On Friday, April 5, just before 2 p.m., a few signatories of the below open letter walked over to the James Administration building to deliver it in person, accompanied by about a dozen members of AGSEM. The plan was for three professors to walk in and deliver seven copies of the letter – one for each addressee. We did not really expect to meet with any of the addressees, but figured we would ask, and then simply leave the letters at the front desk, to be. To our surprise, our modest plan was quickly foiled: the door was locked. There was no doorbell, and no one inside to let us in. One of us tried the keycard entry reader. Red light, no luck. A security guard approached from outside and asked who we were. We explained the situation. “Do you have an appointment?” “No.” “You cannot enter the building without an appointment.” Perplexed that three McGill professors require an appointment in order to enter the administration building, we put our learned heads together and decided to try calling some members of the administration. Perhaps an administrative assistant would pick up, take pity on us, and come downstairs to collect our now rain-splashed letters. After a couple unanswered calls, we did finally really reach a member of the senior administration, who eventually authorized us to hand the letters to a security guard, who would carry them into the building for us. Perhaps the experience was just a fluke and if we had delivered the letter on a different day, it would have gone differently. But it certainly left us with a sinking sense of teaching at a university whose administration has walled itself off from students and professors alike, where collegial governance is so far gone that few can even remember its existence, if it ever had one.
To: Deep Saini, President and Vice-Chancellor; Christopher Manfredi, Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic); Diana Dutton, Interim Vice-President (Administration and Finance) and Associate Vice-President (Human Resources); Angela Campbell, Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies); Fabrice Labeau, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning); Francis Desjardins, Director, Labour and Employee Relations; Étienne Clark, Labour and Employee Relations Advisor
Dear Colleagues,
We write as McGill professors who are deeply concerned about the university administration’s handling of negotiations with the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM). In the last two weeks, in response to the strike, the administration has resorted to intimidation of faculty and graduate students alike. We fear the campus climate will continue to deteriorate unless there is a change in attitudes and tactics.
The administration’s communications to faculty have been heavy-handed and, in some cases, inappropriate. McGill has directed professors and other course instructors that they have no choice but to perform the labour of striking student-employees or be placed on unpaid administrative leave. McGill has justified its position by arguing that instructors are managers (despite the fact that we don’t hire, fire, or set the hours of TAs), as if this is settled case law, and not in fact the subject of an ongoing legal dispute before the Tribunal administratif du travail. Rather than acknowledging this dispute and awaiting a ruling, the university has doubled down on its narrative, while also promising to pay for any fines and legal fees we might incur for following orders and breaking the law. (One wonders which budget line can be so easily diverted to covering these costs.)
Just as disturbingly, the McGill administration’s position pushes faculty to prioritize the needs of undergraduate students over the needs of graduate students. The TAs who are on strike are graduate student-employees. As professors, we care about the needs, learning, and wellbeing of our undergraduate and graduate students, alike. On this note, we are seriously troubled by the administration’s decision to revoke teaching assistants’ access to their work email addresses. Though officially TAs have “work” and “student” emails, in practice many TAs use their work email for a range of scholarly and professional correspondence. Cutting off access to these email accounts will likely result in McGill graduate students missing important correspondence related to publications, conferences, grants, and job applications. Also alarming is the administration’s unwillingness to allow AGSEM members to continue to perform non-TA jobs at the university for the duration of the strike, something that AGSEM has repeatedly requested.
We are very concerned that the university’s tactics could undermine trust and relationships between graduate students and faculty within departments, and we resent being placed in this
position by the university. Sowing these divisions threatens to seriously poison the campus climate and our ability to do our jobs.
Intensifying this divisiveness are the administration’s inflammatory campus-wide emails about picketing AGSEM members. These emails have exaggerated the disruption caused by striking teaching assistants, creating an illusion of disorderly and even violent chaos that has no basis in reality. Strikes are a normal occurrence in democratic societies, and participating in strikes is part of individuals’ Charter-protected right to freedom of assembly. Disruptions to everyday routines are an essential part of strikes. While it is always possible that individual strikers might engage in inappropriate behaviour, it is in turn grossly inappropriate for the administration to use individual allegations to paint all picketing workers as threats to campus safety. Whatever their stated intent, these emails are themselves intimidating. Unlike the administration, AGSEM does not have the ability to send campus-wide emails and cannot, therefore, correct the record.
The cumulative effect of these activities is to pit faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students against one another. We believe that it is possible to resolve this conflict without further poisoning our relationships with one another. To do that, the administration must drop the hardball tactics and lowball offers, which have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the soaring cost of living over recent years.
TAs play a vital role in undergraduate education at McGill, leading labs and tutorials, grading papers and exams, and mentoring students one-on-one. Many undergraduate students build stronger relationships with their TAs than with their professors. Many professors treat their TAs as colleagues with whom they collaborate as part of a teaching team. But TAs are not just graduate student workers. They are also junior members of our scholarly community. What sort of community treats its junior members with such lack of support and outright disrespect?
We close this letter with an urgent request to the administration: refrain from the intimidation of its employees and instead focus its energies and resources on negotiating a fair agreement with AGSEM.
Sincerely,
1. Alanna Thain, Associate Professor, English
2. Barry Eidlin, Associate Professor, Sociology
3. Catherine Leclerc, Associate Professor, Littératures de langue française, traduction et création
4. Daniel Schwartz, Assistant Professor, Languages, Literatures, & Cultures
5. Darin Barney, Professor, Art History & Communication Studies
6. Debra Thompson, Associate Professor, Political Science
7. Derek Nystrom, Associate Professor, Department of English
8. Don Nerbas, Associate Professor, History & Classical Studies
9. Edward Dunsworth, Assistant Professor, History & Classical Studies
10. Emily Carson, Associate Professor, Philosophy
11. Emma Teitelman, Assistant Professor, History & Classical Studies
12. Eric Lewis, Associate Professor, Philosophy
13. Evan Fox-Decent, Professor of Law and Canada Research Chair in Cosmopolitan Law & Justice
14. Hasana Sharp, Professor, Philosophy
15. Ipek Tureli, Associate Professor, Architecture
16. Jake Blanc, Associate Professor, History & Classical Studies
17. Joshua Nichols, Assistant Professor, Law
18. Kirsten Anker, Associate Professor, Law
19. Kyle Kubler, Faculty Lecturer, McGill Writing Centre
20. Louigi Addario-Berry, Professor, Mathematics & Statistics
21. Malek Abisaab, Associate Professor, Department of History & Classical Studies and Institute of Islamic Studies
22. Marianne Tarcov, Assistant Professor, East Asian Studies
23. Marion Vergues, Senior Faculty Lecturer, French Language Centre
24. Michael Hallett, Full Professor, Philosophy, Faculty of Arts
25. Richard Gold, Professor, Law
26. Robert Hasegawa, Associate Professor, Music Research
27. Sandeep Banerjee, Associate Professor, English
28. Stephen Menn, Professor, Philosophy
29. Tari Ajadi, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
30. Tassos Anastassiadis, Associate professor, History & Classical studies
31. Victor M. Muniz-Fraticelli, Associate Professor, Political Science and Law
32. William Clare Roberts, Associate Professor, Political Science
33. Aaron Bartels-Swindells, Faculty Lecturer, McGill Writing Centre
34. Michelle Hartman, Professor, Institute of Islamic Studies
35. Subho Basu, Associate Professor, History & Classical Studies
36. Francesco Amodio, Associate Professor, Economics and Institute for the Study of International Development
37. Jorge Alonso Gamarra, Sessional Lecturer, Anthropology
38. Michael Hendricks, Associate Professor, Biology
39. Amy Janzwood, Assistant Professor, Political Science
40. Dennis Wendt, Associate Professor, Educational & Counselling Psychology
41. Kevin McDonough, Associate Professor, Integrated Studies in Education
42. Aron Rosenberg, Faculty Lecturer, Department of Integrated Studies in Education
43. Richard Janda, Associate Professor, Law
44. Priya Gupta, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law
45. Steven Jordan, Associate Professor, Integrated Studies in Education
46. Allison Gonsalves, Associate Professor, Integrated Studies in Education
47. Yves Winter, Associate Professor, Political Science
48. Jill Hanley, Full Professor, School of Social Work
49. Lynn Kozak, Associate Professor, Department of History & Classical Studies
50. Nanre Nafziger, Assistant Professor, Department of integrated studies in education
51. Jennifer Elrick, Associate Professor, Sociology
52. Mela Sarkar, Associate Professor, Integrated Studies in Education
‘53. Margaret Levey, Faculty Lecturer, School of Continuing Studies
54. Jenny Burman, Associate Professor, Art History & Communication Studies
55. Alia Al-Saji, Professor, Department of Philosophy
56. Jonathan Sterne, Professor, Art History & Communication Studies
57. Omar Farahat, Associate Professor, Law
58. Nicholas Dew, Associate professor, History
59. Jacob Errington, Faculty Lecturer, School of Computer Science
60. Claude Crépeau, Associate Professor, School of Computer Science
61. Ross Sundberg, Faculty Lecturer, McGill Writing Centre
62. Alex Ketchum, Assistant Professor, Gender, Sexuality, & Feminist Studies
63. Pedro Monaville, Associate Professor, History & Classical Studies
64. Alex Blue V, Assistant Professor, Art History & Communication Studies
65. Gustavo Ferreira, Faculty Lecturer, Art History & Communication Studies Department
66. Sabeena Shaikh, Faculty Lecturer, Institute of Islamic Studies
67. Lyudmila Parts, Professor, Languages, Literatures, & Cultures
68. Camille Owens, Assistant Professor, English
69. Alexis Dennis, Assistant Professor, Sociology
70. Eugenio Bolongaro, Associate Professor, Languages, Literatures, & Cultures
71. Isabel Pike, Assistant Professor, Sociology
72. David Hensley, Associate Professor, Department of English
73. Carrie Rentschler, Associate Professor, Art History & Communication Studies
74. David Rolnick, Assistant Professor, School of Computer Science
75. Narendra Subramanian, Professor, Political Science
76. David Avis, Professor Emeritus, School of Computer Science
77. Shokry Gohar, Faculty Lecturer, Islamic Studies
78. Adrian Vetta, Professor, School of Computer Science and Department of Mathematics & Statistics
79. Robert Robere, Assistant Professor, School of Computer Science
80. Jessica Ruglis, Associate Professor, Dept of Educational & Counselling Psychology
81. Ara Osterweil, Associate Professor, English, Faculty of Arts
82. Tania Islas Weinstein, Assistant Professor, Political Science
83. Griet Vankeerberghen, Associate Professor, Department of History & Classical Studies
84. Julie Charlotte Sénat, Faculty Lecturer, French Language Center
85. Giulia Alberini, Faculty Lecturer, Computer Science
86. Jayne Malenfant, Assistant Professor, Integrated Studies in Education
87. Alison Laywine, Associate Professor, Philosophy
88. Tim Hoheisel, Associate Professor, Mathematics & Statistics
89. G. Eric Jarvis, Associate Professor, Psychiatry
90. Armando Salvatore, Professor, School of Religious Studies
91. Elaine Weiner, Associate Professor, Sociology
92. Cristiana Furlan, Faculty Lecturer, Languages, Literatures & Cultures
93. Bobby Benedicto, Assistant Professor, Art History & Communication Studies
94. Bronwen Low, Associate Professor, Department of Integrated Studies in Education Programs
95. Sarah Brauner-Otto, Associate Professor, Sociology
96. Philip Howard, Associate Professor, Integrated Studies in Education
97. Isabeau Prémont-Schwarz, Faculty Lecturer, School of Computer Science
98. Pasha M. Khan, Associate Professor, Islamic Studies
99. Diana Allan, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and Institute for the Study of International Development
100. Mohamed El Sherbini, Associate Professor, Surgery
101. Jeehee Hong, Associate Professor, East Asian Studies and Art History & Communication Studies
102. Adrienne Hurley, Associate Professor, East Asian Studies
103. Elizabeth Elbourne, Associate Professor, History & Classical Studies
104. Wendell Adjetey, Assistant Professor, History & Classical Studies
105. Edward Klorman, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier II), Music Research
106. Ahmed El-Geneidy, Professor, School of Urban Planning
107. Anna Kramer, Assistant Professor, School of Urban Planning
108. leslie sabiston, assistant professor, anthropology
109. Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, Associate professor, History & Classical Studies
110. Nicole Biamonte, Associate Professor, Music Research
111. David Austin, Lecturer, Institute for the Study of Canada
112. Gwyn Campbell, Professor, Department of History & Classical Studies
113. Daniel Douek, Faculty Lecturer, Political Science
114. Marta Kobiela, Associate Professor, Department of Integrated Studies in Education
115. Lucia Chamanadjian, Faculty Lecturer, Languages, Literatures, & Cultures
116. Patrick Allen, Associate Professor, Mathematics & Statistics
117. Lisa Barg, Associate Professor, Schulich School of Music
118. Elizabeth Patitsas, Assistant Professor, Department of Integrated Studies in Education and School of Computer Science
119. Rula Jurdi, Professor, Institute of Islamic Studies
120. Linan Chen, Associate Professor, Mathematics & Statistics
121. Jérôme Fortier, Faculty Lecturer, Mathematics & Statistics
122. Zoe Thomas, Assistant Professor, Psychiatry
123. Setrag Manoukian, Associate Professor, Islamic Studies and Anthropology
124. Kaleem Siddiqi, Professor, School of Computer Science
125. Rosalie Bélanger-Rioux, Faculty Lecturer, Mathematics & Statistics
126. David Wachsmuth, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier II), School of Urban Planning
127. Sandra T. Hyde, Associate Professor, Anthropology, Faculty of Arts
128. Audrey Coussy, Associate Professor, French Language & Literature
129. Fiona Ritchie, Associate Professor, Department of English
130. Peter McMahan, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
131. Jean-Christophe Nave, Associate Professor, Mathematics & Statistics
