First GEA meeting & pub night!

by Joel Faber

It’s been weeks in the making, but the moment we’ve all been eagerly anticipating is almost here: the first GEA meeting of the 2018-19 academic year is nearly upon us! I don’t know about you, but I personally have been having trouble sleeping for the past few days out of sheer all-caps EXCITEMENT.

We hope to see you in Room 719 THIS FRIDAY, SEP. 21 from 5-6:30pm (following the GEA Fellowships Workshop in the same space) as we introduce ourselves (the new GEA exec), make plans for the year ahead and hold elections for several KEY positions (a full list of which can be found here). All of these positions are great ways to get involved with the GEA and meet fellow students both inside and outside the department without having to commit yourself to an onerous workload.

And if you thought things couldn’t get any better, you should probably take a deep breath before reading the next sentence: directly after the meeting, the GEA will be hosting a PUB NIGHT at East of Brunswick (just south of the intersection of Bloor and Spadina)! Bring your partners, friends and family members and come get to know your colleagues outside the classroom as we celebrate the beginning of another school year with an evening of WHOLESOME FUN. We hope to see you there!

A few year-end congrats

by Joel Faber

As this school-year draws to a close, warm thanks are due to everyone who helped make our various events a success, and hearty congratulations to the incoming GEA exec:

Olivia Pellegrino (President)
Stefan Krescy (Vice-President)
Kyle Kineschuk (Secretary)
Nicole Birch-Bayley (Treasurer)

Also, we’d like to recognize the service and support provided to graduate students by Alan Bewell during his eight years as Chair of the English Department at St. George. It was a pleasure to work with Alan this year, and his receptiveness and administrative wisdom was very much appreciated as we presented the results of the GEA comps survey to the wider department.

Happy New Year

by Joel Faber

Welcome to 2016! If you’re in the mood to look back and reflect on the year gone by in 2015, you can find the minutes for the last GEA meeting of 2015, on December 4th, here.

If you’re already feeling the stress of returning to a busy semester, you should consider coming out to one of the Karma Yoga sessions! See the attached poster for details:

Karma Poster

Minutes & Upcoming events

by Joel Faber

Thanks to everyone who attended the first GEA meeting of the year last week. Although some might be tempted to consider the ensuing pub night the highlight of our meeting, some excellent discussion was had about the proposed equity representative position. The minutes are now available here.

We have a pair of workshops planned for next week Wednesday, the GEA Fellowships workshop (2-4pm) and, immediately following, the inaugural GEA “Health and Wellness in Academia” workshop (4-5:30pm). We hope to see many of our members there!

Updated Calendar

by Joel Faber

If you turn your attention to the right-hand side of this page, you’ll see that the important events have now been added to our calendar. Yes, that’s right, we’re having events this year!

Of particular interest at this point are the various parts of orientation (Sept. 9-10) and the staff-student softball game (Sept. 13). Watch out for new students and give them a friendly smile or hello! If anyone is interested in volunteering to help with the GEA-run orientation events, please contact Veronica Litt: <veronica.litt[at]mail.utoronto.ca>.

Mail Attachment

February minutes

by Joel Faber

In preparation for our next GEA meeting (April 9 — tomorrow!) you may find a copy of the minutes for our February meeting here. Hope to see you at our meeting and the end-of-year party to follow!

Mail Attachment

Open Letter from English department re: CUPE 3902 strike

by Joel Faber

March 8, 2015

Dear Provost Regehr,

We are faculty members in the Tri-Campus Department of English. We believe that the University of Toronto administration’s policies on graduate student funding have created a crisis, and have provoked the current strike by the members of CUPE 3902. We write in support of the union’s demand that the funding packages for graduate students be raised.

In our view, the guaranteed funding package is wholly inadequate. As has been widely noted, this sum is significantly below the poverty line for Toronto. Moreover, the sum has remained static since 2008. This has created real financial hardship for many of our students, and increasingly functions as an obstacle to the recruitment of excellent graduate students.

The members of Unit 1 of CUPE 3902 are our students and our future colleagues. We urge that you act quickly to settle this strike before it causes any more damage to the university, its students, and its reputation as a leading institution for teaching and research.

We would be happy to meet with you to elaborate on these points.

Sincerely,

 

Deirdre Baker

George Elliott Clarke

Paul Downes

Uzoma Essonwane

David Galbraith

Marlene Goldman

Audrey Jaffe

Daniela Janes

Smaro Kamboureli

Mark Knight

Katie Larson

Garry Leonard

Jennifer Levine

Victor Li

Roy Liuzza

Lynne Magnusson

Alice Maurice

Naomi Morgenstern

Andrea Most

Heather Murray

Mary Nyquist

John O’Connor

Julian Patrick

Carol Percy

Stanka Radovic

William Robins

Marjorie Rubright

Chester Scoville

Dana Seitler

Matthew Sergi

Philippa Sheppard

Paul Stevens

Cheryl Suzack

Larry Switzky

David Townsend

Daniel Scott Tysdal

Karina Vernon

Ira Wells

Dan White

Sarah Wilson

Brent Wood

* * *

(pdf version also available)