Author: UC Gargoyle

hello esteemed customers- students!

i meant to send this email at 11:59, but i actually had a real thing due at 11:59, so that took precedence. our last issue of the year is 11:59! this is our education issue. cold emailing, linkedin profiles, running to classes during uoft time, looming deadlines, loans — all delightful parts of the student experience, amirite? come write about disparities in education, book banning, disinformation & miseducation, critique the structures of the education system, and so on and so henceforth pertaining to grandiloquent pedagogy.

this issue is also about late nights, like the one we find ourselves in now. if you just got this email notification, turn off your email notifs at night. no one needs to reach you that urgently at 12:21, be so fr. 

for your submission to be considered for this issue, send your proposals or initial drafts to ucgargoyle@gmail.com by monday, march 24th, 11:59pm with “issue 12 proposal for section x, contributor’s name” as the subject line. please include a sample paragraph of 200 words with your proposals. your final drafts will be due friday, march 28th. your section editor will go over edits with you until tuesday, april 1st. your article word count can be as few as 1 and as many as 1000.

our production night will take place at 5 p.m. on friday, april 4th in the junior common room and will be an ALL-NIGHTER! you can come in and collage your flat at a normal time and leave early if you so choose, but you’ll be missing out. we kick around the JCR til the sun rises. there will be events and food throughout the night, so watch out for those details (as we actually plan them). 

here are some rushed and late prompts from our section editors: 

uc: when was the last time u pulled an all nighter? did soe weird shit go down at robarts ore wer eu so sleep de[prived u made it up? article in format of academic paper, abstract, keywords, etccc. write about 11:59 in the city,, what do you see on the night buseses and streetcar ? ever worked the night shift in toronto? elucidate on your dreams, that one from last night or that long term one. talk about rushed and lae assignmentss. 

arts & culture: tell us about how it feels to write under pressure– does it work for you? can you write any other way?  share your favourite literary ending and tell us why it was so/not quite satisfying. talk about the arts and education: how has the arts educated you? how has it changed your view on (un)learning? adopt the personality of that one guy (we all know who he is) who studies the arts in your tutorial. 

politics: scarce tenure track positions and 10,000 applications for underpaid internships: why does higher education thrive on scarcity? explore student protest and police presence in schools. reflect on how social media reduces nuanced ideas to a 6-second-video, fostering a loop of shallow public intellectualism. do masterclass and coursera democratize learning, or just sell celebrity wisdom? are you a linkedin warrior (i am…)? explore how linkedin turns careers into highlight reels, masking the messiness of professional struggles.

opinions: how do you prioritize meeting your basic needs as a student? share your experiences accessing mental health support. do you feel that attending U of T was worth the money, time and tears? rank school bags! wildest thing that’s happened to you as a student? talk about your procrastination habits. how to NOT procrastinate? are guidance counselors a helpful resource for students?

avant garg: has uoft time cursed us with a sense of perpetual lateness or is that just me? why do i have 300+ connections on linkedin but no one to hold hands with? why won’t nslsc leave me alone? why am i adding a $500 eng 2t5 jacket to my cart as an art sci student after watching skule nite once? why did my ta just give me 20 extra points just because i attended office hours? what if i hadn’t gone? what the fuck?
comics: in comic form, vent about the horrors™ that university has put you through. what delusions and crazed premonitions have you had in your sleep-deprived, caffeine-addled state?  reveal the things you’ve been doodling in your notebook while your professors drones on in lecture.

pretty please don’t dock any late marks for this email i really need to pass this class,

ella mac & gabriel yuan, editors-in-chief

hello garglings, 

no, this is a totally normal hour to send an email — why would you even say that? this eleventh hour call for subs is for our eleventh issue: REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE. while writing your pitches, keep in mind that reproductive justice is more than reproductive rights. just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is accessible to all. 

for your submission to be considered for this issue, send your proposals or initial drafts to ucgargoyle@gmail.com by monday, march 10th, 11:59pm with “issue 11 proposal for section x, contributor’s name” as the subject line. please include a sample paragraph of 200 words with your proposals. your final drafts will be due wednesday, march 12th. your section editor will go over edits with you until sunday, march 16th. your article word count can be as few as 1 and as many as 1000.

our production night will take place at 5 p.m. on wednesday, march 19th in the junior common room. this time, we will fr have the room booked, although it was fun briefly sharing with the uoft Vietnamese Students’ Association. we’ll always have that 1/4th of a pastry in our memories. 

before we get into the prompts, we wanted to mention, no big deal, but we have a REFERENDUM NEXT WEEK!

the mike’s levy is $3.18. the strand’s levy is $3.00. the gargoyle’s levy is $1.50. the last time we had a levy fee increase was in 1990. with inflation, our levy would be about $3.01 today.

in the uclit spring election, we are asking to increase our levy to $2.69. the referendum would also allow us to index our levy to the ontario consumer price index, subject to an annual motion of the uclit. this means we could match our levy with inflation if we think it is necessary to sustain our operations — as long as the uclit thinks it is justified. why, you ask? keep up with inflation and rising printing costs, keep up with our growth… and allow us to expand, and remove our dependency on the uclit for cash.

so, uc students, if you support the garg, vote YES from march 14th-16th!

back to your regularly scheduled call for subs. here are some prompts from our section editors: 

uc: write about how practically accessible birth control and abortions are in toronto. is it more accessible than your hometown? investigate what sexual, reproductive, and gender affirming care is covered by our student insurance — and all the hoops you must jump through first. in your time at uoft, how has your sexuality been perceived through overlapping layers like race, class, gender, ability?

arts & culture: how is the arts utilized as a form of resistance for bodily autonomy? talk about various metaphors for reproduction and bodies involved. criticize the pervasive genre of sexual violence and its audience in media. examine body horror as a metaphor for the loss of bodily autonomy. how does it make you feel to inhabit (or control) someone else’s body through the narrative perspective of a book or video game?

politics: explore the different ways in which marginalized communities, throughout history have provided access to abortion, and reproductive healthcare in general, when the state won’t. talk about the current moment and threats to bodily autonomy; think about how we can organize to build communities resilient to these threats. discuss sexual violence as a patriarchal tool for control, and power as a motivation for sexual violence.

opinions: do you think education on consent and safe sex practices in schools is adequate? what do you think about the ongoing controversy over reproductive rights, and the push to strip away access to contraception, abortion, and general sexual education resources? talk about your experiences with birth control. rank menstrual products. what would you change about gynecologist visits?

avant garg: what does it mean for your body to be considered a battlefield? mould a more humane metaphor for your own body. write a sprawling piece of meta-fiction that captures the range of internal emotions insinuated by access to healthcare, and how this pendulum crashes against the white walls of a politically hostile medical industry. scribble everything you want to say to those that refuse to affirm your understanding of your own body and slap it on the page. cut raggedly through bureaucratic claims and craft their worst nightmare. sculpt, puncture, and seize.

comics: are you a local zine creator? comics is interested in “plugging your shit” – we’d like to feature promotional art and writing for your publication and its latest issue. if you aren’t a zine publisher, that’s okay too – we want to hear your thoughts on how book bans on queer/sex ed books/comics and bans on sexual education affect young women, men, and queer youth. who have been your favourite women, trans, or queer comic artists? how has their work pushed you towards self discovery and contributed to sexual and reproductive liberation?

love,

ella mac & gabriel yuan, editors-in-chief