My name is Jenna Marvin (she/her), and I am a fourth-year Ph.D. Candidate in History of Art & Visual Studies and the current Campus Head Steward of CGSU-UE. I am running for Campus Head Steward on the Build / Activate / Mobilize (BAM) slate. I have been organizing with CGSU-UE since before our membership card drive in 2023. In addition to serving as a Region 3 representative on our Bargaining Committee, alongside Ewa Nizalowska, I created and coordinated the humanities and social sciences organizing structure during our strike escalation campaign from the ground up.

As our current Campus Head Steward, I spearheaded the election of over 115 stewards across our bargaining unit. Stewards are the backbone of our union not only because they file the grievances that enforce our contract, but they are also the face of CGSU-UE in their workspaces. I believe that creating a sustainable, community-based, inclusive, collaborative, and transparent organizing structure is crucial to our ability to protect graduate workers. Stewards across our union’s seven regions meet weekly to discuss ongoing grievances and organizing campaigns, in addition to visiting offices and labs in their workspaces and calling department meetings to discuss union business. In the past two and a half months, our steward network has mobilized to secure graduate workers’ seventh-year funding, transitional funding for graduate workers to change advisors, and TCAT passes for all doctoral workers and in-unit Master’s workers, among a number of other crucial wins that make the lives of graduate workers better and more equitable. CGSU-UE is finally becoming the vibrant, visible, and militant community that many of us have fought hard for.

That being said, we still have work to do. In this term as Campus Head Steward, I will continue to grow our steward network by encouraging active members to become stewards and by working with the VP of Membership to cultivate trust in departments and communities that are under-represented in our organizing and leadership structure. I am currently working with a group of stewards to develop an international graduate worker survey to hear from international workers about what they need and want from our union at this critical moment.

As our current Campus Head Steward, I am also responsible for keeping our organizing focused on multiple inter-connected fights—Cornell’s blatant attempts to discipline and fire workers to cut costs and appease the federal administration, the fight against the far-right’s attempt to dismantle graduate unions based on false accusations of anti-semitism, and the federal government’s attack on the rights and dignity of international workers. In this upcoming term as Campus Head Steward, I will prioritize robust contract enforcement alongside militant organizing to make sure that our members understand the connection between our union and these national-level fights.