On Friday, 19 October 2007, the fly-in pickets arrived from around the country to join us on the line, then to join us on the streets of Wolfville, and finally to join us in Clock Tower Park for a rally. The first video that follows shows our spirited march. The second shows some highlights from the rally.

My favourite part of my video from Friday’s march through Wolfville is the part where students and faculty are chanting together “We are Acadia!” I know the phrase is a take-off from the recent film “We are Marshall,” so it’s far from original. But I can also tell you that its lack of originality didn’t make the phrase any less meaningful to me as we walked and chanted on Main Street with the empty campus and University Hall as a backdrop.
        Without the students and without the faculty to teach them, Acadia, its lovely grounds, its beautiful buildings (okay, a couple of them are butt ugly), and its new $4 million football field are all meaningless. What gives Acadia meaning, what gives it life, are its faculty and its students. We are Acadia.

        I want to make this point, here, not only because I’m still charged by Friday’s rally and I haven’t had the chance to celebrate it in writing until now, but also because of a conversation I had with one of my picket team members last night.
        My teammate is friends with a BOG member, and she told me about the conversation she had with her friend. Basically, she told her friend what was going on, what the issues were with the strike, thinking that she would get some friendly support. She was therefore a bit surprised by the negative response she got concerning “troublesome faculty.” It seems that our little strike is having an impact on the university’s capital campaign. This BOG member can no longer knock on the doors of the well-heeled expecting money. And that’s our fault.
        I admit that this was all a bit surprising to me too because I know her friend, and I would have at first thought of her a moderate and a force for good on the BOG. It seems pretty clear though that I was wrong. This BOG member is also suffering from the great disconnect.        
        Think about it folks. Her concern at the moment is the difficulty she is having raising money for Acadia’s capital campaign. That is the money that goes into buildings and renovations, such as the renovation of the football field or Patterson Hall (I’m sure some money goes to student scholarships, as well, but I know that Acadia’s scholarship programme is pretty dreadful, so not much actually makes it there). Her notion, then, seems to be that Acadia is its buildings. And I’m sure that as a BOG member, she takes some satisfaction in building Acadia by contributing to its capital.
        And therein lies the great disconnect: a failure to recognize that people are the real capital of Acadia. For the students and faculty, the buildings and the grounds are the backdrop for the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual lives we lead and develop while at Acadia. What ties us to this place are the interactions we have with the people here. What produces an alumnus willing to contribute to the institution is not the memories of great buildings, but the memories of great people, faculty and students, encountered while here.
        
        Despite administrative statements to the contrary, this strike is not about money, though money is a necessary factor of such a struggle. It’s about diametrically opposed values. What I’m fighting for daily while I picket for AUFA, then, is a reconfiguration of Acadia’s values. We collectively have to wrestle with BOG members who see themselves as the arbiters of Acadia’s values and who calculate those values in buildings and line-items in on an accounting page. We have to make them understand that the values they uphold are fucked up. And given that these are powerful people, used to getting their own way and not used to taking criticism well, we have a hell of a fight on our hands.
        As you’ll gather if you take the opportunity to watch the video of Friday’s rally, we have allies in this struggle. Faculty and students from across the country are facing the same ideological struggle against the corporatisation of universities. And we are acting together and supporting each other.
        So on Friday, I found my hope again in the common cause. I’m not saying that I’m not angry any more. And I’m definitely not saying that I’m hopeful for a quick resolution. In fact, I’m getting more pessimistic about a possible resolution as each day passes. My hope comes from the promise of solidarity that I saw on the streets of Wolfville and in Clock Tower Park on Friday.
        We are Acadia. And we are not alone.