Faculty Forum on
Graduate-Student Unionization
December 6, 01 - Yale University
6:00 p.m. in the Luce Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Avenue

Washington, D.C.

Faculty from Yale University and elsewhere will meet on the Yale campus on Thursday evening, December 6, for a forum on graduate student unionizing sponsored by the American Association of University Professors.

The forum has been set up to allow faculty members to exchange views and stories about graduate-assistant organizing and how GA unions actually function. Two expert law professors will talk about labor law and how it works for graduate students who want a union. Other faculty who have "been there, done that" will relate their experiences with graduate-student organizing campaigns and answer questions about the educational relationship between faculty mentors and unionized graduate assistants.

Mary Burgan, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, will open the conversation. "Having worked closely with colleagues in unionized as well as 'traditional' campuses, we can provide balanced answers to many of the questions that our colleagues may have about what happens to the work of the faculty when TAs organize," Burgan wrote in a letter of invitation to Yale faculty members. "It is AAUP's role," Burgan noted, "to provide structures and occasions for faculty colleagues to reflect on issues such as this, that relate to the fundamental principles of academic freedom and shared governance."

Mary Burgan will be joined by Professor Adelaide Morris of the University of Iowa and Professor Jackson Lears from Rutgers University, where graduate assistants have formed unions. Michael Gottesman, professor of law at Georgetown University (visiting this year at Yale Law School) and David Rabban, professor of law at the University of Texas, will provide a short sketch of labor law as it applies to graduate-assistant organizing.

Refreshments will be provided at a break after the presentations by the panel, and ample time for open discussion will follow.

The event will begin at 6:00 p.m. in the Luce Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse
Avenue.

The American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit charitable and educational organization that promotes academic freedom by supporting tenure, academic due process, and standards of quality in higher education. The AAUP has more than 45,000 members at colleges and universities throughout the United States.

For more information contact Ruth Flower at 202-737-5900, Ext. 3029;
rflower@aaup.org.