About Us
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The Editorial Collective
Jody Berland, David Clipsham, Sue Coffey, Ricardo Grinspun, Nick Lary, Marcia Macaulay, Arun Mukherjee, Nicola Short
The York Democratic Forum website
According to its mission statement, York University cultivates the critical intellect, values tolerance and diversity, and is a community of faculty, students and staff committed to “academic freedom, social justice, accessible education, and collegial self-governance." The editors of this information and discussion website are a group of York faculty who share these values but are deeply concerned about campus realities that stand at odds with them.
A major focus of our concerns is the neoliberal transformation of our university. By this we refer to trends that strengthen bureaucratic control and erode collegial self-governance, encourage the privatization and casualization of intellectual labour, privilege research with immediate commercial results, and de-value humanistic traditions of pedagogy and life-long learning. At York we are troubled by the narrowing of public spaces and the reduced opportunities for democratic exchange. The Administration holds a virtual monopoly on communications, emphasizing corporate branding and public relations rather than intellectual exchange, and increasingly restricts academic freedom and social activism. Our goal on the York Democratic Forum website is to provide a space with critical perspectives and alternative views on governance and academic life at York and more broadly at universities across Canada. It follows that this autonomous website is not associated with or supported by the York University Administration.
Editorial Statement
We, the members of the editorial committee, are committed to providing a forum for discussion. We reserve the right to decide to post submissions as blog entries, providing critical and alternative perspectives, or alternatively as comments to blogs or as postings in the discussion section. We also reserve the right to reject submissions that could be published in the Administration’s own organs. In the case of multiple submissions arguing essentially the same point, we will choose one or two which in our judgment make the argument most effectively and interestingly. Submissions may be edited for length. We will exercise our own discretion in posting other material and links.
Potential contributors should note that although this is an edited and moderated site, we do not have the resources to verify all of the claims that they may make. Contributors must therefore accept individual responsibility for the content of their submissions.
Interested in submitting?
If you want to submit an article for York Democratic Forum, send it to yorkdemocraticforum@gmail.com. Please consider the Editorial Statement above when you are submitting.
