TORONTO – Solidarity between Universities: that of Toronto launches an appeal in favor of the Laurentian of Sudbury after the drastic cuts that hit it, wiping out dozens of courses, including Italian studies, with the consequent loss of jobs for teachers and inconvenience for students.

The UofT Department of Italian Studies launches the SOS through social networks (in the pic, the imagine on the socials) asking to the Ontario Government “to take immediate action to reinstate programs, staff, and faculty cut from Laurentian University and to implement a more consultative process for determining the University’s future. It is unjust and destructive to force local students, employees, and communities to pay the cost of a financial crisis caused by the provincial tuition freeze and mismanagement by Laurentian’s senior administration”.

The Italian Department of the University of Toronto underlines the importance of multilingual courses in a multi-ethnic society like the Canadian one. “Laurentian’s faculty and students have been leaders in building multi-lingual learning communities that represent the cultural diversity of the region. Among these was Italian Studies, taught at Laurentian from its founding, with strong roots reaching deep into the local community. We have been proud collaborators with our alumni and colleagues Diana Iuele-Colilli, Paul Colilli, and Christine Sansalone who have been the heart and soul of Italian Studies within the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Laurentian. They developed this program with imagination, energy, and deep commitment to their students and to the Italian Canadian community in Northern Ontario”.

Hence, the call “to join in the protests launched by the Laurentian Faculty Association (LUAF), the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), and the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI)”.

“A university’s strength – the UofT concludes – is its people, and we call on the Ontario provincial government to collaborate with Laurentian’s faculty, students, staff, and alumni in order to arrive at a solution which respects their commitment and builds this university’s future together with them”.