Odd-- no one has told me who will be continuing my class while I walk the picket line.

The GEO has obtained a 3% raise in pay while the entre rest of the university received ZERO PERCENT RAISES this year -- faculty AND staff.

When I was a TA, I (and my classmates) had no illusions that I should be paid like an experienced teacher when I was an inexperienced teacher-in-training. And I was anything but affluent. I went through undergrad and grad school on scholarships and TA tuition waivers. As a TA, I made $454 per month in Chicago -- and my apartment was $325! No, I couldn't live near campus, no I couldn't even live in a "nice" neighborhood -- lower middle class, yes. The experience I gained as a TA was invaluable. So I lived like a student (well, duh!) -- isn't that what I was??? Today's generation wants to be treated like experienced teachers, not as students getting in-service training experience.

Crunchycon,
Did you not read the article? You say you got by in part on TA tuition waivers. The article says the university is failing to guarantee them. Would you have been able to succeed without them, even with a 3% increase?

The university has said that there will be no change in the waiver policy. The GEO is demanding that waivers be guaranteed even if a department or the university has the inability to support them financially, i.e., the esteemed Gov of Illinois demands to be returned a percentage of the money the state supplied the university for the current budget year -- which former gov blago did EVERY year he was in office.

And, no, emarsh, I wouldn't have been able to go to grad school w/o the tuition waiver, But, then, it is a choice, not a right, to attend grad school. I would have had to choose to stop if the waivers had. Simple as that.

The sole remaining contention between the GEO and the university administration is NOT WAGES but tuition waivers, which, if not secured, could result in graduate student employees paying an additional thirteen thousand dollars a year - for many students, this is actually the difference between being able to continue their degree or not. The university administration has refused to write a contract which protects out-of-state tuition waivers. Thus, any graduate student employee who is not a native of Illinois is faced with the possibility of having to pay more than ten thousand dollars each year to continue with their degree.

Additionally disturbing is the university administration's continued dissemination of misleading information about the strike through mass e-mails to undergraduates and faculty.

For more information on the Graduate Student Organization: http://www.uigeo.org/

For a thoughtful perspective which delves into how this issue reflects a decline in the larger mission of Illinois as a public land-grant institution, I recommend reading this: http://unitcrit.blogspot.com/2009/11/michael-verderame-address-to-board-of.html

"But, then, it is a choice, not a right, to attend grad school. I would have had to choose to stop if the waivers had. Simple as that."

Crunchycon, are you suggesting that if you were in the middle of your degree, you would "simple as that" have chosen to give up, because the very funding offer which had been offered to attract you to the school was suddenly retracted? I have little respect for such a passive, defeatist attitude. The determination and active perseverence of the graduate students at Illinois evidences their own unwavering dedication to fulfill their educational goals successfully.

The situation is that the University of Illinois administration will only provide a partial guarantee to continue funding "in-state" tuition waivers. Over the last year, they have repeatedly threatened to re-configure graduate student tuition waivers, such that they will only fund "in-state" tuition. At Illinois, anyone who moves here for graduate school is considered an "out of state" resident, no matter how long they live here. If the administration only covers "in-state" tuition, graduate students would have to pick up the overage, which would be catastrophic for almost all graduate students.

The GEO presented language to the University administration on Sunday, which would protect graduate students in the event that such a reconfiguration occurred. The GEO wanted the right to "re-open" negotiations should the University cease to fund "out of state" tuition. The University administration refused.

Also, as a point of clarification, the only tuition waivers that are in dispute are the ones tied to TA-ships and GA-ships. That is, tuition waivers that graduate students earn through their labor.

For what it's worth, I am a faculty member on campus at Illinois, who has been following the situation closely. I believe that the news coming out of the University of Illinois' news bureau is intentionally misrepresenting the situation, to the detriment of the GEO. I would encourage interested readers of the Chronicle to investigate the issue fully before forming a judgment.

parsoling -- it is not a defeatist attitude. If student loans could not be secured to continue my studies, yes, I would have been forced to give up at that point if my ta-ship had been rescinded. I worked in the "real" world before beginning my graduate studies, so perhaps I have a more realistic viewpoint. Those who spend their entire lives in academe have a very different take on how things "should" work.

From the Chancellor:

In the last 24 hours there have been many questions about the University's intention regarding tuition waivers.

Let me be as clear as possible in response to this issue. The excellence of our graduate programs depends on our capacity to provide fair and reasonable expectations for graduate assistants regarding their tuition waivers.

Graduate students with assistantships will not have their tuition waivers reduced while they hold qualifying assistantships, are in good academic standing, and are making proper progress toward graduation in the program in which they began.

This commitment is consistent with our long-standing and ongoing University practice.

Sorry -- from the Provost.

Sounds reasonable.

Of course the information above reads well, but the information from the provost actually distorts the main issue at hand. If you read the official university news bureau press release closely, an asterisk will lead you to the bottom of the page, which indicates:

"During the term of this agreement, the university will bargain the impact of any change by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois to the graduate assistant tuition waiver policy set forth in Article IV, Section 5, of the General Rules Concerning University Organization and Procedures. The University acknowledges that the term "graduate assistant" as used in Article IV, Section 5, of the General Rules includes Teaching Assistants."

Naturally, they do not go any further to explain that graduate assistant as defined in Article IV section 5 only includes students who are native to the state of Illinois. Thus,under the terms of the current contract being offered, the majority of graduate students who were recruited here from other parts of the country could be, without any further bargaining or warning, forced to pay as much as $13,000 dollars a year in tuition fees. This could have catastrophic results for graduate students across the board, and is not, by any means, "reasonable."