Columbia ...

by Cliopatria

In response to Michael's query below, here are links to the New York Times and the Columbia Spectator stories on the strike of graduate students at Columbia University. Thanks to Jonathan Rees, here is the website for the Graduate Student Employees United, Columbia University's graduate students' union. Here are the University's press releases on the strike, including historian/Provost Alan Brinkley's"General Guidelines."
Update: See also Brian Ulrich's note on negotiations over contracts for Teaching Assistants at the University of Wisconsin where there is also the possibility of a strike.

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Jonathan Dresner - 4/21/2004

I was struck by the language of the official Columbia commentary, especially Brinkley's guidelines. "Students" almost always means "undergraduates," except in two noteworthy exceptions: the university's refusal to recognize TAs as "employees eligible for union representation" because they are 'students' on an educational journey, and in Brinkley's ominous (for the strikers, not the faculty) reminder to faculty not to withhold or modify letters of recommendation for striking students. Otherwise, their concern is entirely for the undergrads; they're making no concession to the idea that graduate students might have interests or needs that are not being met by the university. Of course.