Committee

An Ad hoc Freedom of Expression Committee, with membership from faculty, students, and administrators was struck in 2018 to develop a statement on freedom of expression for the Mount.

Members: Elizabeth Church, Pamela Lovelace, Gayle MacDonald, Arthur McCalla, Jamie Metsala, Patrick O’Neill, Alex Roy, and Anthony Yue.

Consultation process and timeline

February 2018: The Freedom of Expression Committee was established.

April 2018: The MSVU Senate was consulted about the process for developing the statement.

Spring 2018: The committee reviewed statements and background material from universities across Canada and the United States.

Summer 2018: In order to make sure diverse perspectives were included in the consultation process, the committee circulated a draft freedom of expression statement to different groups on campus, including the Students’ Union, Senate, the Internal Aboriginal Advisory Committee, the Employment Equity Committee, and the Harassment and Discrimination Committee.

Fall 2018: The statement was revised and sent to external experts for feedback.

January 2019: The draft statement was circulated to the campus community for feedback.

February 2019: The statement was revised following these consultations and a new draft was circulated to the Mount community for further comment.

March 2019: A campus consultation session was held. Based on this additional round of consultations, further revisions to the statement were made.

Approvals

March 2019: The Senate Committee on Academic Policy and Planning reviewed the statement and recommended sending it to Senate for approval.

April 2019: The University’s Senate approved the statement at its meeting on April 26, 2019.

June 2019: The Human Resources and Governance Committee of the Board reviewed the statement on June 7, recommending it for approval to the Board of Directors. The Board voted to approve the statement at its meeting on June 20, 2019.