The WGSI GSU is an active course union enrolled in the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU). The UTGSU provides health and dental insurance, conference bursaries and other resources. Find more information on their homepage.
Students enrolled in the MA and PhD programs are invited to join the WGSI course union, the WGSGSU. We work to promote community among graduate students and liaise between them and the department. The union also hosts a variety of programs, including a mentor/mentee program for first-year students, a student-run academic journal, and a regular graduate student conference.
You can find us on Instagram (@uoft_wgs_gsu), Twitter (@uoft_wgs_gsu), and Facebook. More information can also be found by contacting the WGS GSU Executive committee (utgsu.wgsgsu@gmail.com).
The GSU and UTGSU are different than CUPE 3902, which represents contract academic workers including Teaching Assistants and Course Instructors.
WGSGSU Statement Palestinian Solidarity Statement
The Women and Gender Studies Graduate Student Union expresses our utmost solidarity and support for Palestinian liberation. We also echo the calls for justice and academic freedom made by thousands of other University of Toronto community members in signing the Statement in Response to University of Toronto VP-International’s “Message to the Community on the War in the Middle East”.
For decades, scholars in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their decolonization struggle have experienced intimidation, condemnation, threats, censorship, suspension, firing, and other punitive measures from our institutions – this has only intensified over the past three weeks. Sylvia Wynter reminds us of our intellectual responsibility to rewrite the current order of knowledge. This includes vehemently opposing the academic silencing of anti-Zionist voices, a silencing that works to erase Palestinian existence from academic consciousness and consciousness at large. The Women and Gender Studies Graduate Student Union expresses our utmost solidarity with all those facing disciplinary actions as a result of speaking on Palestine, including at our own university and York University.
We echo the four requests of the University of Toronto listed in the aforementioned statement, and also uplift the demands of the Palestinian Youth Movement in calling for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the siege of Gaza, and an end to Canada’s funding of Israeli war crimes, genocide, and colonization of Palestinian land. We, too, endorse and applaud our labour union’s longstanding and recently reaffirmed call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel until Palestinian self-determination is fully realized. We must, as scholars within and beyond the institution, stay with the task until Palestine is free.
In solidarity,
The Women and Gender Studies Graduate Student Union
WGSI GSU Executive Team
Students are elected to act as representatives of the Graduate Student Union (GSU). GSU representatives work with the Graduate Administrator to plan academic events and act as a source of information and support for students.
The WGSI GSU’s executive team can be contacted individually or through the course union’s email: utgsu.wgsgsu@gmail.com