In discussions of the problems facing Memorial University, there are a few issues that are repeated over and over: crumbling infrastructure, tuition increasing with no improvement in services, administrative bloat, and so on. There’s little doubt that the university has to address these questions. But beneath those problems lies something deeper:
Memorial University needs to start acting like a university.
During the 2023 MUNFA strike, a central question facing both picketers and their bargaining team had to do with the role of collegial governance at the University.
The strike ended with the creation of a Collegial Governance Committee that lacks power, and MUNFA received no concrete commitments from university administration on governance.
Three years on, what changes have we seen? We still have a university that makes decisions without meaningfully consulting its community members and that treats students not as independent adults but as children who must be managed.
The culture of the university has, in recent years, been reduced to protectionism and distrust. Distrust runs in every direction: students distrust their professors, the administration, and their own students’ unions; professors distrust their students, staff, and administrators; and administrators seem to distrust everyone, including each other.
A new budget model that forces academic units to compete for funding with market logic is not likely to change that.
The university’s history, and its culture, run deep—and so change is met with hostility and defensiveness. Faculty feel powerless and students feel shut out. As animosity grows, the community shrinks. Soon, there may be little left to save.
So, what can we do about it?
For faculty, it means recalling your fundamental duty to the university: the community of teachers and learners. It means remembering the purpose of the university as a place where knowledge is made and shared in collaboration with students, not in spite of them.
For students, it means engaging with your unions, learning your rights and responsibilities, and pushing to make your institution better. It means holding your unions accountable and making them fight for your needs.
For administrators, it means being willing to listen. It means being able to have genuinely hard discussions, and to stop using aphorisms and strategic buzzwords to hide a lack of concrete answers. It means being transparent about how far you will—and will not—go, and honest about what you want the university to achieve.
This means a collective shift in how we think about our responsibilities to the university that has sustained Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy for the last century. We have to come together, not divide and conquer.
While tuition rises, facilities degrade. Talk swirls of lost programs, cut positions, and the erosion of student experiences. Faculty are frustrated, and students don’t know who they can ask for help.
A crisis is not overcome through media releases, animosity, or distrust. It is not overcome through empty promises and government posturing. It is not overcome through anonymous complaints and misdirected anger.
If we want to save our university, we have to save it—not “those people over there.” Us. Newfoundland and Labrador depends on it.
Students need to engage with their unions, with the Senate, and with the Board of Regents. Faculty need to participate in the governance channels that are available to them and to push against administrative overreach.
Administrators need to learn to listen, and to understand that they have a public duty. That when they show up to work, their responsibility is to maintain the backbone of an entire province.
Memorial needs to start acting like a university. Not like a corporation, not like a business, not like a market where knowledge is only worth its weight in gold.
And that takes everyone.
Mackenzie Broders (she/her) is a graduate student studying Philosophy. She holds a BA in philosophy and a BMus in musicologies and piano from Memorial University. From 2023-2024, she served as Executive Director of Advocacy of the MUN Students’ Union.
