About Us
Student Strike Information
Red Drop Box for Strike Suggestions and Opinions: Please also use the Red Drop Box as way of making anonymous suggestions to AHGSA regarding the strike, either for additional strike actions or activities that you think AHGSA should be considering or undertaking, or, more generally, to voice your opinion regarding AHGSA and the student strike.
27 March 2012 – The GSA GA voted again this week to reconduct the strike, which we also reconfirmed by voete at the AGHSA GA. We then discussed what actions we could take to make the strike more effective. Five members currently in classes were present and discussion focused on the submission of assignments.
If collectively organized in a rigorous way, we believe that the submission of assignments can be used to exert significant pressure within the university in support of the strike action – up through departmental faculty and the chair to the dean and the provost.
We propose making a strong collective statement now, before the end of term and due dates for final papers, that no work will be submitted while the strike is in force.
For this to be effective and safe, solidarity is important. Penalizing an individual student is easy – but penalizing an entire program of students is next to impossible, especially with the approach we have devised, which will (1) leave plenty of time for negotiation before grades are actually due (and for faculty to demonstrate the support they have expressed in principle), and (2) will provide proof that work, while not submitted to faculty, has in fact been completed.
Here’s the plan: we propose to create the Red Drop Box, a locked drop box similar to the drop box fixed outside the department office for undergraduates – except of course that ours will be red. Oh, and the faculty will not have the key. Instead, the AHGSA president will. For additional security and time stamping, the AHGSA president has also established the AHGSA assignment email account: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . One pdf copy should be emailed to this account by the due date and one printed copy deposited in the Red Drop Box, which will be placed in the photocopy room.
The Red Drop Box will allow us to ‘present’ the combined intellectual work of the graduate students to the department, and yet withhold it until the strike is over. Faculty have, informally, indicated that they ideologically support the strike. But it is our responsibility to make the first move. Only then can faculty indicate to the next administrative level that they support us. And it is only by moving this support up the administrative ladder that the government will be forced to negotiate.
19 March 2012 – The weekly meeting of the GSA GA voted Monday to continue the open ended strike. They also amended last week’s strike resolution to clarify that the collective non-attendance of classes also included the non-submission of coursework in recognition that they are inseparable, and that to submit coursework while not attending class implies that class time is irrelevant.
At Monday’s AHGSA GA, attended by fourteen members, it was moved and voted to support today’s GSA amended strike resolution, stressing that submitting course work while not attending classes undermines the rationale for the strike as a pressure tactic.
The members also stressed the importance of participating in the demonstration on Thursday 22 March. It was agreed that AHGSA members would rally in front of the Bourgie Pavillion of the MMFA at 12 Noon before joining the larger march to Place du Canada leaving Concordia at 12:30.
Plans were also discussed regarding the holding of a student forum in which students could present their research to each other. More to come.
We reaffirmed the importance of meeting on a weekly basis, on Mondays at 5 PM. At the next meeting, it will be important to assess the outcome of the rally on the 22nd. We also propose, as other graduate associations within the university have done, to discuss more specifically how the current issues underlying the strike can be understood and voiced from our own disciplinary position – that is, as art historians.
Many AHGSA members are also part-time faculty and we wish the Department of Art History to note that CUPFA has clarified that it is not permitted to hold classes in alternative teaching spaces, even within the university (See here). Consequently, AHGSA members currently teaching cannot be expected to hold classes in locations other than the scheduled classroom.
12 March 2012 – AHGSA held a general assembly on Monday, 12 March, at 10:30 AM, to discuss our position on last week’s GSA decision for an open-ended strike – mainly affecting class attendance. Fourteen out of fifty-eight AHGSA members attended, and of those a clear majority indicated that they supported the GSA strike mandate in principle. We know that some MA classes have also indicated the same support. Although attendance at the meeting comprised 24% of the membership, which far exceeds GSA and CSU quorum requirements, what was lacking were the voices of MA and PhD students who are currently completing coursework. Consequently, members who were at the assembly will be presenting the results of the vote as well as the comments below in all MA and PhD classes this week.
As we understand it, one of the main motivations for the strike is to assert our belief that as students we are not merely consumers of our education but rather participants. Through our presence in classes we contribute to the thinking and writing that is integral to scholarly discourse and that is ultimately, itself, the essential productive activity of the university and a social good.
The collective non-attendance of classes has the potential to assert this fact in an embodied way. However, we acknowledge that each of us has different stakes invested and so we both encourage and support all viewpoints. AHGSA has decided to continue to have weekly meetings in order to maintain this dialogue.
Weekly Strike Meeting: Mondays at 5:00 PM
We want to hear what you have to say about this and encourage you to come to next Monday’s meeting. We assume the lack of attendance at this week's assembly was the result of schedule conflicts and so we have tentatively scheduled next week’s meeting for 5:00 PM on Monday, 19 March 2012.
Do not hesitate to discuss these issues or suggest alternative times for the general assembly with the members visiting your classes.
If you have questions about the strike, please email AHGSA:
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For more general information, please also visit the GSA website the wordpress site of Fine art students on strike (FASOS).
AHGSA Graduate Conference This Week: 16 – 17 March
We invite you all to attend the AHGSA graduate conference, Situate Yourself, this Friday and Saturday. As a free, student-initiated and student-produced exhibition of and forum for research and intellectual exchange, open to all students and the public, this event constitutes an alternative student-run learning opportunity. Please come and support your colleagues. We are providing space during breaks for anyone or any group who would like to present a performance action or artistic gesture in support of the strike. Please contact Lindsay Cory if you want to plan something:
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About Us
Concordia University’s Art History Graduate Student Association (AHGSA) endeavours to enhance the academic life of all graduate students involved in the study of art. Aside from promoting the research of students enrolled in the Art History, Humanities, and Special Individualized programs, AHGSA organizes social and academic events that foster dialogue and contribute to the development of its members’ graduate studies. AHGSA also provides a voice for its membership by sitting on various departmental committees.
One of AHGSA’s principal activities is the organization of an annual graduate student conference. The two-day conference is usually held in mid-March and features a keynote speaker. Recent conferences include Shifting Borders, on the notion of borders within visual culture; Charged Circuits: Questioning International Exhibition Practices, on the proliferation of international exhibitions and their growing influence on the discipline of art history; and Writing between the Lines: Art and its Historians, on the roles, opportunities, and quandaries of those involved in writing art history.
AHGSA is supported by Concordia’s Graduate Students’ Association and the Department of Art History.
Contact Us
Our office is located at EV-3.784 on the third floor of the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Building.
AHGSA can also be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Street Address:
Art History Graduate Student Association
EV Building, Room 3.784
1515 Ste. Catherine St. West
Mailing Address:
Art History Graduate Student Association
Department of Art History
Concordia University
1455 De Maisonneuve Boulevard West
Montreal, QC H3G 1M8
