Subject: Naming the moment

To: 3903NEWS@YORKU.CA

 

Dear members,

 

The following is an invitation to all graduate students, staff and faculty to join the Naming the Moment session taking place this Thurs Feb 8 10-12 at

Rm. 306 Lumbers.  Feel free to pass this along.

 

Naming the What?

Naming the Moment is a popular education practice of political analysis for action that locates current struggles within broader contexts in time and

space.  Growing from the work of international educators such as Paulo Freire, and starting in Toronto as the Moment Project through the Jesuit Centre in the 80's - there is now a collective of York graduate students and

faculty who have been engaging in 'Naming the Moment' together.  This group was started out of the desire to educate ourselves and deepen our awareness

of issues surrounding the strike…

 

Questions we explored together, as they related to accessible educational were

– What are the particular set of actors, events and forces that affect this

current moment and struggle? What is our role and interest as students?

What is the history of post-secondary and graduate education?  Where does

York stand in the big picture?  Why are there differences in support among

programs within York?

 

Moving on from that moment, we welcome all those who share the ideals of our

long-term goals:

 

- Zero-debt graduate degree

- Accessibility to education as a right.

- Resisting market-driven vocationalism vs. Conceptualization of education

as critical thinking

- Reclaiming the university -as collegial space for students, staff and

faculty, and growing consciousness

- Maintain links across programs, levels, and units – the ability to act

together in the future.

- Build ongoing critique to name contradictions.

- Create space, time and support for community reflection, support and

action

- Engender hope and York’s legacy.

 

 

Naming for Action!

From this inquiry we moved to action - such as the FES town hall meeting,

welcome back lunch and a cross-listed education course on social movements

and learning.

 

On Thursday we will be revisiting our initial questions through analysis,

dialogue, and brainstorming in the large group and in focus group

discussions in order to gain insights and develop strategies for action.

>From there we will move on to continue to work on the actions that came out

of initial inquiry… namely-

 

- Creating new, innovate course offerings

- Creating an open university / speakers series including non-credit

accessible courses and links among existing initiatives

- Questioning, and planning for alternate suggestions, on where university

pension funds and university endowments are invested

- Creating abstracts for various conferences and publications where we will

be presenting our learning from NTM and the strike

- Possible structural changes in grad studies, FES, ...

- Other ideas welcome!

 

 

Hope to see you there!