Business as Usual? in the Aftermath of the Strike...

Andrea O'Reilly, School of Women's Studies, York

Letter to the National Post, 27 Jan 2009
If anyone thinks that it will be "business as usual" at York University once
classes resume, they are kidding themselves. Professors and students are
returning to a university that has bullied its most vulnerable employees for
close to three months and left its prized graduate students out in the cold. It
is clear that York does not value the excellent teaching done by more than 50%
of its faculty. This is a university where dozens and dozens of professors must
reapply for their teaching position each year. This is a university where
mid-management types -- who spend their day pushing paper -- make up to 10
times what contract faculty professors, who spend their time advancing
knowledge and changing students' lives, earn.

Feb. 2 will mark my 28th year at York University. The York described above is
not the York I knew and loved in my early years at this institution. The
school's president has said that now is the time for healing. For me, it is a
time of mourning; for the York that was. That a handful of people, with the
mandate of corporatization, could destroy so much leaves me heartbroken. I want
to thank my CUPE colleagues for their courage and fortitude in fighting against
the corporatization of university learning at a huge cost to themselves, their
families and their careers.

While I am no longer proud of York, I am of CUPE 3903.

Andrea O'Reilly was given a conversion in 1998, and tenured in 2002. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Women's Studies; Founder-Director of the Association for Research on Mothering, which publishes the Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering and sponsors Demeter Press; Co-Founder Museum of Motherhood; Co-Founder, International Mothers Network; Editor, Encyclopedia of Motherhood, Sage Press, 2010. Her e-mail address is aoreilly@yorku.ca. The website of the Association for Research on Mothering is www.yorku.ca/arm.

Commenting on this Story is closed.