A community meeting for the School of Policy Studies (SPS) allegedly ended in faculty infighting, slammed doors, and a sudden resignation.
Students from the SPS have raised transparency and equity concerns to the University regarding the selection process for a new director of the SPS. After months of back-and-forth, these concerns ultimately led to infighting among faculty members at a SPS community meeting on Feb. 27, and the resignation of Interim Director Eugene Lang.
The Journal spoke with students, faculty, and administrators to reconstruct the incident. While The Journal also reached out to Lang for his version of events, he didn’t provide a response.
Two students from the SPS, Ben Salazar and Menka Bélanger, both MPA ’26, spoke with The Journal to clarify their recollection of the timeline of events and share their thoughts on the conduct of the selection committee.
The pair explained that, as early as January, SPS students were expressing concerns to the University about a lack of student involvement in the appointment process for the new director. Salazar and Bélanger claim that while students have previously been represented on SPS selection committees, none were given formal positions during this process.
In response to these early concerns, the University set up “Lunch and Learn” sessions with the five candidates short-listed for the director position.
According to Bélanger, however, these sessions were initially presented as being part of an ordinary guest lecture series, with their true purpose—introducing students to the candidates—only being clarified by Lang after the first “Lunch and Learn” had already taken place.
Students were then told that, if they wanted to send feedback to the selection committee, they had to attend or review all five sessions. For Bélanger, however, this raised accessibility issues, as the first lecture had already passed, some of the other lectures conflicted with midterms and reading week, and the recordings were supposedly difficult to hear.
28 MPA students signed a letter raising these concerns to the selection committee on Feb. 18. The students also wrote that the Collective Agreement between the Queen’s University Faculty Association (QUFA) and the University indicates there should be student representation directly on the selection committee.
The Collective Agreement states that when appointing a new head of department, “one (1) undergraduate and/or one (1) graduate student (where appropriate) from the Department” should be nominated to the committee.
The chair of the committee, Stefanie von Hlatky, responded to the student letter in an e-mail obtained by The Journal, agreeing that the “Lunch and Learn” scheduling was “extremely challenging,” and explaining the timing was a result of having to work around the travel and teaching schedules of candidates. Concerns regarding the committee’s interpretation of the Collective Agreement weren’t addressed.
At a SPS community meeting that took place on Feb. 27, Associate Dean (Graduate) James Fraser began by addressing some of the concerns that students have brought forward in their letters.
Bélanger claimed that Fraser echoed the scheduling rationales previously provided by Hlatky, while indicating that the true purpose of the “Lunch and Learns” was initially left undisclosed as to protect the privacy of the candidates.
In this speech, Fraser also revealed that the committee had already decided on their recommendation for the new director and that they were confident it would be approved.
“After that, it was a lot of people cutting through, overlapping each other,” Bélanger said. “One person would say something, and three people would respond.”
When Bélanger eventually had the chance to talk, she brought forward new concerns surrounding equity in the selection process. She expressed frustration that, despite the selection committee initially working with a list of 55 diverse candidates, none of the five candidates ultimately short-listed were visible minorities.
In a written statement to The Journal, the University claimed that they were unable to confirm or comment on candidate details, and that under the QUFA Collective Agreement all decisions and deliberations by the Committee are to remain confidential.
At the meeting, as students continued bringing up concerns regarding the appointment process, Lang admitted that it seemed there was a lack of communication about what role different people were meant to play.
Salazar recalls Rose then pointing to Lang, and saying the communication issues were his fault, and that as Interim Director, it was Lang’s responsibility to communicate with students. Bélanger claims that, in this moment, Rose raised his voice. In a written statement to The Journal, Rose claimed that he “certainly” didn’t raise his voice.
Bélanger and Salazar claim that the exchange then intensified further, with both Rose and Professor Kyle Hanniman leaning toward Lang across the table.
When asked to comment on these events, Hanniman wrote to The Journal that neither him nor Rose ever left their seats, with Hanniman explaining that he was sitting in a swivel chair on the same side of the table as Lang, facing him.
Hanniman clarified that his comments to the room were iterating that it was not the responsibility of the hiring committee to share information regarding the “Lunch and Learns” with the SPS community, but the responsibility of the Director of the SPS.
According to Bélanger, Lang argued that having stepped down from the selection committee early in the process, he shared all the information that he was permitted to. When Lang asked the room for specific examples of communication failures on his part, Bélanger and Salazar claim that none were provided.
Instead, they remember Rose claiming that Lang shouldn’t have stepped off the committee, as that resulted in him being less aware of what was going on, and therefore unable to communicate with the students. Lang then asked Rose if he wanted to “get into” why he stepped off the committee, to which Rose supposedly responded that it wasn’t important.
After some more back and forth, Bélanger and Salazar explain that Lang stood up, resigned on the spot, and exited the room.
After Lang’s departure, the students said they weren’t given further opportunity to speak. Fraser ultimately assumed chairing duties before concluding the meeting approximately 15 minutes later.
In notes written by Bélanger directly after the meeting, she recalls Lang returning approximately 10 minutes after his departure, and directly addressing Rose, saying something along the lines of “congratulations, buddy, you’re the new Director of the School of Policy Studies,” before exiting once more.
Rose and Hanniman similarly recall Lang making this statement, with both adding that Lang slapped his hand on Rose’s shoulder when saying it.
On the same day, interim Dean of Arts and Sciences Bob Lemieux announced that Fraser would be stepping in as the new interim director of the SPS.
On March 3, Fraser and Lemieux hosted a virtual town hall for SPS students. Bélanger and Salazar claim that Fraser and Lemieux indicated they would not address the Feb. 27 incident due to HR considerations, and Fraser apologized for not having pushed harder to include students during the selection process. Fraser then proposed future governance reforms to ensure student representation in future selections.
The Journal wrote to Fraser asking him to elaborate on what these reforms might be, but received no response.
Salazar claims that, at the town hall, many MPA students were visibly emotional about Lang having stepped down.
“We all love Lang very much,” Salazar said. “He’s a professor we’re all very comfortable with, and he’s very supportive of us. […] [People] were criticizing the choice of Fraser because he’s not a part of the school. He’s a dean. He’s not a policy person.”
In rectifying the situation, both Bélanger and Salazar hope that the University offers an official apology addressing their conduct throughout this process. Bélanger also hopes that, rather than only considering reforms for future selection processes, some remedy is made to involve students in the current process before a candidate is officially announced.
In a written statement to The Journal, Lemieux claimed that the SPS is committed to an equitable and accountable hiring process for its new director.
“Current MPA students in SPS were provided with opportunities to engage in the process,” he said. “And the committee endeavoured to accommodate their schedules while also navigating the logistical constraints and availability of the candidates.”
Lemieux claimed that Fraser will continue in the role of acting director until a new director is ultimately appointed at the end of June.
In reference to direct questioning regarding Lang’s resignation, Lemieux asserted that the University “does not comment on individual personnel matters.”
Tags
interim dean, School of Policy Studies, SPS
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