Reading Week Office Closure

The ASSU Office will be closed for the Fall Reading week. We will re-open on November 12th at 10am. Have a great Reading Week everyone! We’ll see you back on campus on the 12th!

Spookaween at ASSU

On October 31st, come out to the ASSU office for free coffee and treats. In honour of Halloween, we’ll be having a spooky-good time as we get ready for the last of our term-tests and final papers.

Undergraduate Research Conference 2019

Our tentative day program is here!

The Undergraduate Research Conference is a full-day event organized by the Arts and Science Students’ Union, which aims to recognize and showcase the scholarly research of UofT students. Come join us as we celebrate the research projects of diverse and multidisciplinary academic fields, within the natural sciences, quantitative sciences, humanities, and social sciences.

Admission is FREE to all U of T students – check out the program and abstracts to see which presentations you want to check out! This is a great way to see the kinds of research your peers are doing, and how they present their research to you.

We hope this conference will empower UofT students by recognizing the great work that is being produced on our campus, and encourage peer-to-peer information sharing.

For more information click here

Thanksgiving Office Closure

The ASSU Office will be closed, Monday October 8th for Thanksgiving. We’ll see you back on campus on Tuesday at 10am.

Have a great long weekend!

Meet our 2018-2019 Executive!

We are super excited to announce that at our first council meeting on September 28th, we elected two fantastic new Executive members.

Welcome Foti Vito and Sarina Wong to the ASSU team!

They join Haseeb, Ikran, Joshua, Martha, and Victoria as ASSU Executives.

ASSU Fall By-Election Candidate Statements

As per the ASSU constitution, ASSU Council elects five members of their Executive in the Spring, and two members in the Fall. On Friday, September 28th ASSU Council will meet to elect their two new Executives. Here are the statements from the candidates running in this by-election.

ASSU’S First Coffeehaus of the year!

We’re back in the new term, which means we’re back at it again with another edition of Free Coffee and Snacks at the ASSU Office! Grab your favourite study-buddy and head down to our newly renovated office in Sid Smith to grab a quick pick-me-up.

We’re back, baby!

The ASSU office is back again open in our famous Sid Smith Office. Come by anytime (we’re open) to come say hi!

Our regular office hours are:

Monday, Tuesday, and Friday: 10am-5pm

Wednesday and Thursday: 10am-6pm

ASSU Office Renovations

Starting June 12th, the ASSU Office in Sid Smith will be closed for renovations. We are super excited, and can’t wait to re-open in time for the start of the Fall term. We are grateful for all the hard work the staff of the Faculty of Arts and Science are doing to make these renovations happen. We are also grateful to Dean Cameron for his support.

The renovations are slated to take about three months to complete. During this time, the ASSU Office will temporarily move to Sid Smith room 2119. We will have limited services at our temporary office, including our test library, and printing services. Our staff will be in the temporary office able to answer any questions in person, or by email or phone.

We’ll keep posting updates throughout the summer as the renovations progress.

We can’t wait to see you all back in our new office in the fall!

ASSU’s statement on the proposed Mandated Leave Policy

We, at the Arts & Science Students’ Union, proudly represent 24 000 students at the University of Toronto; we hear their concerns daily at our office, and are disappointed by the insufficient response their collective pleas have merited from the administration.

The proposed “University-Mandated Leave of Absence Policy” put forward once more by Simcoe Hall directly undermines the integrity of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and its recommendations. The message the university is sending through this policy, at a time where students are expressing concerns about the ongoing mental health crisis across our campuses, is indicative of the university’s abhorrently stubborn response to the concerns of the students they are obligated to represent.

In order to remain in school, students are now forced to disclose their medical information to administrators who, as many students and student organizations have noted previously, are not medical professionals. This would create a fear among students, where disclosing their medical information could put their academic pursuits in jeopardy.

We would like to remind our administration that behind every student number is an individual who is navigating the stresses of university life to the best of their ability. When wholesale policies like these are implemented, they work to neglect the individuals who constitute our student body. We invite the administration to step down from their ivory towers and to enter into a reality that may serve to reduce the disconnect that is evident through the implementation of such harmful policies.

We encourage every student at the University of Toronto to voice their concerns in regard to the proposed “University-Mandated Leave of Absence Policy”. Students have been instructed to direct their concerns to the feedback form, found here:

https://wp.provost.utoronto.ca/consultations-students-utoronto-ca/student-consultation/consultation-on-proposed-university-mandated-leave-of-absence-policy/

We hope that when given this response, our administration will finally seek to provide us students with the appropriate mental health resources we have continuously demanded. It is our job to hold our administration accountable, and so, we ask that when given the opportunity on May 24th, members of the University Affairs Board vote against this policy. We ask the administration work to ensure meaningful support for mental health and accessibility on our campus, and as our university, push towards policies which work alongside the needs of students.

As always, our office will remain a safe space for students to discuss their mental health concerns.

In solidarity,

The Arts & Science Students’ Union Executive