As seen in The New York Times.
NEW YORK — NYU will cut the stipends of several striking graduate assistants who continue to abandon their teaching assignments for the spring semester, WSN has learned.
Letters indicating the cuts, sent from the Office of the Vice Provost, said stipends will be withheld for upcoming semesters and listed the courses that the GAs were assigned to instruct.
“Overall, the vast, vast majority of graduate assistants who accepted assignments for the spring semester have been fulfilling their responsibilities,” university spokesman John Beckman said. “A small handful have not.”
According to the letter, which was obtained by WSN, students will continue to receive free tuition remission and the university will continue to pay all of their healthcare premiums even though their stipends were withdrawn.
“They have it both ways,” GSOC spokeswoman Susan Valentine said. “We’re not workers but we’re being penalized for not working.”
The letters have left many striking GAs furious.
“I can’t believe the university has decided to take such draconian measures,” said Jenny Shaw, a GA in the History department. Shaw has not received a letter.
President John Sexton first issued a letter to GAs on Nov. 28, declaring that students on strike who do not return to work by Dec. 5 will lose their spring semester’s stipend and teaching eligibility.
Those who return to work and strike again will lose their stipend for two semesters.
“I believe there was a collective understanding based on the Nov. 28 letter that those graduate assistants who did accept assignments would either fulfill those responsibilities or confront the consequences outlined in the letter,” Beckman said.
The university is not consistent in its demands and students are being punished worse than indicated in Sexton’s letter, Valentine said.
“Though they said they would do it, they’re not doing it in the way they said,” she said. “All the GAs who got letters were on strike the entire time and never came in to teach.”
Before the stipend cuts, some GAs were transferred out of active instruction without reason, Valentine said. This letter is just one more example of the reasons why GAs are on strike, she said. “Since the strike started, they’ve tried to reduce and reduce the pool of people who were striking work,” Valentine said. “Some people were put onto a free semester without consent. Some were switched to fellowships.”
The adjustment of assistantship and fellowship distribution served as a way to deter risky GAs who may strike again, she said.
“Going on strike, we were prepared to have our pay docked, but the blacklist and lockout against strikers is clear evidence of why we need a union to work at NYU,” GSOC unit chair Michael Palm said.
Among the first to receive a letter, sociology department GA Amy LeClair said even though the letter was expected, reality set in when she received it.
“I looked at it for a few minutes and then I was really angry,” LeClair said.
In the fall, she taught her own class, Statistics for Social Research, as a stand-alone graduate assistant. LeClair said she believes she was targeted so early because she taught individually, not with a professor.
“I’m expected to have the full responsibilities of an instructor but I get none of the rights or benefits,” LeClair said. “I’m not going to let them scare me back to work by them taking my pay.”
Stand-alone graduate assistants are merely the starting point for the administration’s threats, said Andrew Ross, a professor of American Studies and one of the co-founders of Faculty Democracy, a group of mostly pro-GSOC professors.
“In many ways, stand-alone instructors are the most vulnerable,” Ross said. “The tactic is to scare and intimidate in order to make examples of them.”
Ross said the two-semester penalty was far too harsh for only a few weeks of a strike.
“I think the penalties are extremely disproportionate,” Ross said. “It’s a barbaric response, a shameful policy for an educational institution.”
Some university departments have signed neutrality agreements and have been very protective of their GAs, LeClair said.
“[The] sociology [department] has been very good to me,” LeClair said. “I need to have relationships within the department to succeed. I don’t need that from the administration.”
LeClair said that the administration is treating GAs much like delinquent children, referencing the letter’s language and tone.
“It’s degrading and disrespectful that [it] addressed me by my first name,” LeClair said. “I never get treated like an adult, but its fine for me to go teach paying undergraduates for them.”
NYU administrators are circumventing professors in disciplining students, a process that centrally involves faculty, Ross said.
“The penalties have been exacted without any procedure whatsoever,” Ross said. “This administration in particular rides roughshod over instructors time and time again.”
NYU’s responsibility is to the undergraduates who enrolled for the classes, Provost David McLaughlin said.
Beckman said, “At heart, the key issue is ensuring that our undergraduates receive the education that they came to NYU to get.”
The effects of the tension between GAs and NYU can be felt in some departments who have not signed neutrality agreements with the university.
According to an account acquired by WSN of a Dec. 2 meeting of the Directors of Graduate Studies, some departments said that they believed that the union has served them well, while others had no interest or opposed the union.
“There was hardly unanimity between the departments present,” the account said of discussion at the meeting. “In some departments, of course, there are divisions among and between faculty and graduate students.”
The account also mentions the creation of a modified MacCracken fellowship that do not require a no-strike clause.
Rebecca Karl, director of undergraduate studies in the department of East Asian Studies, said that her department decided not to enlarge its two most popular undergraduate classes even though student demand was high for them. Prolonged course waitlists and an inability to register for open seats prevented 45 students from joining those two classes, Karl said.
“We didn’t make cuts, per se,” she said.
GAs who teach recitations or have yet to receive a letter continue to support those whose stipends have been cut, Shaw said.
“I think its unfortunate that the administration has decided to go through with this in a haphazard kind of way,” Shaw said. “It may only be a handful now, maybe all of us later, but we stand beside them.”
In the face of these difficulties, the administration’s actions are unprecedented for a graduate union conflict, Karl said.
“Pre-emptive docking of pay is punitive in the extreme,” Karl said. “To me, it’s just appalling.”
Nevertheless, the stipend cuts are a serious blow to full-time students like LeClair.
“I already have two part-time jobs to support myself through grad school,” she said.
Though she’s confident that she’ll receive support from her peers, making ends meet won’t be easy and it’s beginning to take a toll on her academic performance.
“Strike funds of $200 a week won’t cover my rent,” LeClair said. “Graduate students are at the margin of poverty for a single adult in New York City. Who won’t it impose a financial burden on?”
–additional reporting by Ali Weinberg
First GAs’ Stipends To Be Cut at NYU
As seen in The New York Times.
NEW YORK — NYU will cut the stipends of several striking graduate assistants who continue to abandon their teaching assignments for the spring semester, WSN has learned.
Letters indicating the cuts, sent from the Office of the Vice Provost, said stipends will be withheld for upcoming semesters and listed the courses that the GAs were assigned to instruct.
“Overall, the vast, vast majority of graduate assistants who accepted assignments for the spring semester have been fulfilling their responsibilities,” university spokesman John Beckman said. “A small handful have not.”
According to the letter, which was obtained by WSN, students will continue to receive free tuition remission and the university will continue to pay all of their healthcare premiums even though their stipends were withdrawn.
“They have it both ways,” GSOC spokeswoman Susan Valentine said. “We’re not workers but we’re being penalized for not working.”
The letters have left many striking GAs furious.
“I can’t believe the university has decided to take such draconian measures,” said Jenny Shaw, a GA in the History department. Shaw has not received a letter.
President John Sexton first issued a letter to GAs on Nov. 28, declaring that students on strike who do not return to work by Dec. 5 will lose their spring semester’s stipend and teaching eligibility.
Those who return to work and strike again will lose their stipend for two semesters.
“I believe there was a collective understanding based on the Nov. 28 letter that those graduate assistants who did accept assignments would either fulfill those responsibilities or confront the consequences outlined in the letter,” Beckman said.
The university is not consistent in its demands and students are being punished worse than indicated in Sexton’s letter, Valentine said.
“Though they said they would do it, they’re not doing it in the way they said,” she said. “All the GAs who got letters were on strike the entire time and never came in to teach.”
Before the stipend cuts, some GAs were transferred out of active instruction without reason, Valentine said. This letter is just one more example of the reasons why GAs are on strike, she said. “Since the strike started, they’ve tried to reduce and reduce the pool of people who were striking work,” Valentine said. “Some people were put onto a free semester without consent. Some were switched to fellowships.”
The adjustment of assistantship and fellowship distribution served as a way to deter risky GAs who may strike again, she said.
“Going on strike, we were prepared to have our pay docked, but the blacklist and lockout against strikers is clear evidence of why we need a union to work at NYU,” GSOC unit chair Michael Palm said.
Among the first to receive a letter, sociology department GA Amy LeClair said even though the letter was expected, reality set in when she received it.
“I looked at it for a few minutes and then I was really angry,” LeClair said.
In the fall, she taught her own class, Statistics for Social Research, as a stand-alone graduate assistant. LeClair said she believes she was targeted so early because she taught individually, not with a professor.
“I’m expected to have the full responsibilities of an instructor but I get none of the rights or benefits,” LeClair said. “I’m not going to let them scare me back to work by them taking my pay.”
Stand-alone graduate assistants are merely the starting point for the administration’s threats, said Andrew Ross, a professor of American Studies and one of the co-founders of Faculty Democracy, a group of mostly pro-GSOC professors.
“In many ways, stand-alone instructors are the most vulnerable,” Ross said. “The tactic is to scare and intimidate in order to make examples of them.”
Ross said the two-semester penalty was far too harsh for only a few weeks of a strike.
“I think the penalties are extremely disproportionate,” Ross said. “It’s a barbaric response, a shameful policy for an educational institution.”
Some university departments have signed neutrality agreements and have been very protective of their GAs, LeClair said.
“[The] sociology [department] has been very good to me,” LeClair said. “I need to have relationships within the department to succeed. I don’t need that from the administration.”
LeClair said that the administration is treating GAs much like delinquent children, referencing the letter’s language and tone.
“It’s degrading and disrespectful that [it] addressed me by my first name,” LeClair said. “I never get treated like an adult, but its fine for me to go teach paying undergraduates for them.”
NYU administrators are circumventing professors in disciplining students, a process that centrally involves faculty, Ross said.
“The penalties have been exacted without any procedure whatsoever,” Ross said. “This administration in particular rides roughshod over instructors time and time again.”
NYU’s responsibility is to the undergraduates who enrolled for the classes, Provost David McLaughlin said.
Beckman said, “At heart, the key issue is ensuring that our undergraduates receive the education that they came to NYU to get.”
The effects of the tension between GAs and NYU can be felt in some departments who have not signed neutrality agreements with the university.
According to an account acquired by WSN of a Dec. 2 meeting of the Directors of Graduate Studies, some departments said that they believed that the union has served them well, while others had no interest or opposed the union.
“There was hardly unanimity between the departments present,” the account said of discussion at the meeting. “In some departments, of course, there are divisions among and between faculty and graduate students.”
The account also mentions the creation of a modified MacCracken fellowship that do not require a no-strike clause.
Rebecca Karl, director of undergraduate studies in the department of East Asian Studies, said that her department decided not to enlarge its two most popular undergraduate classes even though student demand was high for them. Prolonged course waitlists and an inability to register for open seats prevented 45 students from joining those two classes, Karl said.
“We didn’t make cuts, per se,” she said.
GAs who teach recitations or have yet to receive a letter continue to support those whose stipends have been cut, Shaw said.
“I think its unfortunate that the administration has decided to go through with this in a haphazard kind of way,” Shaw said. “It may only be a handful now, maybe all of us later, but we stand beside them.”
In the face of these difficulties, the administration’s actions are unprecedented for a graduate union conflict, Karl said.
“Pre-emptive docking of pay is punitive in the extreme,” Karl said. “To me, it’s just appalling.”
Nevertheless, the stipend cuts are a serious blow to full-time students like LeClair.
“I already have two part-time jobs to support myself through grad school,” she said.
Though she’s confident that she’ll receive support from her peers, making ends meet won’t be easy and it’s beginning to take a toll on her academic performance.
“Strike funds of $200 a week won’t cover my rent,” LeClair said. “Graduate students are at the margin of poverty for a single adult in New York City. Who won’t it impose a financial burden on?”
–additional reporting by Ali Weinberg