Save Guelph's Women's Studies Program

Below is a copy of the letter (it is the same as the first) and a new e-mail list (just with the addition of the provost)


To Whom It May Concern;



I am writing in concern about the future of the Women’s Studies program at the University of Guelph. It has come to the knowledge of the public that the University is considering cutting the Women’s Studies program. The closure of this program would reflect negatively on the University. It would signal a lack of support for safe and inclusive spaces around campus. It signals the University’s lack of respect for feminist theory and the perspective of marginalized voices within academia. It signals the University’s lack of understanding of how integral the Women’s Studies program is to the University as a whole. It is not only Women’s Studies students who benefit from the Women’s Studies program. Students from outside the program sit in on small Women’s Studies classes to engage in a unique dialogue not found any where on campus. Students from within the Women’s Studies program attend other classes and feel empowered to speak out about issues that might otherwise never be raised.

To close the Women’s Studies Program shows that the University of Guelph does not feel this program is important enough to work for. It shows that the University thinks we live in a society of equals – when really, we all know that is not the case. The University of Guelph has one of the oldest Women’s Studies program in the country, it has students that are willing to fight for it, who go on to become professors at Universities, who go on to become administration at our own University, and who go on to be graduate students at many different institutions.

The closure of the Women’s Studies Program puts other Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies at risk. We cannot set the example that these programs are not integral to a learning environment. Instead of closing these important avenues of discussion, we should be fostering and sustaining them. Closing the Women’s Studies Program is foreclosing on the work that needs to be done to work towards a just society.





Sincerely,



(Your Name Here) .


Send to:

Neil MacLusky
nmaclusk@uoguelph.ca

Don Bruce (Dean of Arts)
don.bruce@uoguelph.ca

Sherry Kinsella (Admin Assistant to Dean of Arts)
skinsell@uoguelph.ca

Alastair Summerlee (President)
a.summerlee@exec.uoguelph.

ca

Brenda Whiteside (Associate Vice-President of Student Affairs)
b.whiteside@exec.uoguelph.ca

Christi Garneau-Scott
csaacad@uoguelph.ca


Maureen Mancuso (Provost & VP Academic)
m.mancuso@exec.uoguelph.ca

or m.mancuso@exec.uoguelph.ca, csaacad@uoguelph.ca, b.whiteside@exec.uoguelph.ca, a.summerlee@exec.uoguelph.ca, skinsell@uoguelph.ca, don.bruce@uoguelph.ca, nmaclusk@uoguelph.ca


Please sign the petition that can be found here:
Petition