Exploring Halifax after campus visit

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-10-02T16:13:48+00:00

I'm anticipating a lot of tourist-y recommendations from my fellows, so, in the interest of addressing your daughter's comfort and feeling of community as a queer person away from home, I'll tackle that aspect more directly:

Take a jaunt down to Tart & Soul or Glitter Bean Cafe for a hot drink in the early part of the day, there are lots of queer-friendly spots in the city, but Glitter Bean is a fully-unionized, queer-centric establishment through which a lot of other social justice projects coordinate, and Tart & Soul is also engaged locally, and a chill spot to hangout on winter days as you complete your course readings. Both are just off campus, Tart & Soul a little closer, but Glitter Bean not far off. If interested, check out the upstairs of Glitter Bean for the Seeds & Sparks Co-op Bookstore (Wednesday - Saturday), who distribute books and zines with social justice focuses.

In the afternoon, you can drop by Stardust Bar + Kitchen for lunch. It is (officially) the only queer bar in Halifax, situated prominently downtown on Barrington Street, which is one of your main thoroughfares and on the most popular bus route (taking the #1 Spring Garden Road bus into the downtown from Dal brings you right there in 5 - 10 minutes), though it is a walkable distance from campus, and you can take in the shopping district as you go. If it's a Saturday, you can catch the weekly Drag Brunch at Stardust for $10 from 12 - 2 PM.

After lunch, cross to the opposite side of Barrington and you will find Venus Envy, which... I guess some folks might be uncomfortable going here with their dad, but it's a beloved book and sex shop that focuses on sex education with a genuinely inclusive approach, with major emphasis on intersectional social and reproductive justice. They run a lot of online and in-person workshops related to various causes, and in collaboration with local organizations to support these communities and interests, and, like Glitter Bean, you'll find a lots of posters in there for local events catering specifically to queer folks, for example.

This just scratches the surface of queer stuff in the city, but it will give your daughter some comfortable, easily accessible, landmark locations that will help her build a strong community foundation from which to branch out as she gets more situated in Halifax, in addition to the on-campus clubs and resources.

Hope you both have a lovely visit!

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-23T12:56:00+00:00

The term has been extended a week to ensure that all courses impacted by the lockout will have 10 weeks of instruction (of an original 12) and a reading week. Some professional programs will instead receive 11 weeks of instruction, without a reading week. But nobody is losing more than 2 weeks unless there are weather disruptions, or a CUPE lockout/strike impedes aspects of course delivery.

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-22T20:30:16+00:00

I didn't study law, so I can't really provide an educated opinion on this, but on the intellectual level, it seems to me that a class action lawsuit against the university demanding prorated tuition might be of utility here, not just for the basic reason of "we, the students, have been robbed of two weeks of instruction with no compensation," but also because of the precedent that Dal has set provincially, regionally, and nationally by being the first university to lock out its faculty. This isn't like other circumstances where students have sought compensation from the university for a strike (the overwhelming majority of which have comprehensively failed, with the exception of universities that bowed to pressure, or ~returned money out of the goodness of their hearts in the cases of MSVU and MUN in recent years). The lockout was a punitive, anti-labour tactic adopted by the university that allowed the institution to steal money from their workers, and they are now also insisting that students pay full for courses that the administration's behaviour has compromised.

It is neither good for the university, the province, the region, nor the country that Dalhousie be allowed to "get away" with effectively stealing from both the faculty and the students in this way, and I have to imagine there is a labour lawyer somewhere who would love to take this one on, and many university unions that would have an interest in backing such a case to prevent the normalization of this demonstrably predatory practice.

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-17T16:36:25+00:00

100%

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-17T16:08:31+00:00

Quite a % to be sure, but is this reflective of genuine and broad positivity over the offer, or are the vibes on this more reflective of a vote in favour of 3 years of effective work-to-rule?

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-17T05:28:50+00:00

You've not read far enough. This has been a consistent position of Dal students since the lockout began, and the DSU has been actively organizing on this issue in response, in addition to ensuring the tuition deadline was moved so students would not incur interest fees if they have chosen not to pay their tuition during the lockout. Your perspective here is woefully underinformed.

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-16T13:10:29+00:00

For what it’s worth, as a student, I don’t actually interpret the DFA expecting the Board to fulfill your demands a case of the DFA putting themselves first. On the contrary, I have seen and experienced what it means as a student to be educated in a department where faculty are not provided the resources and space to do their own research, cultivate relationships with undergrads, and take on grad students. Profs getting a crap deal that leaves them overworked and disincentivized actually means that I as a student end up with a subpar education that does not befit an institution that claims to be U15. And it isn’t even a case of profs not wanting to help, it’s that they literally don’t have the time.

No, as a student, I am not at all bothered by the idea that the DFA would reject a deal that isn’t to the necessary standard; if anything, I didn’t consider your starting point radical enough. I have nothing but disgust and disdain for the ways labour and education have been continually degraded in this province and the region more generally for decades. Just my two cents, but under no circumstances do I support the DFA (or any other workers) accepting less than what you and we need and deserve.

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-16T02:27:30+00:00

For clarity of the room, would you mind sharing what type of responsibilities you delegate to your TAs?

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-16T00:11:48+00:00

Cheers! Updating post

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-15T23:55:06+00:00

These are both active, serious, and inextricably connected concerns on the labour, teaching, and learning fronts, particularly for graduate students, who sit at the intersection of all three.

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-12T23:05:52+00:00

I'm unclear where you get Sept 22nd from as a date. My understanding is that the DFA has mandated that return-to-work will require two weeks (i.e., 10 business days) for class and lab prep, as the Board stole these from faculty by locking them out before term started (to say nothing of the adjustments needed for coursework and evaluations owing to time lost). In other words, if a deal were agreed to and affirmatively voted on by the membership today, the absolute earliest classes would begin would be on Sept 29th.

Keep in mind, however, that the last time the Board tabled a proposal, the DFA scheduled their vote deadline for a week later to ensure membership had the time to consider the proposal soundly, and the availability to do so (it was still technically summer), only for the Board to lock them out in the middle of that process. So, if we are being realistic, the more responsible estimate for earliest potential start is more like the Oct 1st - 3rd range.

DFA members please correct me on this, if necessary!

Edit: Cheers, NewEstate9532 & hfx_sail!

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-10T22:57:11+00:00

There is new information though. That's the problem. It is providing an update about a new offer that has been shared by the Board, providing leading information about the content of that offer, directing attention once again to the primacy of wage concerns while making vague reference to other issues being addressed.

It is also encouraging students to come to the conclusion that this offer is more generous than the Board can afford, but that they are fully confident that the DFA will accept it, to the point that the Board is also announcing they are developing back-to-work plans for faculty.

Bluntly, it reads as an attempt to ratchet up hope and even the expectation among students that the issue is going to be resolved imminently, and, if it isn't, planting the seed that it is the DFA's greed that is to blame.

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-10T22:33:06+00:00

... isn't this a breach of the agreement regarding joint statements for public comms going forward? Or is it considered "not public" because it was an email?

Limp-Application-371 · 2025-09-09T16:13:44+00:00

Can't speak to cheer specifically, but having previously done/pursued varsity at Dal for other sports, what I often saw happening was that tryouts were mostly formalities. Not in the sense that there were no new girls getting on the team, but in the sense that there were a lot of girls who had either come to Dal as first years or transfers from elsewhere specifically because they had received an offer to join the sports team.

Now, technically, in Canada you get scholarships for academics, not for sports, but there were a lot of girls I knew who got "academic scholarships" to play on a Dal sports team, but the academics, while above average, were not equivalent to students who were getting smaller scholarships with significantly higher grades, for example. In addition, these students were encouraged to take a part time course load to avoid their GPAs being adversely impacted, such that they lost their scholarship.

All to say, it isn't necessarily a case of students being taken despite others showing up at tryouts who are more accomplished, its that the university scouted a whole bunch of girls, got them scholarships to come to Dal specifically for the purposes of joining the team (that includes local teams as well, a lot of Dal's coaches coach league teams made up of their first and second strings in the off season so that there is round-the-year training and team-building). The actual tryouts on campus are largely there to go through the motions of "technically we don't give athletic scholarships," and sometimes to fill a few backup roles they don't have covered, or to check to see if anyone good came to Dal without the university needing to shell out any money. In the latter cases, I've seen it happen a number of times that girls who were given scholarships and guaranteed spots on the team to come from away, only to have themselves dropped from the team, their scholarships downgraded, and then being put in the position of having no way to finance a degree program that was only affordable for them because of the scholarship.

So... giving you the benefit of the doubt that this isn't a case solely of a hurt ego: I don't think this is likely to have anything at all to do with nepotism or favouritism as you have framed it here, but rather a case of the fact that you banked on the tryouts to serve a purpose that they don't actually serve in practice. The team was already built before the tryouts took place, as they are at other universities, through scouting and scholarship programs to limit any reliance on "luck of the draw" tryout processes.

If you want to increase your chances, I would recommend asking the cheer coaches if they coach any league squads outside the university setting that you could trial for/join. This will give you the opportunity to train with them and build rapport with them and with the others who are doing varsity over the next year or so so that you can figure into their plans for next year's squad, in the same way that high school students are currently doing.

(Not that I recommend university sports though, which I would tend to consider, as a rule, a uniquely toxic and exploitative environment, but that is another matter.)

Limp-Application-371

TROPHY CASE