Word: geso
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While teaching assistants contribute to every undergraduate's education, GESO ignores the fact that teaching is an intrinsic part of their education as well as their financial aid. Unlike technical and clerical workers, graduate students are at Yale to earn a degree, not to make a living. When GESO spokesperson Eve Weinbaum argues that "at Yale you can't support yourself by teaching," she forgets that students are not at Yale for that purpose...
Graduate students are supported not by a salary, but by a stipend. They teach undergraduates as a part of their financial aid packages that forgive the thousands of dollars in tuition they would otherwise pay. This logic does not escape Yale University, even if GESO leaders don't grasp it. While students rallied to support clerical and technical workers' attempt to unionize in 1984, few students support GESO's efforts...
...fact, this strike may reflect Yale's troubled labor past, more than the legitimate claims of oppressed students. According to one Yale source, Yale's Local 34 will renegotiate its contract next year and hopes to use GESO to strengthen its position. For this reason, the union is bankrolling GESO's efforts to secure University recognition...
...seeking recognition as paid employees, GESO degrades the idea of a university as a community of scholars. As Yale's recent refusal of the $20 million Bass grant shows, unlike most of America the university is not simply in the business of making money. And graduate students are not in the business of making money either. While some may dream of a comfortable tenured position in their future, they should be commended for ignoring the financial lures of law and Wall Street in order to pursue academic knowledge...
...same time, we must fault GESO leaders for disrupting their commitment to academics in an attempt to take a few hundred dollars more from the university. GESO members must abandon the illusion that they are merely salaried laborers at their university...