[Fdu] History open letter in support of 3902

[Cynthia Wright]

Open Letter in Support of CUPE 3902, Unit 1
We write as faculty and teachers of History, on all three of the University of Toronto campuses, who value scholarly inquiry, teaching, and collaboration.  We recognize the different and unequal positions and roles in the university even as we share a common commitment to academic integrity and fair working conditions for all.  We acknowledge that, as in society at large, at the university these inequalities have been increasing. We recognize the mission of the university cannot be met without the work that all of us do on a daily basis.  

Because of this, we maintain that the working conditions of Teaching Assistants, Course Instructors, and Sessional Instructors are vital to the scholarly integrity of the university. We recognize that Teaching Assistants and many Course Instructors are also full time graduate students whose work and working conditions are crucial to the university, the future of intellectual work, and the quality of undergraduate teaching. We recognize that graduate students who are outside the funded cohort rely on paid teaching work to complete their degrees. Graduate student funding at the university, which takes as its mandate excellence in scholarship and teaching, is well below the level of poverty. International graduate students are especially affected when funding levels fall below living costs. As teachers of the next scholarly generation of historians we want University of Toronto compensation to remain attractive to graduate students, instead of requiring students to live in precarity. Our graduate students deserve not simply a “living wage,” but an overall funding package they can actually live on.

As faculty teaching in History, we are committed to maintaining open communication and working together to address the inequalities facing the university community.  For this reason, we express our solidarity with the efforts of graduate students to secure better conditions for their labor and study.

Signed,

Christine Berkowitz

Laurie Bertram

Heidi Bohaker

Elspeth Brown

Li Chen

Paul Cohen

Mairi Cowan

Donna Gabaccia

Julie Gilmour

Alexandra Guerson

Jens Hansten

Paula Hastings

Franca Iacovetta

Jennifer Jenkins

Madhavi Kale

Russel Kazal

Tong Lam

Julie MacArthur

Meaghan Marian

Mark Meyerson

Sean Mills

Jennifer Mori

Kara Moskowitz

Michelle Murphy

Nakanyike Musisi

Melanie Newton

Chris Petrakos

Jeffrey Pilcher

Ian Radforth

Bhavani Raman

Natalie Rothman

Alison Smith

Mohamad Tavakoli

Nhung Tuyet Tran

Lynne Viola
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To add your name to the statement, please email nhungtuyet.tran at utoronto.ca
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