Much before I embarked on my journey at U of T, a beautiful man named James Baldwin held Giovanni’s Room to my temple and whispered that I had no choice but to study his language when given the chance. As I write this letter on a fall morning as a fourth-year English student, there’s no denying that his novels have vibrated my every cell and validated my every pain. And as Baldwin knowingly told LIFE magazine in 1963, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
Of course, Baldwin was alluding to the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Charles Dickens: his literary mentors who taught him not only how to tell stories but also how to live them. Baldwin’s novels provide comfort to me the way Dostoevsky’s did to Baldwin — but I dare add that, to me, his quote is altered as follows: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read the news.”
Both in their print and digital form, newspapers generally record everything from the loudest breaking news to a city’s everyday construction updates. As U of T’s official tri-campus student newspaper since 1880, we are also tasked with reporting what you — as a tuition-paying student of this institution — have the right to be informed about.
A suspicious package was found at UTSC North Campus? We’re covering it. The university’s budget committee set the budget and your tuition fees for the upcoming year? We’re breaking it down. The Canadian Union of Public Employees’ (CUPE) members at U of T are fighting against an Ontario bill that capped employees’ annual wage increases at one per cent? We’re on it. A UTM student and artist is holding an exhibition at Visual Arts Mississauga? We’re there, of course!
The Varsity has been dedicated to delivering you campus and city news that has been keeping students informed for the past 144 years. But what I’ve observed these past years is a heightened need for a keen lens into what pains students, especially when there may be no other platform available to share them.
It’s been a violent couple of years. Students are observing Ukraine in a destructively long war that disturbingly intensified in the past two years and a half. Students are vocalizing their demands for the world to support Palestinians’ right to exist peacefully. Students have stood in support of students in Bangladesh who faced brutal police crackdowns. Students have rallied in solidarity with Iran’s national protests following the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini. On top of that, U of T’s Student Equity Census from 2023 recorded that nearly 62 per cent of students across all three campuses are dealing with a form of mental health condition — including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety.
It seems plain to me that what pains students the most — and simultaneously drives them — is the violation of the basic human right to exist peacefully. And yet, with a community of students from 180 countries and regions, the administration has emphasized its dedication to issuing “fewer institutional statements” on social and political discussions through its Memo on Institutional, Divisional, and Departmental Statements.
So, The Varsity reports. I believe your pain and heartbreak will find comfort in some sense through reading our reporting, guided by our Code of Journalistic Ethics. And I hope that by reporting and recording in history what you are celebrating, crying, and protesting about, a future student will also find solace.
