By Shreeharsh J
Part I: Students and Insecurity
University Life can be highly overwhelming and there might be times when you feel like giving up but that’s not an option right? Your life can’t be that bad, in fact, it never can be because there are so many people you care for and you rely on. I was one of those people, I think. I never really had self-confidence and thought no one really cared. But I'm pretty sure that’s not the case anymore, this semester I learned many things, made friends, etc. Some of the difficulties I faced were mostly food related and that’s when I heard about food banks and other community centres that volunteer to provide food to needy people. This was the first time I experienced community care. Humans are indeed emotional beings and it's interesting how they connect themselves to everything, maybe that’s why we have insecurities, and these are seen as more dominant at a University scale due to exceptional workload and stress. Some of these can be fixed by others and that’s where care comes in. This is because care issues are not just bound up with the intimacy of very close relationships, such as family and kinship (Chatzidakis et al, 2020).
...care issues are not just bound up with the intimacy of very close relationships, such as family and kinship.
This idea changed my thinking to the very core. It made me realize that there are people who wish to help without expecting anything in return. Later, it got even better when we discussed these topics in seminars by understanding how exactly a good community works and takes care of itself. Also, the activity performed in the first seminar of 3rd week explained to me where and how these types of initiatives start. It made me realize that ‘Good Will’ is all it takes to start something good, to make this world a better place. Talking about students at the university must go through a lot such as academic and financial pressure, relationships, future etc. And this can be overwhelming at times and if no care and support are provided students might give up. All these things have been under control, because of different care groups and services at the university. The activity about caring communities helped me here to know how care can be provided to students by the students. And this encouraged me to contribute as well. Talking about caring communities, I feel like mutual support is the most important asset to perform care with shared resources tagging along with it. You might wonder why so? I think it’s because humans are extremely emotional beings making it hard or impossible to live alone and that’s not it, no one can live without necessities and some unfortunate are not able to afford them that’s where shared resources play the role. After all that I have learned in the course, I believe that care is a strong construct, and everyone should be bound to it to sustain humanity. You don’t need to contribute a lot as a wise being said “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Question yourself “what is a community without care?”.
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Question yourself “what is a community without care?”.
Part II: Care and the Politics in the University
Care at times is taken for granted without even realizing it. It might not be easily visible but everything in our community is categorized despite calling ourselves equal. Take it as if there’s just a ‘Green Screen’ called equality. Everyone wants it but it's just not real, at least not yet I suppose. I feel the biggest inequality that I see at the university is how international students are being exploited in terms of their tuition fees. For an instance, say a domestic student pays around 10k for 2 semesters at the same time an international student pays as good as 39-40k dollars for the same. That’s not equality! I feel as if it’s forced exploitation. Talking about politics at the University, entry fees for multiple events are altered according to the student’s status and trust me that happens I have been a victim of it. All these things, it's not easy to realize unless you have the right lead and the necessary knowledge for it. One of the sentences from the “Care Manifesto” - ‘The very concept ‘care’ overflows with paradoxes an ambivalence’ - can exactly explain why I feel this way and some others won't (Chatzidakis et al. 2020). The same goes with the issue of tuition fees, for me it’s a problem but maybe even the university has its reasons. It’s a very abstract topic to even compare with care, that’s what I believe. Talking about dependency from my personal experiences, I feel like most of the heavy labour is done by men while most women are seen as a worker in the service sector. Well, why? Are men not capable enough? No one can answer it as this is the stereotype that humans are following and yet I felt like this can change after reviewing the activities we did in the 2nd week’s first seminar. The topic ‘Re-imagining Dependencies’ made me think about how this can be changed and various methods to do so. What’s the best way you would ask? The most suitable way I feel would be to adopt a positive view of dependency and care. People are kind of more interested to take out the flaws than encouraging the positive assets which creates even more problems. Some more suggestions to fix this would be something like spreading awareness and taking initiative, minimizing class comparisons etc. A similar explanation can be found in ‘The Care Manifesto’ as it clearly states, the more you participate in care and activities encouraging care can help us change the thinking and complexities of care on as big as democratic scales. University as of now is doing great in caring politics but I feel like it can be much better if they start [thinking] more about students and the quality of education than that of finance. Some suggestions would be to create a more interactive space, organize social involvement fairs, encourage the student to take part in the university’s political process etc. It’s never too late to start making the change. Think about this quote at the end and start taking some initiative! “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have" (Mead n.d.).
“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have (Mead n.d.).”
Part III: University and Housing
Housing is a crucial factor when it comes to cities with universities and having housing problems in such areas can be a big problem for the community as well as the university itself. Housing isn’t just infrastructure, it's much more than that. More importantly, it’s a basic necessity that everyone is bound to have. I was an international student who had no idea about the place and how things work, neither I knew what the right price would be to pay for a house. Due to this, I faced a lot of difficulties finding affordable housing options. Along with the skyrocketed rent prices, there was no place for me to go for the first month. The situation was so bad that I was forced to travel from Toronto to Guelph to attend my lectures for the first month of the semester and well yea that was not what I had really expected. The most surprising fact for me was that neither the University nor the government was taking measures to fix this problem. The University is not even capable of accommodating students in campus housing from their second year. This is not a matter related just to students and landlords. In fact, the community is being tested due to this. Many families are having a difficult time paying their rent, many are forced to give up their homes. It’s a big challenge for the public and its government to recover from this using effective methods. The article that we studied in week 6 gives in a lot of insight into the current situation and the university’s recklessness in accepting a bit too many offer letters without being capable of handling them. One of the representatives [...] asked students to reach out to the off- campus housing staff, which should have been helpful but in reality, many have experienced getting no help from them. According to what I have heard, they only provide you with the links where accommodations are listed and nothing more than that really. They say improved housing infrastructure is the way toward affordable housing that’s as good as saying digging a hole will necessarily fetch you water (Pace and Pare 2023). [Discussing this] helped me understand and analyze new ways to tackle this problem and my role as a member of this community. [...] More importantly, it made me realize how important care is in people's lives. This lesson made me realize that care isn’t something to be provided for the people we know. Instead, I would say it is something everyone deserves and is provided. Perhaps care is the only asset that can hold this selfish and broken world together.
...care isn’t something to be provided for the people we know. Instead, I would say it is something everyone deserves and is provided. Perhaps care is the only asset that can hold this selfish and broken world together.
Part IV: University and Care for the Environment
Nature is one of the most important things when it comes to life and is very important to be cared for. “You reap what you sow” resonates a lot in terms of nature, talking in the context of this topic, what I want to imply is that if we don’t care for nature, it will have its consequences. The University Arboretum is one of those places covered in green with a home to many animals and birds. It's one of the places which needs to be maintained and cared for by The University and its students. It's not a bad thing to care for nature, right? Definitely not. If you don’t want to care for nature out of a free will, think of it as if you own nature for your existence. A lot of efforts are taken to maintain the Arboretum and make sure it remains in a good condition. It would be unjust if you don’t contribute towards it as it belongs to us all. I once went to the Arboretum with my friends, after walking for a few minutes we arrived at the small pond and at that very moment, I felt peace as if I was dependent on it, listening to the sounds of birds, the squirrels walking in the bright orange leaves and the cool soothing wind, that was the reason enough for me to start caring for it irrespective of advantages and disadvantages. The feeling got deeper when I studied environmental care in our seminars. I started to realize how care is mutually connected to everything whether it's living or not.
I started to realize how care is mutually connected to everything whether it's living or not.
It's like once you start caring for something/someone, even others will start caring for it, doesn’t matter if they are animals or humans or perhaps birds. I think that you don’t need to ask someone to care for nature, it's as good as everyone is bound to it. Starting to care is all it takes to continue the prolonged legacy. A few weeks ago, a few groups were requesting to volunteer for arboretum care at the university centre, looking at people taking initiative felt great and I signed up to help without a single thought. And the reading for week 8 is quite interesting, the title “How to love a mushroom” itself makes it so interesting to read about (Tsing 2010). The article helped me understand how even small things matter and even reassured me of the fact that everything is bound to care for nature in some or the other way. I read another article similar to that, which is about snails and how they help (Coppolino n.d.). Moving ahead my thinking got even better after I took part in the activity assigned by the professors, in the first seminar of the 8th week. I realized how everyone is dependent on each other and how no one can be self-sustainable in a true sense. I might be talking about the arboretum but the care for the environment doesn’t stop at the university, instead, it spreads out to the whole world. I can't really say which scale it belongs to. It depends on the perspective of the person. So, what scale does it belong to and why?
References
Chatzidakis, A., Hakim, J., Litter, J., & Rottenberg, C. (2020). Caring Communities. The care manifesto: The politics of interdependence (pp. 36-44). Verso Book.
Chatzidakis, A., Hakim, J., Litter, J., & Rottenberg, C. (2020). Chapter 1: Caring Politics. The care manifesto: Ambivalence of Care (pp. 21-31). Verso Books.
Coppolino, M. (n.d.). Nature and the microcosm of snails. Finger Lakes Land Trust. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.fllt.org/nature-and-the-microcosm-of-snails
Mead, M. (n.d.). Caring Politics. Brainy Quote. Retrieved March 24, 2023, from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/margaret_mead_101283.
Tsing, A. (2010). Arts of inclusion, or how to love a mushroom. Manoa, 22(2), 191-203. https://www-muse-jhu- edu.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/article/407437.
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