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Welcome to Issue 19.2 of Xchanges!

It is my distinct pleasure to introduce Issue 19.2 of Xchanges, the second installment of our most recent Graduate Symposium, which continues to explore the current state of graduate teaching experiences.

As my co-managing editor and friend, Dr. Jennifer Burke Reifman, wrote in the Editor’s Note of the first installment of the symposium, our initial idea for the recent symposium (made during an editorial meeting in late 2023) was set against what felt like a particularly tumultuous time for higher education—notwithstanding the reality that colleges and universities have often found themselves at the epicenter of ongoing cultural wars. In the short time since, however, the socio-political attacks on the foundational structures of higher learning have accelerated and intensified, as evidenced by the proliferation of anti-diversity legislation and educational gag orders taking hold across the academic landscape nationwide, among other developments. Perhaps most alarmingly, and even though no one is insulated from these attacks, the brunt of their force seems to be increasingly borne by those most vulnerable and precariously employed by higher education, including graduate student teachers—those same persons who are at the center of Xchanges’s mission.

It is precisely for this reason that I believe it is imperative, now more than ever, to amplify the voices of the authors included in this issue—to listen in earnest and with intent to their experiences. Moreover, it is precisely for this reason that I believe Xchanges serves a vital and uniquely situated role in both understanding the current disciplinary moment and in thinking about how those of us located within higher education might continue to work collectively toward the actualization of a more just future for academia writ large.

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