Dear Friends and Colleagues,

What a difference a day makes!  Wow!  We have 190 signatures as of May 28 10am!

Thank you everyone who has added their voice to this concern.  A big thank you to the USFA president and executive for getting the word out to faculty.

It has been more than 2 days since I asked the University Club President to tell me how many members need to ask for a special meeting, and to send me a members’ list so that we can verify if we have enough.  I’m still waiting.

At this point, I think we can be confident that at least 20 of the 190 signers — the vast majority of whom are U of S faculty members — are University Club members qualified to call this Special Meeting.  I will send the petition with all the names from the current list to the Club President, and ask them to call a special meeting.  

I will also ask him to reopen membership, to ensure that everyone who wants to be a member of the Club is able to become a member and vote at the meeting.

Going through this process has made me realize how communication among faculty members at the University of Saskatchewan is tightly controlled.  After the University Club declined to forward the petition to Club members, PAWS did the same.  Until USFA stepped up, it was simply not possible to reach the majority of faculty.

We need a better way to communicate among ourselves.  Until we can come up with a better option, I have created a Facebook group called “USask Faculty” which will be open to all (and only) U of S faculty members.  I've added the link to the group to this update.  All faculty members interested in this group are welcome to join.  Please allow some time for your membership request to be accepted; I’m the only gatekeeper at this time.

Thank you again!

Nadeem Jamali