Representing over 6,100 full- and part-time graduate students at York University, the York University Graduate Students’ Association (YUGSA) is organized around principles of accessibility, social justice, and equity as it works to improve the learning, teaching, and working environments for all graduate students at York University. The YUGSA is dedicated to providing advocacy and support to all members across various graduate departments on this campus. As a student union, the YUGSA is committed to representing graduate students’ diverse interests and defending and advancing students’ and workers’ rights across and beyond York’s campuses.
The York University Graduate Students’ Association is Local 84 of the Canadian Federation of Students, which represents more than 500,000 students from more than 75 university and college students’ unions across Canada. The CFS is a democratically run organization committed to lobbying, research, and membership and community mobilization. Alongside our sister student and trade unions, the YUGSA works to oppose the continued commercialization of Canadian universities and participate in the broad-based movement demanding accessible, public, fully funded, high quality post-secondary education. The YUGSA demands the reinstatement of post-residency status, which would allow graduate students to pay reduced tuition fees once their course requirements are complete, and opposes the dwindling of appropriate, equal, and broadly accessible funding for our members.
Safe and accessible space on campus is a central concern of the YUGSA. The need to increase study and work space continues to be a common concern voiced by graduate students across the University, and a safe and healthy environment for all our members, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, class, size, or any other characteristic, must be a top priority for us all.
Beyond these, and many more campaigns and initiatives, the YUGSA also exists to support our members collectively. The YUGSA offers a variety of services for graduate students. These services include:
- A health plan for those not covered under collective agreements
- Academic Funds for conference travel, skills development, and thesis support
- Dependant Bursaries to ease the pressure of taking care of a dependant while studying
- Structural funding distributed through departmental graduate student associations
- The administration of the Grad Lounge and Grad Café (166 & 167 South Ross)
- Interest-free emergency loans
- Photocopying and faxing services
- International Student Identity Cards (ISIC)
- Advocacy for individual students
More information about these services can be found by clicking on the appropriate link on the sidebar on the left of this page.
Please phone, email, or drop by our office in room 325 of the Student Centre if you wish to obtain further information about our services, to learn how to get involved, to receive regular updates on news, events, campaigns, and other items, or just to say hello.