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Tag: Student Unions

Students on the Frontlines: The Ongoing Protests in Serbia with Jim Dickinson

If I say the word “Serbia”, chances are your mind goes to things like the NATO air attacks of 1999 and the associated Kosovo War, to the breakup of Yugoslavia and to Marshal Tito and maybe – if you’re more historically-minded – to the origins of World War I.  It probably doesn’t go to higher education or radical student politics. But that’s kind of unfortunate because in fact Serbia’s recent history has had plenty of instances where youth- or student-based

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February 20, 2025 No Comments

Representing Students: Crisis Edition

The three of us are ex-student leaders. And we’ve been thinking a bit lately about how student leaders can meet the present moment in higher education. One of us vividly remembers the meeting which formalized the creation of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) thirty years ago this week in Fredericton, New Brunswick (you can easily guess which of us it was because the other two weren’t born yet). To a significant extent, CASA defined itself in opposition to

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January 29, 2025 3 Comments

Student Unions as Early Warning Systems

One of the things that marks out Canadian student unions from their counterparts in (say) the UK is the relative lack of emphasis unions put on advocacy relating to academic quality.  For any student unions that want to change that, the next couple of weeks would be an unprecedented opportunity to do so. The remote semester has created a fundamental pickle for institutions, one which is baked very deeply into the fabric of Canadian academia.  Namely, while universities have the responsibility of attracting

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September 1, 2020 No Comments

Beyond the Student Choice Initiative

Last Thursday, the Ontario Superior Court struck down the Ford Government’s “Student Choice Initiative”, a program of voluntary student-unionism (VSU) it imposed last January (see here for a refresher).  The court decision is here.  It’s a full defeat for the provincial government, the policy is declared void, but it’s unclear if and how student organizations will be compensated for lost revenue from the fall term. A lot of people are arguing this is a victory for student unions and for the cause of

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November 27, 2019 No Comments

Advice for Young Student Politicians

At most Canadian universities, student election season is about to start.  So, today, a quick note for anyone out there thinking about joining the ranks of student representatives.  First, if you’re in Ontario, you need to know there’s no guarantee at all about what kind of organization you might be heading.  No one knows how the fee opt-out (opt-in?) system will work and what effects it will have on union finances.  Few student unions have reserves for more than a couple of

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January 31, 2019 1 Comment

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