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Saturday, March 21, 2009 at 2:00 –3:00 pm in room TRS 3-176 Introducing Democracy – a Cautionary Tale When the first democratic elections took place in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the promise of democracy and its subsidiaries – free speech, ideological pluralism, and multi-party political system – held much currency. Yet, what ensued instead of a democratic paradise were a bloody civil war and a troubling aftermath that continues to this day. The events were arguably not a failed attempt at democracy, but rather a failure of democracy. The political crisis created a climate in which democracy was less a cultural shift and more a technology. Its questionable results now render it ripe for critical cultural examination, while its slippery definitions call for an exploration of our general understandings of democracy Biography: Irena Knezevic is a PhD candidate in Communication and Culture at York and Ryerson Universities. Her research interests include food and discourse, political economy of communication, commercial discourses, and food policy. Her dissertation work deals with food policy development in the Western Balkans. Saturday, March 22, 2009 at 5:00 –7:00 pm in room TRS 3-176 Ten Theses on the York University Strike
They'll go all the way: Demanding the Impossible from the Neo-Liberal University
Reaching Lower - Ryerson in Crisis due to Overextending Enrollment
University Codes of Conduct and Academic Freedoms: On a Collision Course
Crisis of the University: Considering Involvement, Intervention and Invention "The effect of any situation of overt crisis, like that which we are now in, is to bring to light, to consciousness, things that were previously hidden." Pierre Bourdieu, Political Interventions: Social Science and Political Activism, 2008. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, 1888. "It’s time to redraw and to interpret it again, because do we really know what is going on today?" Slavoj Zizek reflects on the Feuerbach Theses, in an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, May 12, 2008. While the recent CUPE 3903 strike at York University was long, difficult, and ended in back-to-work legislation, the strike provided an opportunity to raise critical questions about what it is like to work and study in what many have come to know as “the neoliberal university.” At stake for CUPE 3903 members was, and remains, quality of education in the face of administrative pressures, fair and equitable access to graduate education and job security for those who do the majority of teaching in an institution whose historical role has been to educate. Of course, these issues extend beyond York University. All around us, the university seems to be in crisis, with discourse around the current economic climate harnessed as a disciplinary tool to further conservative agendas that will shape the future of academic programs in the social sciences and humanities. York’s Fine Arts Cultural Studies program, for instance, has been closed down. The University of Toronto refused to give space to a conference discussing Palestine and the Middle East. In Florida and Georgia, state senates are debating the “merit” of queer theory courses and women's studies program, while across Canada, changes to SSHRC funding have skewed priorities in favour of “business-related” projects. As university students in Europe and the United States engage in resistance at their universities in the form of sit-ins, occupations, and protests, we would like to recall our own struggle, the CUPE 3903 strike at York, to critically reflect on trends in the creation, production, and maintenance of the neoliberal university. What does it mean to work and study in this context? How do undergraduate students, graduate student-workers, contract faculty, and faculty members make their voices heard in an institutional setting hostile to negotiated labour settlements, and when the quality of higher education is deteriorating? What are the opportunities and limitations for joint programmes, such as Communication and Culture, which straddles two universities with distinct institutional cultures, different histories and practices of labour relations? This roundtable will provide space to analyze the forces that maintain the status quo, to rethink the relation between academic work, study and political activism within the disciplines of communication and culture, and to consider the opportunities for constructive criticism and mobilization. Through systematic reflection and a deeper understanding of the current university context, this roundtable aims to illuminate and imagine possible steps towards political and academic involvement, intervention, and invention.
Ten Theses on the York University Strike
I The precipitating conditions for the strike are to be found in the dynamics and contradictions of a university system in crisis. II The foundation for the two-tier faculty system was laid in the 1976 when YUFA became a certified union that excluded contract faculty. III The strike was the first strike against academic precarity where graduate employees and contingent faculty were united on the issue of “job security.” IV The strike did not damage the reputation of York University; a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude’ and contingent inequity is what damages the reputation of York as a fair and equitable workplace. V Strong opposition to unions displays a remarkable continuity from the mid 1970s to the present but union-phobia among a significant minority of YUFA faculty reached a new peak in the form of an anti-CUPE petition and letters to the editor. VI The lock out of students and the breach of the duty to bargain in good faith pushed York into a deeper crisis. VII The problem of the economic recession was used to distract our attention from the problem of how all the money flowing through York is being spent and invested. VIII President Shoukri’s pronouncement that “there are no winners and losers in a strike, there are only losers and losers” is retrograde lesson about collective action in resistance to power. IX Undergraduate student revolt, in solidarity with CUPE, could have led to a negotiated settlement much sooner, but the state of undergraduate student-worker knowledge about the academic labour-system is too poor. X Being a graduate student has been subject to speed up and further rearticulated from leisure to precarity; the strike bulletins, websites, videos, chronicles, and X-files are elements of a contingent faculty culture in transition. Bob Hanke has been engaged in media studies for over two decades and his work has been published in various journals and books. His SSHRC-supported research focuses on the network university in formation. As a contingent faculty member, he was an active member of the CUPE Unit 2 communication committee during the strike. Currently, he is teaching Media, Identity and Citizenship in the Department of Political Science. They'll go all the way: Demanding the Impossible from the Neo-Liberal University Tom Keefer, York University The recent CUPE 3903 strike at York University bears all of the hallmarks of a crucial moment in the reorganization of the Neoliberal University. The willingness of the York University administration to "go all the way" in refusing to negotiate with CUPE 3903 and to produce the conditions for the unprecedented intervention of the provincial government in university labor affairs signals the high stakes of this recent labor conflict. In this context, the return to normality at York following the breaking of the strike constitutes a clear defeat for CUPE 3903, the lead local in Ontario's post secondary education sector. My presentation will address the question of what strategy and tactics CUPE 3903 could have adopted to fight for and gain "the impossible" from the neoliberal University in a political climate hostile to left radicalism. My conclusion is that such a victory would require both a transformation in how we view the withdrawal of academic labor as well as a critique of commonly held assumptions around leadership and self-organization within CUPE 3903. Tom Keefer is a graduate student in political science and an editor of the anti-capitalist journal "Upping the Anti" (www.uppingtheanti.org) Reaching Lower – The Crisis of Overextending Enrollment at Ryerson University Ryerson is the only university in Ontario to meet the quota of increased enrollment in graduate studies under McGuinty's Reaching Higher educational plan, and will continue this trend by accepting 500 new graduate students in September 2009. While enrollments have increased by 40% the last two academic years through this rapid expansion, quality of education and jobs available for members at Ryerson has suffered. Funding allocated to students has decreased dramatically, especially with recent cuts of up to 50% in available teaching assistant positions in the Arts. In addition, quality of education has also suffered as potential supervisors are too busy to handle this overextended enrollment. This paper will address how the overextended enrollment championed by Ryerson University under McGuinty's Reaching Higher plan decreases the quality of education and level of accessibility of lower income students. It will also address ways students and university workers can resist these attacks on public education, mainly through organized labour. Alicia VanDeWeghe is a recent M.A. graduate from the Communication and Culture program at Ryerson and York Universities. Her research interests were were abject art, but her true passion is labour activism. She is a community activist at Ryerson University. University Codes of Conduct and Academic Freedoms: On a Collision Course
In this paper I examine the disturbing trend across Canadian campuses, the use by university administrations of student codes of conduct or what are often called "respectful workplace policies" to limit and suppress debate on controversial issues. In invoking the need to be “respectful” and “civil” and to avoid “provocation,” universities obscure power relations while suppressing freedom of expression. Some universities have stretched even further, using their own human rights and equity language to justify discipline and discrimination. It is ironic to find human rights codes turned against those demanding the right to speak out to silence campus discussion and debate. Penni Stewart is an Associate Professor in the department of sociology at York University. Since her appointment in 1990 she has been an active member of the faculty union. Penni has been an advocate for equity issues at York for many years and conducts research in this area. Since 2008, Penni has been President of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). All accepted presenter abstracts can be downloaded here: abstracts.pdf (130kb) |
