The Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students (APUS) protested what they’re calling an unjust eviction from Woodsworth College and the university’s interference with student union autonomy yesterday at Simcoe Hall.
They were joined by student leaders Jesse Greener, Ontario chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), Walied Khogali, VP of UTM SAC, and newly elected SAC chairperson Jen Hassum, all three of whom gave speeches of support for APUS. Members of the embattled student union displayed a series of posters, including a blueprint of Woodsworth College (the college founded in large part to accommodate part-time students), with the disputed APUS space highlighted.
“APUS is a politically active student group and we won’t just roll over and blow away,” said APUS president Murphy Browne. “The university administration has shown its true intention towards students through these draconian measures. Part-time students founded this college, we funded this college, and now we the student union representing part-time students are being thrown from the house we built by an administration that continues to ignore the plight of part-time students on this campus.”
Currently, 44 per cent of students at Woodsworth College are part-time, a figure that the university’s administration effectively dropped from 63 per cent in order to accommodate a recent influx of full-time undergraduate students. According to Browne, many of the U of T’s part-time students come from disadvantaged backgrounds and are often marginalized by class, racial, cultural, and economic factors.
“There’s a pattern of behaviour on campuses where students and their representative groups are being squeezed out of space on campus that they rely on to provide services and advocacy for their members,” said Greener. “Sometimes it’s very obvious when they try to force out or evict the student associations and sometimes it’s a little more discreet through a note passed under a door. In this case APUS got the note treatment, and it just took everyone by surprise because it’s very rare for a student union to be evicted with little or zero notice.”
In a letter to APUS obtained by The Varsity, deputy provost and vice-provost of students David Farrar said he is “committed to finding centrally allocated space for APUS in the coming months.” According to APUS board member Rick McKergow, however, Farrar has still not given a reason for the eviction beyond the fact that “space is at a premium.”
“This is a threat to every other student group on campus,” said McKergow.
The struggle over space between student unions and university administrations in Ontario’s post-secondary institutions is not a new one.
“We have a province-wide campaign in defense of student space,” said Greener. “We at CFS want to show our support to APUS and let students across the province know that we believe their space is important. We’ll push for the administration to move away from eviction or provide alternative suitable space immediately.”
“We at SAC think it’s unjust to kick APUS out of their office space, because they were promised that space in Woodsworth and to be kicked out of it is ridiculous,” said Hassum. “They’ve been the most vocal student union against injustice, rising tuition, and many other important issues, so it really makes you wonder about the motive behind their eviction.”
