My year started out as any professor’s dream. I only had one course to teach, which opened lots of time for research, and it was on my favourite topic: climate justice. My grad seminar was filled with bright and ionate students. The three hours we would spend together each Thursday didn’t feel like work. It was what teaching should be—fun and immensely rewarding.
Things got a big tougher after Jan. 20 following the second inauguration of Donald Trump but being able to discuss with the class the chaos that the Trump istration was unleashing and what it would mean for the climate was somewhat therapeutic. The Liberal Party leadership race also sparked plenty of interesting debates about carbon pricing.
On March 10, everything changed. The Public Service Alliance Canada (PSAC) 901—the union of Graduate Teaching Assistants, Teaching Fellows and Postdoctoral Scholars at Queen’s University—went on strike. The University istration told professors—who are of a different union—to adjust courses if needed (e.g., cancel tutorials, leave assignments ungraded) but to otherwise continue teaching as usual. PSAC 901 asked us not to cross their picket line.
Unsure what to do, I held my first class on Zoom to chat with the students about how they wanted to proceed. I also went to a rally at the picket line to show my . What I saw there was inspiring. Listening to the speakers and talking to those around me drove home the fact the picket line is an avenue for education. Queen’s graduate students, across all disciplines, are currently learning invaluable skills in organization and community building.
They’re learning what it really means to fight for justice. This bodes well for the future of the climate movement.
Nevertheless, I’m hoping for the strike to come to a swift, and just, conclusion. To be clear, I’m not taking a position on the particulars of the negotiations—it’s not my job to tell either side if they’re expecting too much or providing too little. What I do feel I can take a position on is this: it’s unjust for highly qualified and essential workers at my university to be struggling to make ends meet while others earn more than they will ever need.
The minimum funding package for doctoral students at Queen’s is $23,000, out of which they must pay thousands of dollars in tuition. There’s no minimum funding package for master’s students. In comparison, someone earning minimum wage would make about $36,000 in a full-time job. Food and housing insecurity are real and immediate concerns for Queen’s graduate students.
Which brings me back to climate justice. For some people, addressing the climate crisis is only about reducing emissions as quickly and efficiently as possible. I used to think in these but, thankfully, others have educated me on the intersections between the multiple crises we’re currently facing.
The cost-of-living crisis that’s hitting graduate students, and many others, so hard cannot be separated from changes in the climate that place stress on systems that produce the necessities of life like agricultural production. These two crises are also linked by a key root cause: the consolidation of power among the wealthiest individuals and corporations who don’t care about the cost of eggs, or if the world burns, and who displace the consequences of these crises upon those with the least resources to adapt.
The climate and cost of living crises are also currently colliding with a crisis in the higher education sector in Canada, and particularly in Ontario. Universities are facing substantial financial pressures—the result of significant reductions in public funding—and many are responding with austerity measures. This is deeply concerning, but it also presents an opening for a conversation about how to reimagine higher education and its role in society.
As Professor Jennie Stephens writes in her brilliant book Climate Justice and the University: “With climate chaos exacerbating injustices and instability of all kinds and worsening the other intersecting crises facing humanity, re-imagining the transformative power of higher education is a hopeful and empowering initiative.” Stephens provides a vision for what she calls “climate justice universities.”
And that’s my real dream—to not just get to teach climate justice, but to get to work in an institution that embodies it. But transforming Queen’s, or any university, isn’t going to be easy. It’s going to require a movement that brings everyone from first year undergrads to full-time professors together.
Graduate students have a particularly important role because in addition to the contributions to the university that they make today, many of them will also go on to become faculty in the future. But how will they find the time or the energy to help transform higher education when they’re worried about how they’ll pay their rent? And who’s to say they’ll even want to go on to work as faculty in the institutions that turned a blind eye to their suffering.
I, for one, cannot ignore this injustice any longer. So, this week, and until the strike ends, I’ll be teaching my climate justice class on the picket line. I hope to see many of my colleagues and students from my past undergrad courses there as well. And even more, I hope that when the strike ends, we will all have the courage to continue the struggle to shape a better university and a better future for everyone.
Kyla Tienhaara is an associate professor in the School of Environmental Studies and the Department of Global Development Studies and Canada Research Chair in Economy and Environment.
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Jan
Only thing they’re doing is contributing to noise pollution…
Jared
Please tell me this is satire