The Arbor Journal of Undergraduate Research is the leading undergraduate journal for the arts and science, seeking to publish, highlight, and celebrate the best of undergraduate arts and science research at the University of Toronto.
Arbor is now accepting submissions for its second edition! If you are interested in submitting an article for consideration, the deadline for submissions is Friday, October 9th at 11:59pm.
RE: Spring 2020 Convocation Ceremonies
Dear President Meric Gertler,
We are writing with respect to the University’s decision to cancel the Spring 2020 Convocation ceremonies.
Many students have understood this decision as equivalent to there being no future ceremonies held for this graduating class. If this is in fact the case, we simply cannot express how disappointed we are with this judgement.
Students have waited years for this moment. Their parents have waited years. Generations of family members – grandparents, great-grandparents – will all miss the literal once in a lifetime moment to see their loved ones finally earn their degrees. Thousands of hours, hundreds of restless nights, and an unimaginable amount of stress and struggle have been overcome by students. We continue to come here and push ourselves beyond our physical and mental limits all in the hopes that one day, we will be able to walk across that stage.
The cancellation of Convocation signals the University’s inability to recognize just how much this moment really means to students. This decision is disheartening, short sighted, and inconsiderate. Convocation is more than just an event, and it most certainly cannot be replaced by alternatives such as a reception. One student expressed her grief at the thought of having to explain to her immigrant parents, who sacrificed so much to see her succeed, that they will never get to witness this day. Hundreds, if not thousands, of students share similar stories. Students who are the first to graduate within their families will not be able to see the pride on their families’ faces. Low-income, marginalized, immigrants, and international students – all who have had to go the extra mile to get to this moment – have had their hearts broken today. Many will struggle to find ways to break this news to their families. This is not the type of decision your students expected from the University of Toronto. You have stolen more than just a moment from these students today.
We call on you to recognize the severity of your decision. We are truly upset that this decision was even considered, and cannot imagine how the University will reconcile its relationship with students in the coming years in light of this. Every single student makes sacrifices to attend this institution. We pay tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, our mental health and well-being suffers, and some of us spend months away from those we love. We all deserve this moment. Our families deserve this moment. Our future children will value this moment. Bring back Convocation for your students.
Yours sincerely,
The ASSU Executive
c.c.: Cheryl Regehr, Vice-President and Provost
Sandy Welsh, Vice-Provost, Students
Melanie Woodin, Dean, Faculty of Arts & Science
ASSU Constituents
March 15, 2020
RE: Changes to the Winter 2020 Session for Arts & Science Undergraduate Students
Dear Dean Melanie Woodin,
We hope you are doing well during this difficult time. ASSU would first like to sincerely thank you for your dedicated leadership and consistent communication with students, and we appreciate the steps that have been taken thus far to support the students, faculty, and staff at our Faculty.
In light of the cancellation of in-person exams and the extension of the CR/NCR and drop deadline, we have heard the overwhelming concerns of students who are uncertain or worried about their outstanding assessments and final grades. We recognize that there are various options instructors may be considering during this time, and below, we have listed the common concerns students have raised to us regarding these options (as well as our own thoughts), and a set of recommendations supported by ASSU and a majority of our student body.
1) Re-weighting the marking scheme
We recognize that this is a possibility for a number of courses (especially those that cannot move to online assessments, take home tests, etc.). Students are particularly concerned that re-weighting may put them at a disadvantage in courses they were doing well in. We have heard from students who are concerned with the fairness of re-weighting, with one issue being the unanticipated increased importance of minimally graded assignments (i.e. re-weighting a 10% assignment to now be worth 20%). In addition, students are concerned about losing the opportunity to improve their performance in a course through future assignments, and we find this to be an unfair disadvantage.
2) Changing final exams to final papers or “take-home exams”
We have heard of many courses in the humanities and social sciences that have proposed this as an option already. There are three primary issues that students have raised to us in response: (1) a sudden increase in academic workload with each of these final papers now being worth upmost to 40%, (2) the expectation and anxiety that these heavily weighted assessments will be graded more stringently, and (3) the inability of students to adequately seek the assistance of their instructors.
On the first point, students may have purposefully enrolled in courses with final exams for multiple reasons, and replacing these final exams with final papers or take-home exams is unfair. Commonly, students may decide to enroll in courses with final exams instead of papers as they may feel more comfortable in test settings, and courses with final exams may lighten a semester’s course load. Accordingly, replacing final exams with final papers may result in students who believe they will not do as well in these courses, or are unable to simply cope with the immense amount of assessments and the increased pressures of the weighting (not to mention that many students will now have to follow this same scheme for more than one course, resulting in more than one such assignment due within a similar timeframe).
On the second point with respect to these assessments now being graded harder, students have expressed to us that their instructors have told them that they now expect more from their papers seeing as how they have the ability to “take them home”, have more time, and can use open-book sources. These expectations, coupled with the fact that these assessments are worth way more than any regularly assigned paper, have led students feeling as though they are more likely to do poorly in their courses than not.
On the final point with respect to an inability to adequately communicate with our instructors, students are for the most part left in the dark on what is expected of them with these assignments. In-person office hours & meetings are off the table, and email communication continues to be slow (due to many students emailing their instructors and TAs at the same time). With papers now worth a majority of course grades, students should have the opportunity to seek the guidance of their instructors, which unfortunately, is waning during this period in time.
3) Online Examinations
Many instructors in our Faculty rely on final examinations to test students on course material. As we have been told by students, some instructors have communicated to them that their exams will now take place online. We recognize that this is a positive solution for many courses, particularly those that rely on multiple-choice testing formats. However, we would like to note that similar to take-home exams, students are concerned that online examinations may be written to be more stringent and difficult given their at-home environment. In addition, students are also unsure how they will practically handle this shift (i.e. writing timed essays/long responses, finding quiet spaces to complete these assessments, etc.). Again, although this may work best with specific courses, for others, the practicality is simply low.
ASSU’s main concern at the moment is the mental health and well-being of our students. At a time when anxieties and fears are already at an unusual high, the above proposals that have already been communicated to students by their instructors have only contributed to these heightened emotions. We understand that this is a very difficult and complex situation for you and the Faculty to navigate, but we as students are also scared, worried, and unsure of what to expect next. Students are concerned about their final grades and increasing course loads, and we want to ensure that the Faculty’s response does its best to ease these fears.
Seeing as how students are not comfortable with the aforementioned solutions, we have included a set of recommendations below which continues to be suggested by our students (via messages, emails, and a petition now circulating), and has also been carefully assessed and agreed upon by us as an Executive.
Recommendations:
Our recommendations are closely aligned with the Faculty’s response during the 2015 CUPE 3902 strike which similarly prevented the continuation of in-person exams. We welcome the extension of the CR/NCR and drop deadlines to after final grades have been released and that students are now able to CR/NCR an unlimited number of courses. These changes are greatly appreciated, but we wish to see more done.
This solution does not address the overwhelming concerns of students who are worried with how this situation will affect performance in their program requirements. Most (if not all) the courses taken within an academic year are courses which count towards program requirements; this situation has affected the outcome of courses which students depend on to either: (1) fulfill degree requirements, or (2) gain acceptance into their desired POSt. The inability to CR/NCR program requirements will ultimately harm students’ overall performance and continue to accelerate anxieties.
We find it upsetting that the intention behind granting students the ability to CR/NCR an unlimited number of courses stems from the knowledge that grades may be adversely affected during this difficult time, and yet, this pressure-valve has not been extended to program requirement courses which are often the most stressful and where outcomes matter the most. In turn, students will continue to feel unsupported. Their hard work, dedication, and pressures to succeed during this year will culminate into an unknown and feared outcome without the option to CR/NCR their program requirements.
In keeping with the same protocol as the 2015 response, we recommend that the Faculty:
1) Allow students the option to CR/NCR any number of courses for this academic year,
including program requirements
2) Include a notation on each transcript explaining the circumstances which have led
to the increased use of CR/NCR
In addition to these recommendations, we also ask that the Faculty look into ways to ease the fears of students who intend to apply to graduate schools or programs which heavily factor grades. This could include releasing a public statement, working with the professional faculties at our University to understand the implications of such a scenario, initiating conversations with faculties from other institutions, and ensuring that the notation included on each transcript is thorough and informative.
We wish to thank you again for the continued steps the Faculty has taken in ensuring students are well accommodated during this difficult time. We urge you to consider these recommendations as students await the Faculty’s ongoing decisions. In addition, we will continue to inform you of the thoughts and concerns of our students as the situation progresses in hopes of coming to a thoughtful, compassionate, and agreeable decision. Please also know that we hope to support you and the Faculty in any way we can.
Yours sincerely, The ASSU Executive
C.C: ASSU Constituents
The Arts and Science Students’ Union is hiring a part-time student position for the year. If you want to come work for ASSU and help us provide great service to our students check out our job posting below.
The deadline to apply is Friday, September 27th and you can send your applications to students.assu@utoronto.ca
Check out the job posting here: Job Posting Sept 2019
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.
Dear Arts & Science Students:
The Arts & Sciences Students’ Union (ASSU) will be holding a Referendum on Wednesday, November 2nd and Thursday, November 3rd to increase the ASSU fee by $3 per term. The last ASSU Fee Referendum was 6 years ago in the fall of 2010. Since then, with the additional money from that referendum, we were able to increase funding to Course Union, provide more programming for students, as well as create and increase the funds, bursaries, scholarships and awards we provide.
ASSU traditionally operates on a 5-year plan – we are currently in year 6 and with the growth of our programming and the increase in the number of Course Unions we support, we are now operating on a budget that far exceeds our income. ASSU still continues to operate on one of the lowest student levies on campus, but to continue the services we provide, we are asking our students to support a fee increase. As well, there will be a second referendum question asking for our student levy to rise with inflation, a practice that most student groups on campus (including UTSU, APUS, GSU, etc.) already have in place.
The ASSU Office provides many services to A&S students – including guidance and counselling, photocopying and faxing, a term test library, print services, cold pop and answering students’ questions. ASSU contributes to the undergraduate student experience by funding over 65 departmental and program Course Unions so they can organize academic and social events for their students. Behind the scenes, ASSU has successfully lobbied the administration for services and policies that directly affect our students – such as, the option of CR-NCR courses, the ability to drop courses until the last day of classes without academic penalty, the policy about Repeating Passed Courses, the implementation of the Wait List, the 24hr Robarts Study Space, the Interest Relief on Outstanding Fees (until November), the Revised A&S Appeals Process, ensuring that students had other options beside Turnitin to prove their lack of plagiarism, and the review a number of syllabi to guarantee that key components—such as accessibility statements—become mandatory.
Over the past years, we—as an organization—have led and organized a multitude of events, programming, and academic talks. In addition, we have created numerous new awards, bursaries, and scholarships. Over the last 6 years, we have increased the amount of money designated towards awards and bursaries from $15,000 to over $35,000. The last referendum allowed us to dedicate $8,500+ to establish the now widely-known ASSU Travel Grant Fund to alleviate the financial burden placed on undergraduates who are invited to conferences to present their academic work. Furthermore, we created two endowed scholarships worth a combined $150,000. Finally, to further promote academic excellence at the University, we have worked with the Dean’s Office—setting aside $10,000—to create a joint fund to finance undergraduate research. If this referendum is passed, we will continue to follow the same pattern to ensure that more financial aid is given back to students who need it.
Every full-time student is a member of at least one of our Course Unions and receives the benefit of being represented by them, as well as being able to attend their free events. We have increased funding to Course Unions over the years so they can continue to provide social and academic opportunities for their students. The number of Course Unions we now fund has increased by 11 since 2010, with two more new ones joining us this year.
ASSU plans to continue expanding on our established programming and the lobbying work we do. This includes our bi-annual Exam Jam de-stressers, and our academic talks which have in the past featured prominent individuals such as Ta-Nahesi Coates and Wab Kinew. We continue to work with and lobby the Dean’s Office for improvements to policies affecting our students – such as access to comments from the online course evaluations.
Most notably, we held a joint referendum last year asking students if they preferred to have an actual Fall Reading Week (one that lasts an entire week), rather than the two days that are currently allotted to us. The referendum was successful, and we are now working with the Dean’s Office to ensure that this change in the calendar will be instituted in the next academic year.
We hope that you will show your support for the Arts & Science Students’ Union by VOTING YES on November 2nd and 3rd to increase the ASSU fee by $3 per term.
Sincerely,
The ASSU Executive
In November, ASSU launched its #globalvoices campaign – a campaign aimed at bringing awareness to the problems and issues international students face. As part of this campaign, ASSU launched a survey of international students to pinpoint these issues and formulate solutions. After two months, we are now ready to present this report. Click here to read it.