Speaking of current events on campuses, May Day, Unions, etc. When I was finishing grad school, we were trying to unionize the grad students at SUNY Stony Brook and had a tent city set up behind the Physics Building on a nice grassy area that was out of harm’s way. That tent city stood for a few weeks and finally we were told to take it down, ostensibly for public health reasons. Well, its not like anyone was shitting in the grass, obstructing buildings, or screaming at people. It was a quiet protest much of which was carried out in the campus newspaper, the Statesman. Finally, the campus cops took it down unilaterally. Some were arrested but I think charges dropped.
The big issue was the social science and humanities grad students were getting an abominably small stipend, no health benefits, and tasked with teaching whole classes rather than acting as teaching assistants, which was their formal title. It was a rotten system and their faculty treated them like galley slaves. We in the sciences were typically well funded with grants supplementing state stipends. My department supplimented the state stipend and we didn’t have to teach whole classes. Just TA and do our research.
As a member of the Grad Student Senate, I was not thrilled with the idea of getting arrested a few weeks before I was supposed to defend my dissertation and fortunately, my colleagues told me to get the hell back to my office, finish writing, defend, and get the hell out of there. Which is what I did. Next thing I knew, I landed in Hawaii, which kinda felt like what Dorothy was thinking when she landed in Oz.
Khal: I find it curious that the social science and humanities (I think warm-hearted, generous, empathetic disciplines) grads were treated less humanely than the STEM (cold-hearted, data-driven disciplines) grads.
Mayhaps the social science/humanities profs and leadership were really closet business school/Scrooge practitioners? :-)
It was all about the money and workload. The social science/humanities faculty didn’t want to teach a lot of classes but didn’t have a lot of money, so they offloaded classes onto grad students, only they paid them as teaching assistants rather than instructional quasi-faculty. I didn’t find the social science and humanities profs at Stony Brook very humanitarian as they were happy to run that scam, looking out for #1.
I’m not sure the STEM faculty were intrinsically all that more humanitarian. It is just that the competition for STEM grad students was intense (Stony Brook was thought of as “the Berkeley of the East”) and we had a lot of NASA and NSF money to play with (we were doing a boatload of lunar science back then and working on actual moon rocks and moon rock experimental petrology). We did have a very collegial, egalitarian relationship with our geology faculty. Everyone on a first name basis. When we came in as new grad students, we were assigned as teaching assistants, but we had our pay bumped up to the same as research assistants even before we started doing research. Money makes some of us a better person, I suppose. Unless you are a Donald Trump.
All of that made for geology grad students not very interested in unionization as we had it really good and didn’t want to piss where we ate. But most of us knew that a lot of other department grad students were being ratfucked so we didn’t badmouth the union drive, either.
It failed in 1987, at any rate. But I guess it eventually worked out. Happy May Day to the GSEU!
Khal: Thanks! Most interesting insights by one who lived it. I’m always intrigued by the motivations of actors in a drama. Shakespeare would have had a field day there, eh? 🙂
Speaking of underpaid grad students agitating for higher wages, we had a smallish demonstration at UNM yesterday. UNM’s offering a 4 percent raise; the union wants 50 percent, saying all the smaller bump would do is kick their people out of SNAP eligibility. Not much of a story, frankly. I’ll cast around for a better one.
Man, librarians are my people. I kept ’em hopping on Randolph AFB and worked ’em pretty hard in Bibleburg, too. Shoot, first place I went here in 2014, when we couldn’t get the Innertubes turned on lickety-split, was the library. Free Innertubes! Jaysis! Don’t gotta buy coffee or nothin’.
I’m not so sure about teachers, though. They mostly conspired against me because I would only pay attention to subjects that interested me, especially if I was on drugs, which I usually was. The grades they handed down damn near kept me out of college, where the good drugs were. But I fooled ’em and crushed the SAT/ACTs.
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Happy International Labour Day, Comrades!
We’ll be flying the Red Bike today, comrades.
As a UAW Brat and a former UHPA BoD member, I approve of that message!
This former Newspaper Guild stalwart supports you in your struggle, comrade.
Speaking of current events on campuses, May Day, Unions, etc. When I was finishing grad school, we were trying to unionize the grad students at SUNY Stony Brook and had a tent city set up behind the Physics Building on a nice grassy area that was out of harm’s way. That tent city stood for a few weeks and finally we were told to take it down, ostensibly for public health reasons. Well, its not like anyone was shitting in the grass, obstructing buildings, or screaming at people. It was a quiet protest much of which was carried out in the campus newspaper, the Statesman. Finally, the campus cops took it down unilaterally. Some were arrested but I think charges dropped.
The big issue was the social science and humanities grad students were getting an abominably small stipend, no health benefits, and tasked with teaching whole classes rather than acting as teaching assistants, which was their formal title. It was a rotten system and their faculty treated them like galley slaves. We in the sciences were typically well funded with grants supplementing state stipends. My department supplimented the state stipend and we didn’t have to teach whole classes. Just TA and do our research.
As a member of the Grad Student Senate, I was not thrilled with the idea of getting arrested a few weeks before I was supposed to defend my dissertation and fortunately, my colleagues told me to get the hell back to my office, finish writing, defend, and get the hell out of there. Which is what I did. Next thing I knew, I landed in Hawaii, which kinda felt like what Dorothy was thinking when she landed in Oz.
Khal: I find it curious that the social science and humanities (I think warm-hearted, generous, empathetic disciplines) grads were treated less humanely than the STEM (cold-hearted, data-driven disciplines) grads.
Mayhaps the social science/humanities profs and leadership were really closet business school/Scrooge practitioners? :-)
It was all about the money and workload. The social science/humanities faculty didn’t want to teach a lot of classes but didn’t have a lot of money, so they offloaded classes onto grad students, only they paid them as teaching assistants rather than instructional quasi-faculty. I didn’t find the social science and humanities profs at Stony Brook very humanitarian as they were happy to run that scam, looking out for #1.
I’m not sure the STEM faculty were intrinsically all that more humanitarian. It is just that the competition for STEM grad students was intense (Stony Brook was thought of as “the Berkeley of the East”) and we had a lot of NASA and NSF money to play with (we were doing a boatload of lunar science back then and working on actual moon rocks and moon rock experimental petrology). We did have a very collegial, egalitarian relationship with our geology faculty. Everyone on a first name basis. When we came in as new grad students, we were assigned as teaching assistants, but we had our pay bumped up to the same as research assistants even before we started doing research. Money makes some of us a better person, I suppose. Unless you are a Donald Trump.
All of that made for geology grad students not very interested in unionization as we had it really good and didn’t want to piss where we ate. But most of us knew that a lot of other department grad students were being ratfucked so we didn’t badmouth the union drive, either.
It failed in 1987, at any rate. But I guess it eventually worked out. Happy May Day to the GSEU!
https://www.cwa1104gseu.com/gseu-stony-brook
Khal: Thanks! Most interesting insights by one who lived it. I’m always intrigued by the motivations of actors in a drama. Shakespeare would have had a field day there, eh? 🙂
Speaking of underpaid grad students agitating for higher wages, we had a smallish demonstration at UNM yesterday. UNM’s offering a 4 percent raise; the union wants 50 percent, saying all the smaller bump would do is kick their people out of SNAP eligibility. Not much of a story, frankly. I’ll cast around for a better one.
Excellent start to the ayem.
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Woody Guthrie and his guitar (“This Machine Kills Fascists”) would certainly approve.
I believe he would. I do.
I sent this to my son in San Diego in order to cheer him up. As a librarian/teacher he and his colleagues are being assaulted continually.
Man, librarians are my people. I kept ’em hopping on Randolph AFB and worked ’em pretty hard in Bibleburg, too. Shoot, first place I went here in 2014, when we couldn’t get the Innertubes turned on lickety-split, was the library. Free Innertubes! Jaysis! Don’t gotta buy coffee or nothin’.
I’m not so sure about teachers, though. They mostly conspired against me because I would only pay attention to subjects that interested me, especially if I was on drugs, which I usually was. The grades they handed down damn near kept me out of college, where the good drugs were. But I fooled ’em and crushed the SAT/ACTs.
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