Attn: Deep Saini, President and Vice-Chancellor
Christopher Manfredi, Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic)
Fabrice Labeau, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning)
Robin Beech, Dean of Students
Mathieu Laperle, Senior Director, Student Housing and Hospitality Services
Diana Dutton, Interim Vice-President (Administration and Finance)
22 February 2024
Montréal, Québec
We the undersigned of the McGill Communities Council are writing to you with a sense of urgency in light of the news that McGill is collectively dismissing Floor Fellows on April 24. This decision will effectively dissolve Unit B of the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE).
On Thursday, February 15, 2024, AMUSE was informed of McGill’s decision via McGill Human Resources to end the Floor Fellows program of Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS). This decision came as a shock to the 65 Floor Fellows that constitute AMUSE Unit B, and continues a pattern of callous mistreatment of this employee group by the employer.
McGill’s website used to describe Floor Fellows as students’ “support system” while in residence (archived page, dated Friday, February 15, 2024). Indeed, Floor Fellows are embedded in McGill residences for a simple reason: they provide a vital resource for undergraduate students—many of whom are living away from home for the first time. Floor fellows often act as paraprofessional counselors, working in tandem with Local Wellness Advisors and other student services professionals to provide support for students. Due to the nature of their jobs and their proximity in age and life experience to students in residence, Floor Fellows are on the front lines of managing high-stakes situations every day related to their students’ depression and homesickness, anxiety, social isolation, academic performance, disclosures of harassment and sexual violence, eating disorders, addiction, and substance use problems.
Floor Fellows are a small group of student employees that have proven time and again to be essential to the mission of Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS). Your decision to terminate Floor Fellows is a shameful violation of SHHS’s own values. How does the university intend to provide a “prevention-based harm reduction approach” without Floor Fellows? The mandate of Floor Fellows makes them part of a holistic, community-centered solution to the current crisis of student mental health at Canadian universities (MacLeans, 2022; BMC Public Health, 2023).
Removing Floor Fellows is a mistake and will upset the complex social ecosystem of McGill’s residences. Parents will surely think twice before sending their children to a university that does not have a support system like Floor Fellows in residence when other Canadian universities are maintaining their Floor Fellow, Resident Advisor, and/or don programs.
It is not too late to reverse your decision to collectively dismiss Floor Fellows from their duties at the end of April. We urge you to reconsider the overwhelming benefit of this employee group for the university’s mission compared to the residence fees of the 65-or-so rooms you stand to gain with their dismissal.
Signed,
Mario Roy, AGSEM President
Raad Jassim, MCLIU President
Dennis Wendt, MCC Member
Sherrie Child, MUNACA President (acting)
Evan Fox-Decent, AMPL President
Karen Sciortino, Future Students Unit
Sean Cory, AMURE President
Judy Dear, MUNASA President
Comments