OCR Text |
Show Monday, February 26, 2001 THE SIGNPOST Page 5 Unions for grad students ... academe's latest absurdity By Herbert London Knight-Ridder Newspapers NEW YORK-For years, the Academy has been under assault by a variety of radical nostrums. A tradition of academic freedom has been deconstructed and relativized. So successful have radicals been in marching through this institution that most of the committees in university life are under their control. Now there is an effort to so recast academic life that it will have no relationship at all to higher education of a mere decade ago. This transformation will convert centers of teaching, study, research, debate into commercial institutions guided by business practices. In the vanguard of this transformation is the coordinated effort to unionize graduate students. The argument for this movement is that graduate students are a primary source of labor for teaching and research. Moreover, these students are obliged to teach for subsistence wages. What proponents of this notion understand is that institutions of shared governance, academic freedom and a hierarchical structure of students and faculty members will be undermined. They are intent on creating a quasi-Marxist model of workers (read: graduate students) and employers (read: faculty members), even though university organization defies this conceptualization. Yet the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate students at New York University could vote for union representation. The NLRB held that although "working as a graduate student may yield an educational benefit, such as learning to teach or research," such benefits "are not inconsistent' with employee status." University officials have argued--rightly in my judgmentthat this industrial model countenanced by the NLRB will challenge the educational purpose of the university and cast students as equals with faculty members who are obliged to judge their talents. Graduate students are unquestionably key players in the university calculus, but they are temporary players, there primarily to learn. Some radicals maintain that graduate students are not different from automobile workers or janitors who fight for more money, health benefits and security. But of course they are different: Graduate student status isn't a career, but a stop along the way to a career. How can professors provide for student security when the hope is that at some point students will graduate from the university?Two decades ago, the Supreme Court ruled, in National Labor Relations Board vs. Yeshiva University, that faculty members at private universities were considered managers and therefore unable to bargain as employees.My guess is that a similar ruling in the courts would be rendered for graduate students, notwithstanding the NLRB position. Graduate students assuredly are not managers, but they assuredly are not employees, as that word is normally used. Radicals are aware the recognition of graduate student unions is the thin edge of the wedge that may invite unionization of faculties, technicians, food service workers and every other group employed by universities. Moreover, the "commercialization" of the Academy that reformers cite as the reason for unions is in large part a construct of distrust that reformers promoted. . The traditions that inform faculty-student relations have been shattered by radicals who insist on adversarial contacts. It's true that graduate students are paid poorly for the service they provide, just as interns in a hospital are paid poorly. But that is largely because temporary employment is part and parcel of the training and learning.Reconfiguring the university as a factory would be an absurd idea for all parties concerned. The university, even in its damaged state, is an institution worth preserving and restoring.Its traditions have been refined over centuries, allowing for students to have the freedom to learn and faculty members to have the freedom to teach. Admittedly, conditions are changing, but not for the better. Should the unionization of graduate students be institutionalized, the nation will undoubtedly lose even the vestige of learning centers. Universities will be factories and students will be employees.Several years ago I wrote an article entitled "Death of the University." It was predicated on the melancholy theme that politicization of the academy would result in its demise. Some of my critics contended at the time my analysis was overheated. Based on the union movement for graduate students, little did my detractors or I know how accurate my analysis actually was. HERBERT LONDON is John M. Olin professor of humanities at New York University and president of Indianapolis-based Hudson Institute 2001, Bridge News me nmmm 7 u Call 626-7974 for more info NEEDS ON? OME AC! WSUSA STUDENT ELECTIONS sU '' reran March 17-31 v 22 positions available Election packets now available in Student Gov. Offices Packets must be turned in by March 6th 4 p.m; DO ... M B J J jj T M f n if . . Lj I .-V f K s v J She is a delicate Japanese flower. He is a careless sailor. Drawn by a love she envisions as endless as the sky, Butterfly takes flight from her family to marry the handsome American. She nurtures their child in hope and devotion.. .until a cannon shot from the harbor plunges her to reality. Puccini's most lavish and impassioned score creates the incomparably moving experience of Madama Butterfly. Madama Butterfly by Puccini Sung in Italian with English supertitles March 10, 12, 14, 16,2001 at 7:30 p.m. March 18 at 2:00 p.m. Student Rush, Tickets 12 Price! Call 355-ARTS www.tickets.com Tickets start as low as $14 n,:ri |