University is OURS! Half-time Report

by UNIVERSITY IS OURS!

Join us! Free to attend:

Sunday, April 29
Sidney Smith Hall, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street

9:30-9:45 Coffee

 9:45-11:15 Session 5

SS 2102 Amphitheatre
(Session 5A) Beyond the University: Autonomous Education Initiatives (II)

Mike Neary (University of Lincoln)
Social Science Centre, Lincoln (UK): An ‘Institution  of the Common’

Greig de Peuter and Christine Shaw
Debriefing: Toronto School of Creativity & Inquiry

Brian Holmes and Malav Kanuga, (16 Beaver)
Organizing and Aggregating the Common: Toward an Autonomous Network of Space, Knowledge, and Subjectivity

Facilitator: Roberta Buiani (York University)
Respondent: John Ricco (University of Toronto)

SS2108(Session 5B) Social Struggles in the Crisis of Canadian Public Education

Adam Lewis (Queen’s University)
Decolonize the Neoliberal University

Gary Kinsman,  Laurel O’Gorman, Tyler Horton, Danielle Beaulieu, and Melanie Durette (Laurentian University)
The Struggle Within, Against and Beyond Neo-Liberalism at Laurentian University

Carolyn Sale (University of Alberta)
 Disclosing the Foreclosed University

Respondent: Herbert Pimlott (Wilfrid Laurier University)

SS2110
(Session 5C) Workshop 4

Pass the Dildo Please: Radical Queer Pedagogy to Deconstruct, Rebuild, and Transform Our Spaces of Learning
Taiva Tegler (University of Ottawa), Dillon Black(Carleton University) and Quinn Blue

Facilitator: Lisa Taylor (Bishops University) 

11:20-12:50 Session 6

(Session 6A) SS2102 Amphitheatre
Occupy Student Debt

Robert Oxford (New York University)
Tuition as Profit: How Student Debt Functions In America

George Caffentzis (University of Southern Maine)
A Brief History of the Anti-Student Loan Debtors’ Movement in the US

Annie Spencer (City University of New York)
“Those promises have turned out to be empty”: Affect, Moralism, and Occupy’s Campaign for Student Debt Refusal

Facilitator: Roberta Buiani (York University)
Respondent: Gigi Roggero (University of Bologna/edu-factory/Uninomade)

SS2108

(Session 6B) The Organization of the University: Social Struggles Within Neoliberalization (IV)

Soo Tian Lee (Birkbeck School of Law, University of London)
  After the High, Then What?:Questions without answers about post-protest-wave student struggles in London, UK

Nicola Short (York University)
Neoliberal Academic Restructuring and the Antinomies of Intellectual Labour: Notes for an Analytical Framework

Amarela Varela and Alejandro Chora Camacho (UACM)
“Being from UACM” Itinerant Museum

Facilitator: Max Haiven (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design/edu-factory)
Respondent: Elise Thorburn(Western University)
Translator: Patrick Canninghame

SS2110

(Session 6C) Labor, Creation, Production: Within and Beyond the University (II)

Zach Schwartz-Weinstein (New York University)
Provincializing Academic Labor: Academic Capitalism’s Other Histories

Bob Hanke (York University)
 The Union Against Itself: The Mirror Stage of Contract Faculty Labour

Jesse Gutman (McGill)
Organizing on Campus: Linking Worker’s Struggles to the Student Movement

Facilitator: Alex Levant
(Wilfrid Laurier University, York University)
Respondent: Elena Basile (York University)

12:50-1:50 Lunch

1:50-3:20 Session  7

SS2102 Amphitheatre
Plenary Session
Tuition Struggles in Quebec

Joel Pednault (McGill)
Looking back on the 2010-2012 Quebec Student campaign against tuition fee hikes

Matthew Brett (Concordia University)
Austerity, Oppression and Resistance: An anti-capitalist perspective of the global student movement

Rushdia Mehereen (Concordia University)
Grassroots organizing in the face of electoral student politics

3:30-5:30 Concluding Plenary Session

Lessons Learned, Next Steps
Organizing Action Groups and Future Initiatives

We’ve reserved this final session for a discussion of how we can move forward by connecting our struggles and building solidarity.  Following some closing remarks from the organizers, any conference participant who wants to lead a discussion of new or existing initiatives (communications networks, forms of struggle, new caucuses) will be invited to form a break-out group and time will be provided.  The plenary will reconvene and groups can report back on their ideas before the conference is adjourned.

 

Equity Statement
Solidarity and our ability to build a common struggle and a better world are based on the principles of autonomy and equality and depend on all of us treating one another with dignity and respect at all levels.  While debate and disagreement are crucial, we recognize that behaviour that creates needless conflict and a oppressive or negative environment hinder our collective efforts.  As such, we neither condone nor tolerate behaviour that undermines the dignity or self-esteem of any individual or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment.  A actions that create a hostile or offensive environment include discriminatory speech or conduct which is racist, sexist, transphobic or homophobic and/or discrimination based on (in)ability, age, class, religion, language and ethnic origin. A hostile and intimidating environment also includes attempts to de-voice other members by ignoring speaking practices or by talking over, yelling, rolling eyes at or shutting down contributions made by others.  In an attempt to help us work beyond the forms of power, privilege and oppression that hurt us and divide our movement, discussion facilitators may choose to use progressive facilitations techniques that ensure everyone’s voice get heard.  We encourage all participants to strive to make our assembly a little model of the world we want to create.