Trent Graduate Student Association
For Graduate students By Graduate students
Advocacy, Community, Accountability
Scan the QR Code to register, or click the link in our bio!
See you then!
Celebrate Islamic History Month! 📚
The TGSA has partnered with the Trent University Library for a special collection featuring a curated list of resources including academic texts, children’s literature, fiction, poetry, films, videos, and websites on the Leganto platform.
Find the display at:
Bata Library: Up now through October 17th
Durham Library: Up now through October 30th
Students interested in exploring further can access the full list via the QR code to view the full reading list!
NOMINATIONS ARE NOW OPEN FOR THE FOLLOWING TGSA POSITIONS
DURHAM REPRESENTATIVE
• must be a graduate student registered at the Durham Campus
VICE PRESIDENT INTERNAL AFFAIRS
* ��learn about not for profit management
* ��policy writing
* ��financial reporting
Nominations will remain open for 14 days and will close on
October 16th, 2025.
Voting will open on November 13h, 2025.
Email [email protected] to self-nominate. All nominees must provide a 200 word statement of interest at the time of nomination.
The statement of interest should demonstrate an understanding of the role the candidate applies for, and will be made available to the voting membership during the election period.
Please review the descriptions of the above listed roles posted in our bylaws before aplying.
Durham Rep- page 41. Section 2.2.9
Vice President Internal Affairs- page 35. Section 2.1.3
*the President of the association has been covering both roles and will be onboarding incoming Directors. The Student Support Coordinator will assist with onboarding the VPIF*
HELPFUL INFORMATION YOU SHOULD
KNOW BEFORE APPLYING
* ��All positions on the Board of Directors are volunteer based. Directors are given a modest honorarium once a month provided they meet the obligations of their positions.
* ��The TGSA has a clear conflict of interest policy.
* ��The TGSA is a Not for Profit and works to advocate for graduate students at Trent University.
* ��The TGSA has a website with information about our current team. The by-laws that govern our association are also posted on our website.
* ��Each TGSA team member is required to work collaboratively and has the support of the executive throughout the year.
* ��You will have the opportunity to help run events, meet many other graduate students, attend imporant committees, learn about university governance, and make a real impact.
* ��Directors on the board are required to attend one board meeting/ month. They are usually held duing the evening in fourth week of the month.
On September 30th, people across what is colonially called Canada wear orange shirts to remember the thousands of Indigenous children stolen from their families and forced into residential ‘schools’’. In these carceral institutions, Indigenous children endured abuse, cultural erasure, and neglect; many never returned home. This consitutes cultural genocide, and genocide proper. The day also honours Survivors and acknowledges the lasting harm these schools inflicted on First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities.
The orange shirt originates from the story of Phyllis Webstad who is Northern Secwpemc (Shuswap) from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation (Canoe Creek Indian Band).
who, at six years old, wore a new orange shirt gifted by her grandmother to her first day at a residential ‘school’ in British Columbia. It was taken from her in an attempt to strip her of her dignity and to dehumanize her. For Phyllis, orange became a symbol of how Indigenous children were made to feel invisible and dehumanized.
From the 1830s to 1996, residential ‘schools’ operated with the explicit purpose of erasing Indigenous languages and cultures. Many children suffered violence, and countless others died, evidence of which continues to emerge in unmarked graves being discovered across Canada.
Orange Shirt Day is a reminder that the impacts of these schools persist across generations. It calls all peoples to truth, responsibility, and ongoing action toward reconciliation and Indigenous resurgence.
Today you can join us in wearing an orange t-shirt.
Every other day we work to educate ourselves and eachother. Consider reflecting on the Truth and Reconcilation Commission 94 Calls to Action (PDF linked in Bio), purchasing from Indigenous businesses (we get our T-shirts from Nish Tees @nishtees and Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction @torontoindigenousharmreduction , and reflecting on what it means to be a treaty person.
We LOVED marching in the @ptbopride with so many incredible student groups and some faculty members from @gesotrentu ! It was a pleasure to show up in community and solidarity!
Events & Deadlines
Check out our events calendar by visiting from your desktop browser, and clicking the ‘events’ tab at the top of the page! Follow our Instagram (linked above) for up to date plans, news, and events!
WHO TO CONTACT
To get in touch about our committee work, reach out to [email protected]
To reach the TGSA, contact [email protected]
To inquire about an TGSA upcoming event, contact [email protected]
For general inquiries about your studies, contact [email protected]
For questions or technical issues about your OUAC application, contact the Ontario University Application Center at [email protected]
To accept or decline an offer of admission, contact [email protected]
For financial questions (funding, scholarships, etc.), contact [email protected]
For OSAP and bursary support, contact [email protected]
For enrolment and registration questions (course registration, how to graduate, graduate documents), contact [email protected]
For questions regarding graduate teaching assistant positions, contact [email protected]
For questions about your health benefits reach out to [email protected]
For questions about the TCSA Food Pantry email [email protected] *Please note this service will be closed from August 11th- September 9th* and appointments can be booked at https://trentcentral.ca/onestop-chop-food-pantry
For information about the CUPE Professional Development Fund visit https://cupe3908.org/unit-2/
Territory Acknowledgement
The TGSA respectfully acknowledges that we are on the treaty and traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg. We offer our gratitude to the First Peoples for their care for, and teachings about, our earth and our relations. May we honour those teachings.We acknowledge that we gather in Nogojiwanong, a place known in Anishinaabemowin as “the place at the end of the rapids.” This land has been stewarded since time immemorial by the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg, whose governance systems, knowledge traditions, and relationships with the land continue to shape and sustain this territory.
This is the traditional territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg, covered by Treaty 20 (1818) and later by the Williams Treaties (1923). These treaties were not gifts of land, but rather agreements that Indigenous nations entered into with the Crown with the understanding of mutual respect, coexistence, and shared responsibilities. These agreements have been repeatedly violated by settler governments through land dispossession, resource extraction, and the imposition of systems that undermine Indigenous sovereignty and lifeways.
The 1923 Williams Treaties were signed under extreme duress, following decades of encroachment and exploitation. These treaties extinguished Indigenous land rights across a vast area of southern Ontario without fair compensation, and without upholding the spirit and intent of the original nation-to-nation relationships. It wasn’t until 2018 that Canada and Ontario formally acknowledged the harms caused by these treaties and agreed to compensatory measures—though justice remains an ongoing process.
Universities, including those on these lands, have played an active role in the settler colonial project. As institutions founded within and for the colonial state, universities have long served as tools of assimilation and dispossession: through research practices that extracted Indigenous knowledge without consent; through curricula that erased Indigenous histories; and through policies that excluded Indigenous students, scholars, and ways of knowing.
We must recognize that higher education in Canada is built on stolen land and enabled by the displacement of Indigenous peoples. The very foundations of our institutions—land grants, endowments, research funding—have often relied upon the expropriation of Indigenous territories and the erasure of Indigenous governance systems.
Today, as we learn and work on these lands, we are called to move beyond acknowledgment toward material restitution and decolonization. This includes centering Indigenous sovereignty, supporting language and culture revitalization, affirming the inherent rights of Indigenous nations, and upholding their jurisdiction over their territories.
We express our gratitude to the Michi Saagiig peoples for their enduring stewardship and care of this land, and we commit to walking in right relation, guided by accountability, reciprocity, and deep respect.
Throughout your time at Trent, you will hear these words said quite often. Since it was founded, Trent University has incorporated Indigenous culture and ways of learning into its curricular and extra-curricular programming, becoming an internationally recognized leader in Reconciliation and cooperative Indigenous Relations. The Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies, founded in 2017, provides a number of resources for students to begin their journey in understanding our relationship with Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledge. Students are encouraged to learn about why we offer our gratitude to the First Nations for the land that we occupy.