stated purpose is academic writing. Students should be taught to critically analyze perspectives, evaluate evidence, conduct research, and construct arguments—not simply demonstrate that they have adopted the perspective the institution considers desirable. That same distinction applies to institutional messaging more broadly. Acknowledgement is not action. A land acknowledgement can be meaningful when it is sincere and appropriate to the setting. But if an institution can repeatedly demonstrate its commitment to values symbolically while simultaneously allowing the faculty and students who make the institution function to struggle with inadequate resources and conditions, eventually the symbolism begins to look like a substitute for the substantive work. The problems at Langara are not invisible. Students see them. Faculty experience them. Staff experience them. Yet there seems to be an enormous effort to maintain the appearance that everything is functioning as intended. It isn’t. If Langara genuinely wants to demonstrate that it values students, it needs to start by valuing the people responsible for educating them. You cannot undermine the conditions in which instructors teach and then be surprised when the conditions in which students learn deteriorate. And ultimately, words have to correspond to actions. Otherwise, students are left watching an institution tell us how much it cares while experiencing the consequences of how little that care appears to translate into practice. Actions and words need to align.
Allison Sullivan, Faculty
Ken Naumann, Faculty	The college is a community of people, and a means to a living for hundreds of people who dedicate their careers to this place. It is sad to see administrative decisions that seem only to benefit the potential career trajectory of senior leadership who are seeing their future somewhere else.
Amy Flanigan, Faculty
Skylet Yu, Faculty
Sean McAlister, Faculty
Dolores (Lolita) Gambroudes, Faculty	RESPECT students, RESPECT course and program options for them, RESPECT the reputation Langara has built over all these years because of dedicated, qualified instructors. RESPECT our instructors’ work and the rights they have to it.
Catharine O’Brien-Bell, Faculty	I have had an amazing career at Langara. When I started I was on a Term contract, then I became Reg in Temp until a senior department colleague retired and I moved into an ongoing Regularized position. During this time I have felt highly valued by having both job security and access to PD time and funds to support my role in an ever changing work environment. Equally important, my students have known the stability and consistency that a team of regularized faculty provides. I am worried about what the current college proposal regarding short-term work will do to the culture of the institution, both for faculty and students. In contrast to the Langara College position on return to work, my cousin who taught for many years at VIU and took an early retirement incentive package last year, was recently invited back and is teaching a lab course this semester. A situation benefiting both her department and her students. I would respectfully request that the college revisit its position and in fact look towards strengthening policies that allow current and future faculty and students to enjoy the benefits of same amazing working and learning environment that I have been a part of for so many years.
Ron Shay, Faculty
Ophelia Ma, Faculty
Randal Defant, Faculty
Emel Tastekin, Faculty	Our trust is broken.
Noushine Afshar, Faculty
Mizuki Giffin, Faculty
Shirley Wacowich-Sgarbi, Faculty
Robert Alstead, Community member	Respect the collective agreement!
David Brooks, Faculty
Jacqueline Weal, Faculty	Honour the Collective Agreement; this is not complicated.
Kevin Rey, Faculty
Jane McCarthy, Community member	I agree with the points made in the letter.
Brad Gibson, Faculty
Jon Chater, Faculty
Jordan Rudek, Faculty
Bradley Hughes, Faculty	After eliminating more than 200 faculty jobs at Langara, this further attack on faculty shows how little the president and the VPs care about the education workers on campus and the quality of education.
Jonathan Newell, Faculty
Caroline Harvey, Faculty	We work hard as instructors, harder than governing bodies can ever imagine; we deserve basic, respectful hiring practices.
Stephanie van Willigenburg, Community member
Troy Chenier, Faculty
Polina Sokolova, Student
Sarah Richards, Faculty	This doesn’t even make sense from a business perspective. Sowing discord with faculty will negatively affect the quality of education and students will leave. How does that save money? Students are already complaining about the lack of diverse course offerings owing to deeper-than-necessary lay offs. Our reputation is at risk of being further damaged by an administration that doesn’t respect student needs or treat employees fairly. Major staffing decisions are being made without care; imagine how long this letter would be if contingent faculty spoke up without fear of retaliation?
Lauren Mitchell, Faculty
Livia Chan, Faculty
Neil MacAlister, Faculty
Leslie Dos Remedios, Community member	This type of action is short sighted and does not prioritize the longitudinal care and education of the students. It’s so incredibly disappointing to feel like our future students will not get the same care and quality of education that I received when I was attending Langara. Please do better by your staff, your faculty and your students and show a modicum of loyalty to the community that has made Langara what it is.
Karyn Kraemer, Faculty	Bypassing laid-off faculty and offering available work on short-term contracts to faculty with less seniority doesn’t align with the culture Langara purports to have created – one based in fairness, inclusion, transparency and taking care of those in our community.
Ryan Tomkinson, Community member
Caleb Hunter, Student
Shiho Minami, Faculty
Thor Polukoshko, Faculty
Aidan McQuay, Community member
Kathleen Oliver, Faculty	This interpretation of the collective agreement on the part of the College is deeply damaging to the college community. I urge you to listen to and respect faculty. Without us, there is no Langara.
Jesica Ortega Nava, Faculty

Name

Comment

Shanti Udit, Student

Cameron Lewis, Student

Langara faculty make the college what it is, and removing them from the equation only harms the culture, student experience, and credibility of Langara. Losing long standing faculty members means losing the connections that students can make with seniors in their field of study.

Emily Der, Staff

Shatha Sabri, Student

Our instructors work hard to give us the best education possible! They make sure we understand the material and care about our mental health and well being

Taniya Ranauta, Student

Fatima Arya, Student

MingTong Li, Student

Elliot McInnis, Student

faculty are the heart and soul of Langara. These actions cheapen the experience of learning at the college which is not the way to make Langara as an institution more sustainable. While it’s understandable that there is a crunch with the capping of international students, playing with the livelihoods of the very people that strengthen the essence of Langara is an extremely short sighted solution. Surely there are more creative solutions.

Khushi Sharma, Student

Please do something good for international students

Blake Monton, Student

Lauren Vedal, Faculty

Marina Fuhsl, Student

Ikhmat Olatilewa, Student

Victoria Decaire, Student

Margel Salvador, Student

Nam Page, Faculty

Students deserve knowledgable instructors. Instructors deserve to work if work is available!!

Ari Crossby, Staff

Sara Rodriguez, Student

I think it is understandable that the school need to cut on expenses but to think that teachers are an option is not reasonable. We are here to study and learn, we need them.

“It’s always needed or necessary until is your job that is on the line”

Thor Zimmerman Reynoso, Student

Ethan Chu, Student

Elizabeth Kemp, Student

Ilia Nasseri, Student

Ms. Burns, my name is Ilia Nasseri and I am worried that the staff layoffs are hurting the quality of education in the college and I want something to be done with so yeah frustrated and everyone feels the same thing as well

Samuel Mayson-Dobson, Student

Chaeyeon Park, Staff

Sean J, Staff

Our unions will never be busted. CUPE and LFA are here to stay.

Liz Jackman, Student

Eliana Khoo, Student

I strongly believe it is in the best interest, of students and Faculty alike, for the Langara Administration to respect the LFA collective agreement and respect the staff body as a whole. While it may (for whatever reason) be easier to lay-off Faculty, it has negative impacts on the Langara community. Students rely on staff to share knowledge and experience, but also to be a consistent anchor in their development of skills. When the Faculty are unable to feel confident in their employer’s intentions to better their community, that sense if unease trickles into the learning environment.

Increased employee turnover also makes it harder for staff to connect with each other, limiting the collaboration and communication possible within the faculty. I’m sure that as administration, it would be less productive, less efficient, less enjoyable and (long term) possibly even less cost efficient to have to train new people in the workplace frequently. Turnover in administration has the possibility of making a major impact on the jobs of staff and the learning experience of students. A similar line of logic goes for our current Faculty, as talented as they are, increased stress due to job instability is not beneficial for health or work productivity. As students, we can feel professors on the path to burning out and the sense of distrust it creates in the leadership when the Faculty feels like they are one term away from being let go.

Additionally, entering a new job is often a rough and tumble process even for experienced professionals. Learning the community and culture is not something you can do overnight, especially somewhere as beautifully diverse and collaborative as Langara. With all the respect to new lectures and professors that the administration may want to add to the staff, I strongly believe it should not be at the detriment to our current Faculty’s employment. Each individual has something unique to add to the community, and I hope you would agree that it better when everyone has the chance to grow in their role and thrive in their workplace.

However difficult it is to balance budgets and timetables and everything else that goes with administration, I hope you are able to see the positive impact long term staffing has within a community. As people, we are drawn to connect with others and to grow alongside each other. I hope commonality between administration, staff, and students will draw you to a similar conclusion. I am thoroughly enjoying my time here at Langara and would be disappointed if I could not take future courses with my professors due to them being laid off from a job they so clearly devote their lives to.

Merike Bruen, Faculty

Ryan Vernon, Faculty

I am heartbroken for my colleagues who are losing working due to what seems like a hostile and incorrect interpretation of the LFA collective agreement. You talk about compassion and caring, but your actions show a disregard for basic fairness and the wellbeing of our colleagues. This is destroying colleagues’ lives, and feels very unfair. I implore the college to do the right thing and respect both faculty and our negotiated reappointment rights.

Maja Grubisic, Faculty

Rebecca Slaven, Faculty

How is Langara expected to attract students and provide quality education when experienced faculty with deep institutional knowledge are bypassed for work? How do you not see that this strategy will tank Langara’s reputation and therefore, further tank our revenue? Investing in faculty means investing in students and community.

Leslie Horita, Faculty

Janet Douglas, Community member

Engaged faculty make for an institution that survives and thrives. The brain drain that is occurring at Langara is costing the college more than you think. Bringing back laid off faculty is advantageous to administration and of great benefit to students and student retention.

Negar Kaviani, Faculty

Rawa Ibrahim, Faculty

Helena Wadsley, Faculty

Peter Babiak, Community member

As a recently retired Langara faculty (24 years teaching in the English Dept), I have been and still am privy to Langara’s faculty “issues” these last handful of years, and it saddens me to see Langara opting for such shoddy hiring, and ergo, teaching/learning practices. Just yesterday at an AGM, I was told by a colleague who went to Langara and still knows many Langarans, “congratulations on your retirement; from what I hear, it’s a sinking ship.” That’s remarkably sad.

Stefan Haag, Faculty

I know from working as a sessional lecturer at UBC how destabilizing short term contract teaching is. That Langara is going this route is shameful !

Greg Holditch, Faculty

Nina Winham, Faculty

Some job loss was inevitable. But how Langara leadership handles it is a choice. This decision is unfair, unreasonable, and undermines the long-term wellbeing of the college. Offering ongoing, dependable jobs is how you ensure that those who mentor generations of students have the stability required to do their best work. And allowing those who were laid off to return to work when it is available is simply fair.

Noel Currie, Faculty

The LFA and college administration used to have the best working relationship in BC’s college sector. Disagreements and conflicts were handled respectfully and collegially. This administration’s violation of the right-to-recall language in the LFA Collective
Agreement has damaged that relationship and working conditions significantly. I call on President Burns to observe time-honoured practice ratified in the Collective Agreement.

John Doe, Student

Treat your staff with respect!!

Kelin Emmett, Faculty

Gillian Corbo, Faculty

Nora Franzova, Faculty

There are courses that not all the faculty can teach, even though they have expertise, they might lack the passion and excitement for the course and thus some faculty can not and should not be let go, without seeing the consequences.

Sara Beiggi, Faculty

Gavin La8ng, Student

Jesica Ortega Nava, Community member

Janaina Brusco, Faculty

Hiring and firing is also a waste of focus and energy decreasing the actual hours of work to improve teaching, and to improve learners experience in the college.
You might believe you are saving money, but the college is “shooting it’s on foot ‘.

Melisa Hamilton, Faculty

Danielle DeGagne, Faculty

Andrew Roberts, Faculty

Over the past two years of crisis faculty and staff have paid the price for the policy and planning missteps of others. Ultimately, it is our students that suffer. After two difficult years faculty should be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, we are seeing our basic right to recall being taken away by an administration that claims to care for faculty, students, and staff but fails to back this up in their actions. It feels cruel, unnecessary, and like being kicked when we are down. This free choice by our administration will end careers unnecessarily and harm the future of Langara. I implore our administration to change direction, admit when they are wrong, and honour the spirit of our collective agreement.

Annie Jensen, Faculty

Suzanne Cowan, Faculty

Trevor Newland, Faculty

I know there’s a business/practical side to running the college and that the realities of that sometimes clash with the perspectives of faculty, but please keep trying to help faculty as well. We’re all trying to maintain Langara’s reputation as a deeply academic institution. Thank you.

Ron Velin, Faculty

Jack Piskor, Student

I’m seeing programs gutted left, right, and centre, GOOD staff and educators losing their jobs. Student’s notice, and it will make them less likely to choose langara over another school.

Lilach Rosenfeld, Student

Isabella Medina Arias, Student

Linh Nguyen, Student

Madeleine LeBlanc, Student

MJ Holec, Faculty

Breanna Hawkins, Student

Heather Forbes, Staff

In solidarity.

Daayaats Morrison, Student

Dan Slessor, Faculty

Vanessa Brown, Staff

Helene Lestage, Faculty

Students are unlikely to choose or recommend an institution where instructors are exhausted, insecure in their employment, and not given the conditions they need to teach well. Protecting faculty is not separate from protecting Langara’s future, it is part of it.

Stellar Bigatel, Student

Education is now, more than ever, of utmost importance. Students and staff deserve to have the jobs, opportunities, and resources to build a better world for ourselves and for future generations. Knowledge is power! We are a college–it should be our topic priority!

Holly Adams, Student

Francesca Deveau, Faculty

Chu Myat Sandy, Student

Tyler Barn, Student

As a student it sucks to see such experienced professors not get to teach their preferred courses. The school not taking proper care of it’s most senior professors has a direct impact on the quality of education being delivered to its students. Really sends a message that they don’t care…

Brian Howard, Student

Collin LI, Faculty

Johnathan Hanes, Student

Sebastian Lawley, Student

Nicholas Faulkner, Student

Celise Lee, Student

As a full-time student of Langara I value the time, effort and expertise of our instructors. I do not appreciate the unfair treatment and of laying off of workers. This goes against what I believe Langara stands for and goes against why I chose this school.

Farah Leplat, Faculty

Hlio Dimitropoulos, Student

Soo Jeon, Student

I am extremely disappointed to hear of the conditions that the Langara Faculty need to face. It feels extremely offensive and out of touch in today’s socioeconomic landscape. As a fellow unionized worker, its very disappointing to hear that organizations are continuing to take advantage of workers and push the boundaries of worker’s rights. I can feel the shifting reputation that Langara holds as a public school, and I personally will be spreading the word of what is happening so that the public can stay informed and continue to make decisions with their education accordingly. Even in a department that has not been directly affected by what this letter is stating, there has been a growing dissatisfaction with how Langara is directing its education. The easiest way to get back on the right track is to honour the collective agreements and improve work satisfaction.

Anu Kumar, Faculty

Texi Wu, Student

Shirly Lobo, Student

Laur Lenaghan, Student

Priyanka Saxena, Student

Miranda Pozniak, Student

🩷

Basma Abdulaziz, Student

Faculty invest years of their lives teaching Langara’s students and building the college’s reputation. Stop treating senior instructors as disposable commodities and start valuing their loyalty and hard work. Ultimately, student learning conditions are inextricably tied to faculty working conditions. Everyone suffers

Yayoi Shinbo, Faculty

Every regularized faculty has a recall right for two years, and the available section(s) should be offered to the laid off faculty member with the highest seniority. There should be no need to apply for the position. Nor should s/he have an interview. Recently my colleague with more than twenty-year FTE had to have an interview. She is teaching right now but still has no access to Bright space and email. If a grievance is put in, the college definitely lose the case since it violates the Collective Agreement. It mentions seniority since this is the keyword to protect our recall right. If college hires people outside with no seniority, why would CA even mention seniority.

Evan Yang, Student

Dedicated and experienced instructors are the backbone of Langara’s academic excellence. Their patient guidance in academic writing and grammar has made a profound impact on my learning journey. Langara must prioritize fair recall practices and invest in the faculty who genuinely care about students, rather than bypassing laid-off instructors for available work.

Terri Evans, Faculty

Instead of modelling a best-practice for respecting labour rights, Langara leadership is entangling staff at all levels of the institution (department-level faculty, division leadership and staff, LFA reps, People and Culture managers) in unnecessary, time-consuming, unproductive processes to re-hire laid-off faculty and where they should be prioritized over sessional/term instructors who don’t have the same rights to work. Foisting us into a process akin to hiring a new employee not only disrespects our collective time, but signals to laid-off faculty, who have contributed to student success and moving this institution forward over many years, that they are second class citizens. It also takes time away from our working towards institutional priorities, including fostering greater connections into the community. Finally, by not respecting re-appointment rights, it works to further reduce Langara’s standing in the community, and the post-secondary sector more broadly.

Stephen Phillips, Community member

As a retired Langara instructor of 31-years’ standing, and Faculty Emeritus since 2025, I deplore the unjust and disrespectful manner in which the College has chosen to treat its laid-off faculty.

Milos Campbell, Faculty

I have been teaching at Langara since 2007, I have always been proud of how we treat your faculty with respect and don’t rely on a sessional pool. We are known within the teaching community for being a fantastic place to work. Our historic hiring practices are a reflection of our belief in community that filters down to our student body. Faculty are more invested in the student body and the strength of any given program if they are part of it long term. I have witnessed the erosion of community at other institutions that has effected the quality of their programming and student success. A short term solution to save money will have a long term damaging effect on student numbers. We do not have a beautiful building with state of the art facilities and equipment…but we make up for that with small class sizes, enabling a caring, one on one experience…provided by faculty that are invested in the outcome.

Taranjot Kaur, Student

Daphne Merritt, Student

I support fair treatment of laid off faculty and ensuring that available teaching work is offered in a fair and transparent manner. As a student, I am also increasingly concerned about the broader direction of the College. Langara is struggling to adapt to its changing enrolment environment. The government’s changes to international student policy created a difficult external circumstance, but I believe the College’s leadership has a responsibility to respond proactively and strategically. Students and faculty are both affected when programs and course availability become less stable. I hope the College will take a more proactive approach to protecting the quality and breadth of education at Langara.

Christina Dommer, Student

Khushpreet Kaur, Student

I am very concerned about the lack of courses being offered and the constant layoffs of professors.

Niall Christie, Faculty

The College’s wilful misinterpretation of the Collective Agreement is a clear attempt to try and casualize the workforce at Langara as much as possible. It is nonsensical, and does not even save a significant amount of money to address the deficit in our budget. It instead will produce a workforce who are stressed and insecure, possibly having to hold down multiple jobs, and unable to provide the best possible service to the people who matter at this college, by which I mean, of course, the students. And responsibility for any consequent deterioration in the quality of the teaching at Langara can be laid squarely at the feet of our administration.
A much better approach would be to honour the Collective Agreement and abandon the current inappropriate practices. Then conduct a thorough review of the bloated college administration and remove positions that are unnecessary. This would generate significant savings in our budget.

Marina Toledo, Community member

In solidarity

Haley Montgomery, Faculty

Emma Lawson, Faculty

Susan Marshall, Community member

Students benefit from more experienced instructors. If an instructor with a contract is laid off from that contract, they should still be hired back if work becomnes available after all. The college is shooting itself in the foot by not recalling these tried and tested instructors when work is available.

Alex Boston, Faculty

Itrath Syed, Faculty

Margo Nelson, Faculty

Paramita Banerjee, Faculty

Please hear and listen to your faculty to preserve quality education and transparency in your planning.

Andrea Dawson, Faculty

Davina Bhandar, Community member

I hope Langara shows the respect towards their academic workers that they deserve and upon which the college’s reputation stands!

Daniel Poirier, Faculty

This shameful treatment of dedicated faculty undermines what makes the college great.

Saima Salim, Community member

Tim Charters, Faculty

Elizabeth Milton, Faculty

Sharina Janif, Community member

Respect and abide by the Langara Faculty Assoc collective agreement!

Kai Mallari, Student

Over my tenure at Langara since 2015, the quality of care from the administration has gotten noticeably worse.

Levi J. A. Dhanaraj, Community member

Truly disappointed in my alma mater right now, Dr. Burns should have stepped down months ago. I’m embarrassed to have crossed the stage and collected my diploma from her.

I have nothing more to add to what other commenters have said, an institution that gets high off hiring short-term lecturers is bound to stop producing quality graduates and scholarship.

Xyrylle Rosario, Student

Kristiana Balaouras, Community member

Hena Ahmad, Community member

Erin Robb, Faculty

A strong institution needs a strong foundation. For Langara, that foundation is not policy, not theoretical pillars, not fancy signs, but faculty—faculty who are dedicated to student success. Trying to dismantle part of the Collective Agreement to deny faculty their hard-earned rights is splintering Langara and destroying its reputation. Let’s focus on improving student services instead of disrespecting faculty.

Eugen Kuenkele, Student

Huma Ansari, Community member

Please respect fair labour and the Langara Faculty Association collective agreement. Protect the reputation of Langara, and quality education for its students

Marcos Finkelstein, Student

Accounting student here: whoever made the budget and financial planning for Langara College with the majority of revenue coming from international students, should be fired and be left without severance. That person or group of people, have screwed the lives of countless students, professors, and supporting staff. By having a sensible budget and sensible financial plan based on actual* and estimated* national* students, any and all revenue from international students can be used to support other efforts. If the numbers don’t add up, that means you must cut the stupidest and least cost effective diplomas and bachelor degrees. Get rid of a bunch of degrees that do not allow the student to be self sufficient and find good jobs or build their own business. Canada is going down the drain because of the horrible middle management culture and full on authoritarian policies by all types of administrative staff.

Lianrejo Sepnio, Student

Tyler Friskie, Community member

One of my favourite teachers was laid off. I was a local student, and the only reason I picked langara was because of all the language classes available. If i was picking today based on whats available, I would have went to a different college.

Isaac Keoughan, Student

Katie Hui, Student

Upneet Dhah, Student

Many of the best professors are getting laid off.

Leo Wen, Student

Kalina Kolarova, Student

Greed has no place in education. Teachers deserve better. Shame on you for lining your pockets with money while destroying people’s livelihoods and shame on the Langara board of directors for only caring about the bottom line. A 92% vote of no confidence is your legacy. I would not recommend Langara college as an institution to anyone. It is the teachers who care about their students who are the foundation of the college and the ones who are at stake to lose the most.

Liam Abreo, Student

Jodi B, Student

Shiwani Budha Shrestha, Student

My major is Accounting but after the mass layoff, most of the remaining Accounting professors haven’t been very organized and been good professors. Just listening to fellow peers I get hesitant to take classes with some professors and have been avoiding some main courses until now. It is my third year and I have hardly finished most Accounting classes because of that.
When I started my Langara journey I was impressed with the Faculty of Management but all now left is disappointed and fear of getting a wrong professor.

Stefanie Thomas, Faculty

Shannon Page, Faculty

Maya S, Student

Mayra Tovar, Faculty

Ausha Kang, Student

I have been a student at Langara College since September 2022, and from when I began my education at the college to now, there have been drastic changes, which I believe are not only detrimental to the students but also to the staff and the entirety of the Langara community. With massive layoffs, especially regarding the business department (LSM), students have been unable to take the required classes at the required time and have been forced to delay their graduation (which then delays future earnings/income) or transfer due to the limited class offerings. This has been extremely frustrating for many students such as myself, and not only has there been an abundance of students competing to try to get their classes, but many of the professors who were valued in the community and taught well have been laid off (presumably due to budgeting issues, diluting the education quality for students). I find it unjust that professors who were previously hired and then laid off must then apply and re-interview. The processes in place at the moment do not seem to be reflective of Langara’s core values of excellence, collegiality, innovation, and integrity. I hope that actions will be taken in the very near future to restore the values of the college that once rang true. Thank you.

Emma R, Student

Jennifer Duffy, Faculty

The auditor general review of Langara stewardship of assets and public funds should prove interesting. Workday has been an unaffordable indulgence and has made the degradation of Langara quality worse than it could have been had mitigation or diversification strategies been taken. I await the results.

Philip Grant, Faculty

Mike Ma, Community member

Respect for a collective agreement is good for everyone and makes for a better learning environment for students.

Alwyn O’Brien, Faculty

Henry Chow, Faculty

Please return Langara to what it used to be: a place to nurture students, faculties, and communities.

Bernie Maroney, Faculty

I want to see an audit of how the College burned through $160M in four years.

Tiffany Johnstone, Faculty

Bhavneet Sidhu, Faculty

Liliane Ekambi, Student

Aziz Rajwani, Faculty

Jen Oehler, Staff

Meaghan Rafferty, Staff

Aimee Yamazaki, Staff

Edmund Lee, Faculty

Catherine Glass, Faculty

Csilla Tamas, Faculty

Melisa Lavallee, Faculty

Mark Benos, Community member

Be honest and transparent with your affected members and don’t find excuses to give them work they are entitled to. These individuals were dedicated to the college for so many years and you are interpreting the contract as it suits the college and depriving rights to these dedicated instructors. As a former alumni and now a taxpayer this type of behaviour is unacceptable and demoralizing.

Alex Vickers, Faculty

Kevin McMillan, Faculty

Gaya Murthy, Faculty

It is heart breaking to see colleagues lose jobs and their livelihood at Langara, only to know that they cannot be hired based on how the reappointment rights are misunderstood. Faculty need to respected for an institution to survive and thrive. It is unfortunate to see that there is no heart in any of the decision making but the least one can do to adhere to the collective agreement.

Anthony and Marjorie Glass, Community member

We are appalled by the lack of concern for the plight of laid off Langara staff and the failure to honour the collective agreement.

Carmen Miranda-Barrios, Faculty

Jordan Miller, Faculty

Erfan Rezaie, Faculty

Josue Menjivar, Faculty

The decision to not allow laid off workers to apply for new positions is so cruel. I thought Langara always looked out for their faculty. This is not right.

Joanna Clarke, Faculty

Sean Gray, Faculty

Eugene Belchev, Faculty

The way Langara’s administration chooses to interpret the reappointment rights makes no sense.

Neil Amsler, Staff

Chantal Faucher, Faculty

Jill Goldberg, Faculty

Koopa Hakimi, Faculty

Fiona Hunt, Faculty

Jenny Francis, Faculty

If we cannot convince you to the right thing on moral grounds or through appeals to fairness, perhaps consider your own self interest. You get what you give, Paula.

Jeremy Chiu, Faculty

I’d rather see our classes taught by colleagues who have already been vetted and have passed Langara’s rigorous screening and evaluation processes.

New short-term hire brings real costs to the College: recruitment, onboarding, training, and the formal reviews needed to confirm their teaching meets our standards.

I believe that rehiring experienced instructors is the better investment for our students and for the College.

Deland Jessop, Faculty

Sabrina Chahal, Faculty

Stacey Collins, Faculty

Shervin Shahriari, Faculty

Gregory De Rocher, Community member

Langara is a beloved institution in our community and a place of quality higher education I hope my daughter would consider in the future. Respect for expertise and experience is the basis of success for such an institution and it’s disheartening to see it being dismantled.

Erin Lea, Faculty

I remain confused by this administrative decision, and remain unclear as to why the easiest pathway (rehiring qualified, dedicated instructors) is not being followed. Please hear the faculty on this issue – and bring our amazing colleagues back when you can.

David Borys, Faculty

Nadia Vidas, Faculty

Philip Wong, Faculty

Christian Ashe, Student

One of the most important things I think students need to recognize about the current situation at Langara is that when instructors are treated poorly, students are inevitably treated poorly too.
The conditions faculty are being forced to work under do not exist in isolation from the student experience. When instructors lose resources, stability, support, time, and reasonable working conditions, the quality and accessibility of the education students receive is affected. When departments are stretched thin, when classes become difficult to access, when supports are reduced, and when instructors are expected to carry increasing institutional responsibilities with fewer resources, students are the ones sitting in those classrooms and absorbing the consequences.
What makes this particularly frustrating is how visible the contradiction has become. Langara can publicly emphasize inclusion, student success, reconciliation, accessibility, and community while the people actually responsible for delivering students’ education are increasingly being placed in untenable conditions. The institution can produce polished statements about its values, but students experience those values—or their absence—through the instructors standing in front of them.
I have also become increasingly aware of how institutional priorities can become disconnected from what students actually need from their education. I value learning about different cultures, perspectives, and histories, and I have no problem with Indigenous scholarship or contemporary Indigenous writers and artists being taken seriously. But there is a difference between meaningfully incorporating those perspectives into education and making the transformation of a student’s personal perspective itself an institutional objective, particularly within a course whose stated purpose is academic writing. Students should be taught to critically analyze perspectives, evaluate evidence, conduct research, and construct arguments—not simply demonstrate that they have adopted the perspective the institution considers desirable.
That same distinction applies to institutional messaging more broadly. Acknowledgement is not action. A land acknowledgement can be meaningful when it is sincere and appropriate to the setting. But if an institution can repeatedly demonstrate its commitment to values symbolically while simultaneously allowing the faculty and students who make the institution function to struggle with inadequate resources and conditions, eventually the symbolism begins to look like a substitute for the substantive work.
The problems at Langara are not invisible. Students see them. Faculty experience them. Staff experience them. Yet there seems to be an enormous effort to maintain the appearance that everything is functioning as intended.
It isn’t.
If Langara genuinely wants to demonstrate that it values students, it needs to start by valuing the people responsible for educating them. You cannot undermine the conditions in which instructors teach and then be surprised when the conditions in which students learn deteriorate.
And ultimately, words have to correspond to actions. Otherwise, students are left watching an institution tell us how much it cares while experiencing the consequences of how little that care appears to translate into practice.
Actions and words need to align.

Allison Sullivan, Faculty

Ken Naumann, Faculty

The college is a community of people, and a means to a living for hundreds of people who dedicate their careers to this place. It is sad to see administrative decisions that seem only to benefit the potential career trajectory of senior leadership who are seeing their future somewhere else.

Amy Flanigan, Faculty

Skylet Yu, Faculty

Sean McAlister, Faculty

Dolores (Lolita) Gambroudes, Faculty

RESPECT students, RESPECT course and program options for them, RESPECT the reputation Langara has built over all these years because of dedicated, qualified instructors. RESPECT our instructors’ work and the rights they have to it.

Catharine O’Brien-Bell, Faculty

I have had an amazing career at Langara. When I started I was on a Term contract, then I became Reg in Temp until a senior department colleague retired and I moved into an ongoing Regularized position. During this time I have felt highly valued by having both job security and access to PD time and funds to support my role in an ever changing work environment. Equally important, my students have known the stability and consistency that a team of regularized faculty provides. I am worried about what the current college proposal regarding short-term work will do to the culture of the institution, both for faculty and students.
In contrast to the Langara College position on return to work, my cousin who taught for many years at VIU and took an early retirement incentive package last year, was recently invited back and is teaching a lab course this semester. A situation benefiting both her department and her students.
I would respectfully request that the college revisit its position and in fact look towards strengthening policies that allow current and future faculty and students to enjoy the benefits of same amazing working and learning environment that I have been a part of for so many years.

Ron Shay, Faculty

Ophelia Ma, Faculty

Randal Defant, Faculty

Emel Tastekin, Faculty

Our trust is broken.

Noushine Afshar, Faculty

Mizuki Giffin, Faculty

Shirley Wacowich-Sgarbi, Faculty

Robert Alstead, Community member

Respect the collective agreement!

David Brooks, Faculty

Jacqueline Weal, Faculty

Honour the Collective Agreement; this is not complicated.

Kevin Rey, Faculty

Jane McCarthy, Community member

I agree with the points made in the letter.

Brad Gibson, Faculty

Jon Chater, Faculty

Jordan Rudek, Faculty

Bradley Hughes, Faculty

After eliminating more than 200 faculty jobs at Langara, this further attack on faculty shows how little the president and the VPs care about the education workers on campus and the quality of education.

Jonathan Newell, Faculty

Caroline Harvey, Faculty

We work hard as instructors, harder than governing bodies can ever imagine; we deserve basic, respectful hiring practices.

Stephanie van Willigenburg,

Community member

Troy Chenier, Faculty

Polina Sokolova, Student

Sarah Richards, Faculty

This doesn’t even make sense from a business perspective. Sowing discord with faculty will negatively affect the quality of education and students will leave. How does that save money? Students are already complaining about the lack of diverse course offerings owing to deeper-than-necessary lay offs. Our reputation is at risk of being further damaged by an administration that doesn’t respect student needs or treat employees fairly. Major staffing decisions are being made without care; imagine how long this letter would be if contingent faculty spoke up without fear of retaliation?

Lauren Mitchell, Faculty

Livia Chan, Faculty

Neil MacAlister, Faculty

Leslie Dos Remedios, Community member

This type of action is short sighted and does not prioritize the longitudinal care and education of the students. It’s so incredibly disappointing to feel like our future students will not get the same care and quality of education that I received when I was attending Langara. Please do better by your staff, your faculty and your students and show a modicum of loyalty to the community that has made Langara what it is.

Karyn Kraemer, Faculty

Bypassing laid-off faculty and offering available work on short-term contracts to faculty with less seniority doesn’t align with the culture Langara purports to have created – one based in fairness, inclusion, transparency and taking care of those in our community.

Ryan Tomkinson, Community member

Caleb Hunter, Student

Shiho Minami, Faculty

Thor Polukoshko, Faculty

Aidan McQuay, Community member

Kathleen Oliver, Faculty

This interpretation of the collective agreement on the part of the College is deeply damaging to the college community. I urge you to listen to and respect faculty. Without us, there is no Langara.

Jesica Ortega Nava, Faculty

Read the letter in PDF format as delivered.