Three years ago today, at approximately 5:30 p.m. on December 20, 2021, Frances Widdowson was lured into a classroom after hours without union representation after invigilating an exam. Widdowson’s Collective Agreement states that “An Employee shall have the right to have a member of the Association Executive present at any meeting that the Employee believes might be the basis of discipline”.
Widdowson was then terrorized by a group of admnistrators to the point that she called 911. The sequence of events is provided below. Widdowson also made a recording of what happened with the union on December 21, 2021.
On July 2, 2024, Arbitrator David Phillip Jones, after 30 days of hearings held between January and November 2023, decided that MRU “did not create an unsafe or unhealthy workplace environment on the evening of December 20, 2021” and that “her reaction was neither proportionate nor appropriate”.
A sequence of what occurred is provided below. We will leave it to readers to decide whether Widdowson’s reaction was “neither proportionate nor appropriate” and that what occurred was not “unsafe or unhealthy”.
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS – DECEMBER 20 AND 21, 2021
At 11:00 a.m. on December 20, 2021, Frances Widdowson attended an indigenous studies hiring talk for the candidate Robert Caldwell. A number of people, including Mike Quinn, the Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President, Academic, asked questions. At 12:06 p.m. Widdowson asked the following question:
Sometime on December 20, 2021, Tim Rahilly, the President of MRU, signed a termination letter for Widdowson. Rahilly’s letter told Widdowon that she was “obligated to provide to the Office of the Dean of Arts, any…exams of your students from the Fall of 2021 semester” and that these must be provided “by the end of hte work day tomorrow, December 21, 2021.
At 3:00-6:00 p.m., Widdowson was scheduled to give an exam for two sections of Political Science 1101 in Room B101. The last student completed their exam at about 5:15 p.m., but Widdowson spent some time talking to the student about an outstanding paper.
At about 5:30 p.m., Widdowson gathered all the exams in her arms, and began to walk along the hallway towards East Gate and so she could go back to her office in the Arts building. After a few seconds she hear someone calling out “Dr. Widdowson, Dr. Widdowson”. She thought it was a student, but it was Mike Quinn. As she had seen him at the hiring talk, she assumed that he wanted to talk to her about the candidate. Quinn said “Could you just step in here for a minute?”, gesturing to the office across the hall from B101. Widdowson said “o.k.”, and Quinn opened the door for her and she entered. When she stepped inside, she saw Sara Gibson, an HR person.
Widdowson knew Gibson because she had attended the struggle session with Provost Elizabeth Evans, who tried to get Widdowson to “accept responsibility” and “show remorse” for her conduct a week earlier (on December 13, 2021).
There was also another woman, who turned out to be Tanya Snow, sitting across from Gibson at a long table. Quinn asked Widdowson to sit down with them. When Widdowson said that she would not participate in the meeting without union representation (see the notes from the interview of Sara Gibson with the police below), and tried to leave, Quinn blocked the door (“stands between the door and Frances”). This led Widdowson to tell Quinn that he was forcibly confining her. Quinn moved, and Widdowson pushed past him and said that MRU would have to send her notice.
Widdowson ran back to her office in a panic. She tried to contact the union, but MRU had locked down her computer. This led her to phone a colleague, and ask her to call the union. The colleague, Kirsten Kramar, sent an email to the union at 5:49 p.m.
Unbeknownst to Widdowson, Amy Nixon, the General Counsel for MRU, had told Mike Quinn and a number of other administrators to go to Widdowson’s office. This was according to the police interview with Sara Gibson.
Meanwhile Widdowson was in her office gathering together her prized possessions. When she tried to leave, Mike Quinn was outside her door attempting to push an envelope into her hands and seemed to be trying to enter her office. A crowd of administrators were nearby, and there were two security guards positioned at both ends of the hall. This led Widdowson to panic, as she feared for her safety and that she would be held against her will. She yelled at Quinn through the door for him to go away and that he was intimidating her. Duane Bratt, a colleague and former Chair of the department, ran down the hall and asked if she was o.k.. Widdowson said that she was not o.k. and that Quinn was intimidating her. She then called 911 as she was in a panic and didn’t know what to do. She told the operator that she had been forcibly confined in a classroom, and now she had been followed to her office. She then said would be leaving and would talk to the police outside. As she walked out of room, Quinn told her she would have to leave her exams. She told everyone that she was going to talk to the police and not to touch her. She walked out of the building telling to her car in the library parking lot. In her car, she became hysterical and called the union president and her husband. Then the police arrived and she spoke to them.
At 6:22 p.m. Jennifer Pettit, the Dean of Arts sent an email to all Chairs of departments in the Faculty of Arts saying that “I am writing to inform you that Frances Widdowson is no longer a faculty member at Mount Royal University”.
At about 6:30 p.m. Widdowson drove to a local bar and had a stiff drink and met the President of the Mount Royal Faculty Association, Lee Easton. Easton told Widdowson that she would have to return her exams, and someone would send the termination letter to her house tomorrow (December 21, 2021) and pick up her MRU materials, including the exams.
Widdowson drove home in a stupor and considered driving the car off the road to take her own life. After talking to her husband and a number of colleagues when she arrived home, however, she felt more in control.
At 7:32 p.m. Rafik Kurji, a board member for Widdowson’s union (the Treasurer), celebrated her termination.
On hour later, at 8:34, another board member, Milena Radzikowska (the Diversity and Equity Officer) replied to Kurji with the meme “I’m Santa Claus”.
At 9:02 p.m., another board member, Roberta Lexier (the Member Engagement Officer), celebrated Widdowson’s termination.
The next morning – December 21, 2021 – an MRU representatative dropped by and provided her with the termination letter and another memo. The representative took away her exams and other MRU materials.
