Analysis of Teach Out(side)

The Teaching Out concluded on May 29th with roughly 1,500 undergrads, grads, and faculty participating. All this means that that with no budget, with poorly populated contact databases, only 10 days of preparation, and an informal agreement between the Graduate Funding Committee and Graduate Students United (GSU), we were able to motivate some 1500 or so people to recognize this cause and participate in an action. Since the Apple action several months ago, these numbers have constantly increased, and it seems now, exponentially. Since we began organizing this event, we have improved our contacts with students and GSU is building a membership base of student interested in improving the plight of student employees on campus.

The recent Maroon editorial aside, in the year or so since the GAI was announced, the efforts of GFC and GSU have been, at the very least, successful in bringing attention to issues that have been sorely overlooked for too long and, more realistically, have stirred a bureaucracy, notoriously lethargic in its efforts to recognize grad student quality of life issues, into making some movement.

While speaking with a member of the Graduate Funding Committee yesterday, it was brought to my attention that none of the committees focusing on advanced residency fees, health care, or international students plan on dropping any real suggestions until well into the next academic year. For those of us who will be back on campus in September, it would appear that we have to start thinking about these over a long period of time. And in regards to next year, we have the added advantage of a very receptive Student Government and the Liaisons to the Board in key positions to help build networks and voice our concerns far more directly to the administration than in the past.

Moreover, this administration is the first in recent memory that has had to contend with a determined, organized, responsive, and angry grad student body, coalescing – slower than we may have wished – into a formidable opponent. And whether or not one sees correlation or causation in such a situation, there is one thing we all know for sure: while this may be the best any administration has offered to grad students in years, they are still going to have to do a hell of a lot better if they don’t want to see 2000, 3000, 5000, or more students protesting on the quad next year.

If you have any thoughts, comments, or concerns, feel free to post them below.

Pictures from Teach Out(side): May 28th and 29th

Summary of Teach Out(side):

# of classes taught out on the quads:

Wed: 20-25
Thurs: 65
Total: 85-90 classes (impressive!)

Best class period: Thursday morning 10:30 – Noon @ 23 classes out at the same time

- from noon – 1:30 we had at least 17 classes outside

- it should be noted that at this point it was sunny and warm.

- Rain started around 1:15 and continued for about half an hour into the 1:30 – 3pm class period, so very few classes came out; but we still had 4 groups, sitting on fieldstone, huddling in archways and otherwise going on and beyond the call of duty.

- If it had not rained, we would have topped 100 classes over the two days.

A fairly conservative average class size would be 15 (many groups were 20+, some 30+ and of course there were smaller discussion groups, but I think 15 is fair and even 20 wouldn’t be stretching it).

So, if we use the most conservative estimates, 85 classes times 15 students per, we had 1275 grads, undergrads and faculty out there over two days. At the high end (90 classes * 20 students per) we had 1800 folks on the Quad.

Wednesday, May 28th 2008






Thursday, May 29th, 2008

TEACH OUT (side)

Wednesday May 28 & Thursday May 29

On the Quad

Attention University of Chicago Students, Staff, and Faculty

On Wednesday May 28th and Thursday May 29th, we call upon you
to hold your classes outside to show solidarity with graduate
student employees and their demands for fair pay, guaranteed
teaching opportunities, and health care benefits.

For over a year, we have been calling attention to the
shockingly low wages paid to graduate students teachers. Our
pay has not increased in over eight years. Whether we grade
papers as Teaching Assistants ($1,500 per quarter) or instruct
a course ($3,500 per quarter), our pay remains the lowest
among peer institutions and most area universities, and far
below the cost of living. Furthermore, none of the teaching
positions we hold include health care insurance or other
employee benefits,

The work we do is essential to the functioning of this
university, but we are paid as if we are disposable.

In response, Graduate Students United and the Graduate
Council's Graduate Funding Committee have been collecting
petitions, holding rallies, and organizing students to fight
for a change. While we have won some improvements in graduate
stipends, summer funding, and dissertation fellowships, these
limited changes have not met the needs of current students.

And it was only at the start of the Spring Quarter that we
were successful in getting the Provost's Office to convene a
student-faculty Committee on Teaching to review these and
other employment issues.

While this committee will likely recommend a much-needed raise
in teaching pay, these recommendations must be approved by
many of the same administrators who have failed year after
year to increase pay!

To help support the work of the Teaching Committee, Graduate
Students United and the Graduate Funding Committee is calling
for a two-day Teach Out so that the university can see how
much teaching we do as well as how much support we have from
students, staff, and faculty.


Who: All Students, Staff, and Professors

Where: Outside on the Main Quad

What: A Two-Day Teach Out in Solidarity with Graduate Students

When: Wednesday May 28th and Thursday May 29th

Why: Graduate students demand fair pay and health care
coverage for all university employees!

For more info or a PDF copy of the event flyer, contact:

Joe Bonni: joebonni@uchicago.edu

Toussaint Losier: tlosier@uchicago.edu

Sponsored by:
the Graduate Funding Committee
Graduate Students United

Chicago Maroon: Grad Group Seeks Better Benefits

The formation this school year of Graduate Students United (GSU), a group of graduate students seeking to improve graduate employee benefits at the University, has added yet another voice to the chorus of calls for better representation and funding at the University.

GSU was organized in September to present a unified group to advocate for graduate student worker issues.

“The main goal was to build the power of working graduate students,” GSU member Jack Lesniewski said. “Not to be relying on ad-hoc committees or on particular administration at particular points but to have a sustained power and presence that democratically represents the interests of working graduate students.”

Click here for more:
http://www.chicagomaroon.com/online_edition/article/9846

Article in the University of Chicago Magazine

“First we took our classes / Then we wrote up our MAs,” sang Joe Grim Feinberg, AM’06, a fifth-year anthropology graduate student and Graduate Students United (GSU) member, at a March 12 rally outside Swift Hall. “Then we took exams / And we proposed to dissertate. / Then we did our research in the field so far away. / Then we looked into our pockets / And we found we had no pay.”

Click to read more:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0856/chicago_journal/graduated_aid.shtml

Chronicle of Higher Ed:Grad Student Union Launched at U. of Chicago

In 2004, the Bush mob’s infamous executive arrogance in the Brown decision jammed the brakes on the organizing of graduate student employees at private universities (previously green-lighted by a bipartisan unanimous NLRB decision consistent with the law governing grad employees at public institutions, affirming the victory of GSOC-UAW at NYU).

Despite the setback, organizing is once more on the front burner at private universities in the U.S., including by committed, activist grad employees at the University of Chicago, outraged by an unfair stipend arrangement and by some of the lowest wages for teaching in the country (as low as $1,500 per quarter). As a result of graduate employee agitation, commonly through collective bargaining, 3/4 of university employers pay for graduate employee health insurance; the University of Chicago does not. Among the graduate employees that I met there last month was one whose earnings as a gardener offered far better pay than his teaching.

Click for more:
http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bousquet/grad-student-union-launched-at-u-chicago

Pics from Funding Rally

Chicago Reader response: Slaves to the System but Free to Organize

The members and supporters of Graduate Students United would like to thank Deanna Isaacs for her sensitive and sympathetic treatment of student labor and funding issues at the University of Chicago, as well as in the city’s universities and colleges more broadly. Readers who would like more information about these issues, such as our current organizing drive, should check out our Web site: uchicagogsu.org/index.html.

Click for more:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/letters/080515/

Chicago Reader: And All I Got Was This Lousy PhD

In February 2007, the University of Chicago announced a new program that promised to transform the lives of its graduate students. Beginning the following fall, almost every entering grad in the humanities and social sciences divisions would receive an annual stipend of $19,000 for five years, along with free tuition, guaranteed teaching opportunities, and other benefits. The $50 million program looked downright princely, until it became evident that none of the university’s 800 or so current grad students in those disciplines would be included.

Click for more:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/thebusiness/080501/