What You Can Do
Here are some of the concrete ways you can show solidarity and support SJU’s ASA.
- Watch and share our videos.
- Use our CAS email signatures.
- Use our CAS Zoom background and profile picture.
- Follow us on social media.
- Check out our CAS Profiles.
- Read and share CAUT and OCUFA resources.
- Attend our bargaining mobilization meetings.
1. Watch and share our videos.
Watch the videos our members have made by clicking below, and share the link to our video page (https://sjuasa.com/videos) with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Conversations About CAS Bargaining
In these videos, our CAS and full-time members discuss the rationale for our bargaining proposals
Stacey & Denise
The first video features our illustrious members, Denise Whitehead and Stacey Jacobs, explaining why a more equitable CAS seniority system will be better for CAS, students, chairs, and everyone at St. Jerome's—and how CAS members like Stacey are so deeply valued in SMF and throughout SJU.
Jesse & Chad
This video features our distinguished members, Chad Wriglesworth and Jesse Hutchison, chatting how multi-year appointments for CAS would benefit CAS members, department chairs, administrative staff, and—above all—students at St. Jerome’s.
Carlie & Alysia
Our renowned members Carlie Leroux and Alysia Kolentsis share their similar and divergent experiences of motherhood in academia in a rare and candid conversation about some of the many impacts of precarity on our members’ equity. They discuss how pregnancy and parental leave, multi-year appointments, sick leave, and health benefits are vital to a more equitable workplace for our CAS.
Catherine & Kieran
Our esteemed members Catherine Briggs and Kieran Bonner talk about some of the day-to-day indignities faced by CAS members, about how these impact their ability to plan their courses and help their students, and about how fairness and dignity for CAS are essential to the kind of community that makes St. Jerome’s special.
Roberta and Carmen
In this video, our outstanding members, Roberta Cauchi-Santoro and Carmen Celestini, discuss the detrimental impacts of precarity on our CAS members’ ability to sustain state-of-the-art research and to bring this research into the classroom for the benefit of our students. They also explain how St. Jerome’s can—and should—become a leader in addressing the precarity of contract academic staff.
Toni & Stephen
Our final two-part video features our indomitable members, Toni Serafini and Stephen Svenson.
Part 1
In Part I, Toni and Stephen discuss the serious impacts of precarity on our CAS members' health, their family lives, and their ability to keep their homes. They emphasize that sick leave, health benefits, and job security are urgent justice issues at St. Jerome’s and affect the quality of education that we offer.
Part 2
In Part II of our final video, Toni Serafini and Stephen Svenson explain how compensating CAS members for the service work they do will bring crucial benefits to students and full-time faculty in a small institution like SJU; how offering tuition benefits for children of CAS is a gesture of respect; how a symbolic agreement not to invoke the CCAA at St. Jerome’s is essential to restoring the confidence of all St. Jerome’s employees after what happened at Laurentian; and how our Catholic mission at St. Jerome’s requires us to take seriously our CAS members’ stories of feeling expendable and undervalued and to listen when they ask us for help.
2. Use our CAS email signatures.
One of the easiest ways right now to show a little love for CAS is by adding the attached images to your email signature. We launched these this past Valentine’s Day. To add these to your own signature, see the instructions here (text) and here (video).
This is one easy way we can show everyone in the St. Jerome’s community not only that support for CAS is widespread but also that we truly love our CAS colleagues and we will stand with them as they negotiate a fairer deal—today and throughout bargaining.
Zoom Background
Zoom Profile Picture
Click on the images to see the full-size versions and save them to your computer. Then, use the following sets of instructions to add them to your Zoom profile:
4. Follow us on social media.
Follow us on our Twitter account: @SJUASA (…and then send us some likes and retweets!)
5. Check out our CAS Profiles.
We’ve been releasing a “CAS Profile of the Week” every Wednesday. You can see all the existing CAS profiles here.
This is a great way to “meet” your Contract Academic Staff colleagues and learn more about the ways in which they contribute their extremely valuable research and teaching expertise to St. Jerome’s University.
6. Read and share CAUT and OCUFA resources.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has a number of resources and reports on their website. In particular, their Contract Academic Staff Committee has a report, Out of the Shadows: Experiences of Contract Academic Staff, that has important and useful information, as well as stats and infographics you can share on Twitter, Facebook and other social media:
(available to download on this page)
In addition, the Fall 2019 issue of OCUFA’s Academic Matters journal has an excellent article by Kimberly Ellis-Hale and Glen Copplestone that provides important context regarding the current state of academic labour and precarity in Ontario universities: “Trending towards inequality: Understanding the role of universities in the rise of contract academic work.”
7. Attend our bargaining mobilization meetings.
Watch your inbox for an email about our next Bargaining Mobilization Meeting. All members are welcome to come out and join us in mobilizing for a better deal for our CAS.
We’ll also be putting posters around campus.