Welcome to 2011! As ever, SFU has decided to create its own calendar, and begin classes on Thursday January 6th. What does this mean for you (aside from a very strange first work week)?
TA TM Day is THIS FRIDAY, JANUARY 7th!
The TSSU is hosting 2 sessions to help you work--and make sure that the university is giving you everything you've earned for the hard work you do that SFU calls "funding".
Our sessions are
9:30-10:45 Make Your Life (as a TA/TM) Easier: Know Your Rights!
1:15-2:30 Survival Strategies: Making the TSSU Collective Agreement Work for You
After a hard day of orientation, come on out for FREE FOOD and cheap beer at the TA-TM Day Social!
4-7 PM in the Highland Pub
Don't forget: your attendance at TA-TM DAY counts towards your hours, so make sure it's on your time use guideline. If this sentence sounds like Greek to you, send us an email--tssu@tssu.ca. We're here to help you out!
Remember: the University Works because We Do!!
Bargaining on hold for the Holidays
On December 13th the bargaining committee met with the employer for the last time before the new year. We discussed our language proposals around Tutor Markers and conditional upon enrollment appointments. We managed this semester to finish the initial explanation of all our proposals and expect to hear back from the employer in the new year.
Setting dates for the next semester, however, poses a serious problem to our progress. The employer is discriminating against our continuing instructors by refusing to pay for release time at the bargaining table, despite having settled on collective agreement language that allows for release time in the last round of negotiations. These elected members of the bargaining committee are an important element of TSSU's continuity because they participated in the last round of negotiations. At this time we have not been able to agree on meeting dates for January.
Where did the "Public" go in Public Education? // Panel on November 10th, 2010
The University is in transition: tenure for teaching staff has become the exception, tuition is rising, class sizes are expanding, while at the same time SFU is building new campuses and branding new programs as it claims to have no money. How do we make sense of all of this? What are the relationships between rising tuition and student debt, and public and private funding, and what do they mean for the role of our University? Drawing from a number perspectives, this panel addressed the effect of privatization and cuts on public education, and the role universities have historically played as cultural institutions.
University of Western Ontario professor gives talk on the history of universities as political spaces and the contemporary moment of neoliberal university restructuring.
Alison Hearn-Part 1
Alison Hearn-Part2
Vancouver activist and scholar speaks on the logics of university restructuring, and specifics of how this narrative is rolling itself out in Vancouver.
Myka Tucker-Abramson
Simon Fraser University student analyzes his experience working in research and coop programs through the school.
Jeff Knaggs
University instructor and labour historian speaks about the growing reliance on sessional and contingent workers in the increasingly two-tiered pedagogical labour force in post-secondary education.
John-Henry Harter--Part 1
John-Henry Harter--Part 2