HALIFAX -- The student union at Dalhousie University says it will maintain a scaled-back sexual assault phone line on its own, after the school offered less funding than the students' group wanted.
"When you underfund something, it's the same as not supporting it," Rhiannon Makohoniuk of the Dalhousie Student Union said Monday.
The service, which started last year and operated from September to April, provides support and referrals for students who have experienced sexual violence or harassment.
Arig al Shaibah, vice-provost for Dalhousie student affairs, said the university was willing to invest half of what the student union says is needed to fund the line.
She says that would amount to about $22,500 for an operating budget of $45,000, which the union says isn't adequate. The school gave $30,000 funding to the line last year, based on a $60,000 budget. This year, the union had proposed budgets at around both levels.
She said the school provides a suite of services for students dealing with sexual assault.
"It's not necessarily standard practice for a university to have a 24/7 line within the institution," said al Shaibah.
Makohoniuk says the union will take it upon itself to fund a reduced phone line service from Sept. 3 to Nov. 3, between 12 p.m. and midnight seven days a week. It will hold an open meeting in September to discuss next steps.
On Monday, Progressive Conservative leader Jamie Baillie called on the provincial government to intervene to ensure the line has funding, noting that the university recently spent $387,220 sending private-sector executives and bureaucrats to an entrepreneurial program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Al Shaibah would not comment on the MIT funding, but Makohoniuk said the university's choices speak volumes.
"What we are seeing is Dal supporting the elite of Nova Scotia to go to this entrepreneurial program, but not supporting sexualized violence initiatives led by students on campus," she said.
Makohoniuk said the union created the "active listening" line after its research revealed students didn't trust the administration's sex-assault services. In 2014, Dalhousie was the target of protests over its handling of a misogynistic Facebook group among students at its dentistry school.
The union refused Monday to say how many people called the sex-assault line during its first year.
"We don't think the success of the service should be indicative of how many people called the line," Makohoniuk said. "There's a lot of successes of the service, including people using it, but that's just not what we're focusing on."
Both al Shaibah and Makohoniuk said an external review recommended some changes to the phone line, but also noted its successes.
