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.