U of S college of nursing dean says she is taking vote of no-confidence 'seriously'
CBC
Dr. Solina Richter, the dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Saskatchewan, says she's taking the recent vote of no-confidence in the college's leadership team seriously.
Last Friday, nursing faculty voted 51-20 in favour of the motion of no-confidence due to years-long concerns. Richter has been the dean for about six months.
"We're taking that seriously and we are putting actions in place to move the faculty forward," said Richter in an interview with CBC News on Thursday.
"One of them is really creating spaces where people can be listened to. And so I absolutely believe we will be successful as we are moving forward, as we've always been."
Faculty have expressed frustrations with decisions by the college's executive team, including the closure of the Regina campus. Faculty are also concerned about increased workloads, narrowing clinical opportunities, a deficit of faculty, growing class sizes and patient safety in clinical education.
CBC News reported this week that a growing number of nursing students are on "performance contracts" for making mistakes in their medical surgical clinical classes.
Faculty say the college has lost 31 full-time instructors in recent years. However, U of S provost Airini (who uses one name) said the number of tenured faculty has remained stable and that the college is working on recruiting more tenure-track faculty.
In a meeting agenda dated March 4, faculty stated that they worked directly with Airini and were promised further meetings and more support for instructors, yet none of the promises were met.
Airini told CBC News on Thursday that she has been working with Richter to make sure leadership is involved in responding to the concerns that have been raised, including having regular communications through the advisory council and meetings with student representatives.
Airini added that Richter has been advocating for additional resources.
"There was a serious commitment on my part to hear the concerns and then to take action with the new leadership. And that, to me, seems [like] good process," Airini said.