Dialogue update to community

Sent on behalf of Dr. Michael Quinn, Carolyn Russell and Emily Huner

Dear VIU community,

As President Saucier wrote last week in her message to the campus community, VIU is committed to the hard work that is needed to resolve the issue with the encampment groups.

We wanted to provide an update on today’s initial dialogue session with the Students for Palestine Committee and Palestine Solidarity Encampment (PSE). The team responsible for dialogue from VIU is Dr. Michael Quinn, Provost & VP Academic, Carolyn Russell, VP, Students, and Emily Huner, CFO & VP Administration (Emily was not able to make this initial meeting).

As a group, together we set some initial ground rules for our dialogue session. As we committed to, we listened and engaged in dialogue with the goal of seeking solutions that uphold VIU’s values of inclusivity, justice and academic freedom but also a conclusion to the encampment. 

In the meeting we highlighted what President Saucier wrote last week: members of our community will not be punished for participating in the encampment.

We can confirm that there was a productive and respectful dialogue at the meeting. We made progress on some of the areas discussed. With that said, the PSE did express their frustration that information about VIU’s investments was not immediately available to be reviewed and discussed. We are actively working to remedy this and are looking forward to reconvening the dialogue to provide the information they were hoping to see.

We have reached out to the Students for Palestine Committee inviting them to reconvene on Monday, June 10, or another time of mutual agreement, to continue the dialogue. We will have the information requested about VIU's investments ready and available for review at the meeting.

We look forward to meeting with the group again to continue an open, collaborative and good faith dialogue. We will continue to update the campus community.

Regards,

Dr. Michael Quinn, Provost & VP Academic

Carolyn Russell, VP, Students

Emily Huner, CFO & VP Administration