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OutraGEOus

This is Ann Arbor — we don’t need to wait to protest something until it actually happens, or appears to have any conceivable chance of happening at any time in the future. That’s what some GEO members must have been thinking when they decided to protest the hypothetical situation of a department that requires female GSIs to wear skirts. Requiring grad students to wear clean clothes would be enough of a struggle.

Now the Michigan Review purports to “expose” GEO by leaking a series of internal e-mails among its organizers on why they won’t talk to the Review. A Romance languages GSI accuses the conservative publication of “practic[ing] epistemic violence every day.” A philosophy grad student characterizes it as an “offensive homophobic, misogynist, racist publication.” The Review writer concludes that “the graduate department” is controlled by the left, but they should have just talked to some of us in engineering. “The Review? Is that the one that always rips off the Onion?”

133 Responses to “OutraGEOus”

This is comedy gold.

Between the “We’re all dressing like Venusians, in the case that there is future anti-Venusian discrimination” to the “We’re dicks, and yet no one likes us! They must be stopped!” Review, you can’t do better for the beauty of the absurd.

Both organizations should be encouraged. If I was governor, they’d each get $100 every time their antics made me chuckle.
posted by js on February 15th, 2005 at 7:33 pm
You don’t find it offensive that the University categorically reserves the right to dictate to *female* GSIs that they have to wear a skirt?

I also wish somebody would ask The Review how they came by the email exchange between GEO stewards. I don’t think it would take too much investigating to determine that their methods weren’t kosher (or, perhaps, legal).
posted by Alex(andra) on February 15th, 2005 at 7:34 pm
You don’t find it offensive that the University categorically reserves the right to dictate to *female* GSIs that they have to wear a skirt?

(such a wonderful choice of words)

No more than you would find it offensive if the University dictated that all *male* GSIs wear ties and a jacket. The fact that there is no such policy requiring either makes this an academic argument (buh dum dum).

And the Review hardly needs to reveal their sources to anyone. If the stewards are unable to keep their private conversations private, especially from a quality publication like The Review, they may have larger problems.
posted by Ryan on February 15th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
It’s like a strange little allegorical renactment of the Paul Kelly Tripplehorn, Jr. affair, with GEO playing Tripplehorn, and the Review playing… Tripplehorn.
posted by Anna on February 15th, 2005 at 8:33 pm
And what is so evil about wearing a skirt on occasion? They look nice…:)

And as someone pointed out, this is a hypothetical situation anyway and as an employer, the University would have a right to impose some sort of dress code if they wanted.
posted by Kozzie on February 15th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
Kozzie, I think that’s exactly the problem that’s being discussed, isn’t it? The University imposing a dress code that forces folks to dress like a gender they don’t identify with?
posted by Murph on February 15th, 2005 at 9:27 pm
I *do* find it offensive that the University would categorically reserve the right to force a male GSI to wear a coat and tie. Setting minimum standards of presentation–provided they are gender neutral–is one thing; prescribing gendered dress (based on what, their assumptions about who is what gender? and what is that based on?) seems to me to be crossing the line. There is nothing inherent to my job that requires me to wear a skirt, therefore the U retaining the right to compel me to wear one is absurd–regardless of whether or not they exercise that right. Why should we “trust” them to act nice? Especially since their idea of nice and mine obviously don’t mesh a lot of the time.

Because you are dense I will spell it out: I think someone should investigate the Review (I never said anything about compelling them to reveal their sources) not because the GEO stewards couldn’t control their own lines of communication but rather because someone affiliated with the Review illicitly, if not illegally, intruded on their members-only conversation. I imagine the U doesn’t take kindly to having their mail servers hacked. Of course this is all conjecture on my part, so take it as you will.
posted by Alex(andra) on February 15th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
Alexandra, Revealing that a student performed poorly in one’s class is an actionable offense, since such information is to remain confidential by law. So if GEO’s members have any brains at all, they will let any real or imagined hacking slide.

It sounds to me like there was no hacking, but rather someone on the email list but not sympathetic to GEO turned the messages over. That would not surprise me at all; when I was a grad student, I rabidly hated GEO as much as I hated the Review, and many of my friends felt the same way.
posted by Anna on February 15th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
Like I said, the University is an employer and as such they can implement something similar to a dress code. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to work for them. Of course it might be trickier since standards have gotten alot more lax with time. They do have an image to project. Although most places with a dress code wont specify skirt or pants though.

As for the second part, you don’t know that they got their information illicitly. Maybe there is somebody out there that thinks the press should know that sort of thing. I’m curious, do you think that someone should have come down on Woodward and Bernstein for breaking the Nixon thing?
posted by Kozzie on February 15th, 2005 at 10:18 pm
BTW, the university loves this stuff because they can “give in” on something easy — like vowing not to require anyone to wear skirts — and trade that for something that really matters — like higher salaries and better health coverage. Why do you think people are called “GSIs” instead of “TAs”? GEO got that in exchange for letting the UM not give grad students a raise and for charging more for health insurance and prescription deductibles. Would you take $1000-2000 less a year to be called a GSI? I hope so, because that’s what you’re doing.
posted by Anna on February 15th, 2005 at 10:28 pm
I read through all the GEO literature today and concluded the following: their top three priorities are making sure they protect or improve insurance benefits (particularly health), changing the wording from “spouse or partner” (or whatever it is) to one that will stand up to a post Prop-2 legal challenge (woulda been nice if the U would have agreed to that before the Thomas More suit), and pay scale/appointment fraction improvements.

Despite the rest of the issues and rhetoric, I don’t see anything wrong with any of those.
posted by Dale on February 15th, 2005 at 10:52 pm
I just think this is such a remote possibility that it’s sort of funny that anyone wants to protest it. Yeah, I’d be annoyed if any department at the university showed any sign of considering such a thing.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 15th, 2005 at 11:02 pm
BTW, Alex(andra), if we applied that standard to the Review, someone might want to investigate my OFW mailing list infiltration as well.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 15th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
Whatever. Have you ever read those GEO position papers? They can hardly put together a coherent sentence, let alone actually pull off a sucessful protest. But I support them - being a grad student sucks - you deserve more than being treated as the whore of mensa. But I laugh - the last time I wore a dress…well, it wasn’t for a protest, but I was seriously drunk, and I ended up sleeping under a bridge in Kyoto, Japan, waking up because a stray dog was licking my face. Don’t even ask. Just heed my warning - if you ever go to Japan - avoid Sho-chu. Avoid cheap sho-chu they sell in juice boxes with a plastic straw with a demon on the front they sell for 88 yen (75 cents) at the convenience store after 12 shots of tequila and getting in a bar fight with amateur yakuza. You’ll thank me someday.
posted by DrMandrake on February 15th, 2005 at 11:23 pm
I was disappointed by Proposal 2 because I didn’t like the wording of “Or similar arrangements”, that made it too broad for me. I think that gay people should be able to get the same property and other benefits that straights get.

And yes, it is kind of funny to protest something that’s not there.
posted by Kozzie on February 15th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
I don’t agree with every single thing GEO asks for, but I’ve always been glad it exists, and I’ve never thought of it as particularly loony-radical - probably because my experiences with them have all been in engineering. Some of these e-mails border on self-parody, though. At least Alyssa Picard sounded pretty level-headed in what they quote from her e-mails. I’d be a little worried about being misrepresented too, by any undergrad publication, not just the Review. I was expecting this to be a “my econ GSI didn’t make any sense, so how can they be demanding health care?” kind of piece.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 16th, 2005 at 12:18 am
The skirt issue is *not* a hypothetical one: it already happened with a graduate student in one of the University’s departments, which is why GEO is making it an issue. Perhaps you should talk to someone more closely involved before you gleefully point fingers at GEO.

The issue is not whether or not departments should be able to require their employees to dress professionally. It’s the gender-specific defition of what constitutes as professional: why shouldn’t women be allowed to wear professional pants instead of skirts?
posted by GEO member on February 16th, 2005 at 8:15 am
GEO member, just keep focusing on that, and you guys will get exactly that. The university will fight you to make it look like they’re giving in, then they’ll cede that instead of giving you a raise. It’s that sort of short-sighted thinking that has stopped progress and even rolled back previous progress over the last ten years.
posted by Anna on February 16th, 2005 at 8:23 am
AAIO, You don’t think of GEO as loony-radical because you weren’t there in the days when they were passing motions to force the University to state that it was against the first Gulf War.

The problem with groups like GEO (and we have a similar group here) is that grad students are busy people. The grad students who tend to have the time on their hands to get heavily involved tend to be of three varieties, a) People who are really, really, really into unions and ideologically driven and that includes some who are loony-radicals, b) People whose research isn’t going anywhere or who are in fields where there are very few jobs and are bitter and angry and would rather spend time organizing union activities than doing their work, c) People who have some professional reason for wanting to have union leadership experience (i.e., writing a dissertation about unions, wanting to become active in organized labor in general, etc.) and want successful union campaigns to put on their CVs.

At least two of those motives for becoming involved are going to lead people to be more radical than the grad students as a group. The only thing that has kept things in check is that everyone more or less ignores GEO’s crazier ideas until it reaches a critical mass of crazy and they force a vote, then everyone from North Campus gets on the bus and comes down and votes down the newest resolution to as the university to send a fact-finder to Guatemala to report back on guerilla activities.

I don’t think it’s bad that GEO exists, I just think that the people who tend to get most involved are, sadly, not the right people for the job. The catch is that the right people for the job are busy doing what they came to AA to do.
posted by Anna on February 16th, 2005 at 8:38 am
Recall that Simson’s episode where Homer yells out in a crowd, “Don’t you hate pants?” Is this what GSO meetings have come to?

But seriously, some of the grad student instructors dress like complete slobs - particularly in the humanities, where it is hip to show up for class looking like Colin Ferrel after a usual night out. There should be a dress requirement out of respect for the students. But seriously, GSO person - I doubt a department would admonish a GSI for wearing black pants over a skirt. It is a great example of GSO going completely overboard on a non-issue, because in reality, GSIs at Michigan are compensated pretty much better than any other school and have run out of real issues to complain about. I support GSO, but they diminish their cause when they take on stupid causes like dress requirements or transgendered benefits.
posted by DrMandrake on February 16th, 2005 at 8:42 am
I think the GSIs grossly underestimate two things– 1. how much more effective their efforts would be if they could garner the support of the student body and 2. how much antics such as protests against dress codes tick off the student body. Not just at U-M, but at several Ivy League universities, GSIs have utterly failed to convince students that students have any stake at all in how their negotiations turn out. I personally remember being lectured by a GSI during undergrad about how, well, bogus it was that GSIs that barely spoke English were required to pay to learn this essential skill to be employed by the University. The class reaction was less than sympathetic.
posted by personality on February 16th, 2005 at 8:54 am
I can even one up that one, Personality. At a certain university, the foreign students didn’t just not want to pay for English training, they wanted the *university* to pay for English summer school, they wanted the foreign students who needed it to recieve free housing and stipends during that time. Needless to say, the undergraduates were not very sympathetic.
posted by Anna on February 16th, 2005 at 9:08 am
You call it an “antic,” but others might call it legitimate protest and outrage against gender discrimination. Just because you find it trivial doesn’t mean it actually is.

And Anna, I understand the point you are making. However, keep in mind that GEO has made something like 17 proposals about serious issues such as pay scales, health care coverage, domestic partner benefits, etc. Just because what you read about in the MR or Daily focuses in on the skirt issue doesn’t mean that’s where most of GEO’s efforts have been going.

I’m not a steward, nor am I an active participant in GEO. However, as a GSI and a concerned graduate student, I have been attending the bargaining sessions (I’ve been to 3, including this past one about the skirts). You all seem to be seeing a very small piece of a much larger picture and are mistakenly substitituing the part for the whole.

But thank god we have the level-headed engineers and scientists to come down from north campus to save us from ourselves before all is lost. Clearly spoiling a months-long process by bolting is obviously the best way to protect all of our interests.
posted by Alex(andra) on February 16th, 2005 at 9:19 am
Alexandra — the problem with pursuing issues that are not central to the needs of the group and that some can construe as ridiculous is that of course it is the latter that will receive the press. Requests for higer wages are unglamourous and boring. They don’t get coverage. Protests featuring men in drag are fun and interesting.

Why do you think, by the way, that GEO-like organizations across the country recieve much less support from the scientists around campus (true here and at UM)? Do you think it’s because they’re stupid? Or do you think it’s because they have better job prospects and are less embittered by the graduate school experience? I really am curious, because I don’t think that the scientists around here are at UM are more likely to be, in general, anti-labor.
posted by Anna on February 16th, 2005 at 9:28 am
Er, receive.
posted by Anonymous on February 16th, 2005 at 9:30 am
Well, Alex, then I guess those GSIs are going to have to work harder at bringing legitimate issues to the attention of media without making themselves look ridiculous, the way every other interest group has to. Here’s a tip: if the general response to a demonstration is laughter, you might need to hold a different kind of demonstration. Just some of the wacky stuff I learned while getting my poli-sci degree.

And to Anna– Yikes!
posted by personality on February 16th, 2005 at 9:54 am
Within my first week at grad school we had to sit through an orientation with a GEO rep. The orientation ended after cards were distributed which, if filled out, would have authorized the org. to withdrawl funds from our bank accounts. Huh. I can see that this group may do something for humanities grads, but I can’t see any relevence for those of us in the basic/med sciences. You wonder why science grads are less interested in GEO? It was clear to me that GEO does not care much about issues relevent to science grads (from departments with funding). They are interested in getting those withdrawl authorization forms filled out asap. I am interested too — in keeping my teaching terms to the minimum required for the degree and so keeping GEO off my paycheck.
posted by E on February 16th, 2005 at 9:57 am
I have vague anecdotal theories about that:

1)scientists and engineers tend spend less time as grad students (4/5 years versus 6/7+)

2)I do think that generally speaking engineers are more politically conservative than other types of academics/students

3)scientists work crazier lab hours and maybe therefore have lower “participation” rates across all extracurricular activities

4)fewer science and engineering grad students have to GSI, or they GSI for fewer semesters–seems like there’s way more GSRAing amongst this population, plus see point 1

5)perhaps because they don’t study politics, labor, collective action, gender, etc, in their own work, they’re less likely to be as engaged with these issues as students who do

I certainly don’t think it’s an issue of stupidity. And it’s probably not even an issue of anti-labor sentiment. It’s probably more apathy, or maybe it’s free-riding.
posted by Alex(andra) on February 16th, 2005 at 9:58 am
Anna — I always thought, with the confirmation of project-funded engineering and science friends, it was because their funding was not from within the university and was not tied to teaching courses because their skills were so site specific and their knowledge was more up-to-date than their funders’ and advisors’; ie, they got little benefit from efforts to promote solidarity.
posted by Dale on February 16th, 2005 at 9:58 am
That’s cute, 4/5 years.

It is interesting to see the attitude that some humanites-type grads have toward science grads. Dissmissive? That’s not quite the word. I wonder what that’s all about.
posted by E on February 16th, 2005 at 10:01 am
Dr. Mandrake: solid advice about Sho-chu. These are important things to know. Thanks.

Oh, and yes, I hate pants too….
posted by todd on February 16th, 2005 at 10:04 am
By the way, would anyone who is a grad student care to tell me how much money the union costs graduate students per year? (I got my degree from a university that had no union)

And what are these funds used for? Printing position papers no one reads on colorful paper? I just don’t get why the union has dues.

And I need to stop reading this damn site. It’s addictive.
posted by DrMandrake on February 16th, 2005 at 10:13 am
Ha ha ha, oh man, I could very clearly see every art department GSI, male or female, showing up in a skirt.

And for whatever it’s worth, these guys are pretty smart, pretty involved in ‘The Issues’ (hey, art school, we’ve gotta keep up our rep, you know), and I haven’t heard anything about dress codes. Salaries, teaching requirements, exhibition issues, racial discrimination, the homeless in Ann Arbor, religious issues, all that’s been bruited about, but no dress codes.

What department is this coming from?
posted by art student on February 16th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Alexandra, Although I would argue that it’s in part the dismissive attitude of the Social Science and Humanties students who feel they have the corner on truth (because they academically study labor issues? whatever) that rubs the scientists the wrong way, I think you’re right about one thing. Science students on campus work “crazier hours” (i.e., more hours) and have less time to engage in activities that aren’t central to their goal of getting out of grad school so they can get a job. That’s why they spend fewer years in grad school. Some in the humanities and social sciences might give it a try — rip it off like a band-aid and get a real job.
posted by Anna on February 16th, 2005 at 10:45 am
Amen, Anna. I would add that the work priorities of students in the sciences may not be such a terrible thing - my own funding comes from a health-science research grant, and I tend to think I would be doing a disservice to the taxpayers supporting it if I sacrificed GSRA time to extracurricular stuff.

I would also say to the pro-GEO crowd that, while I think you generally have the best interests of students at heart, it doesn’t mean we’re “more conservative” or “less engaged” with the issues if we don’t agree with everything you say.
posted by Nick on February 16th, 2005 at 10:56 am
how is it dismissive to say that it takes less time? If it doesn’t I’m just flat-out wrong. If it does, then it’s partial explanation. Dr. Mandrake, for example, finished in 4 years. Almost every psych PhD I’ve ever talked to has finished in 5 years or less.

And it’s such bullshit to say soc science and humanities stick around longer because we just love being grad students. The job market in our fields is softer, collecting certain types of qualitative data takes longer (you get out faster when you’re monkeying around with someone else’s dataset), learning new languages takes time, there’s less funding and more teaching in our departments.

Plus you can get off of your sanctimonious high horse about who works the most hours. I’m not getting into a pissing match about who is or isn’t more exploited. I work 10-12 hours a day, at least 6 days a week and there is still NO WAY that I will be out of here in less than 6 years. Sorry if I’m not suffering as much as you did. Maybe they should take away my health care as punishment.
posted by Alex on February 16th, 2005 at 11:03 am
I’ve seen this sort of attitude towards science grads among many humanities grads — it is certainly not limited to Alex here. I was shocked when my housemate, also a grad student, once commented to me that it must be nice not having to take classes and study. Wow. It was just after a week where I had been in the lab many more hours then I had been at home. Is what we do threatening or something? I’m not saying what humanities people do is insignifigant — but why do I get the feeling that is what they are saying about what I do?

I do participate in ‘extracurricular’ activities. And I choose them with care. They do not include organizations that have contempt for my field of study. I also have to say that I utterly love what I am doing. I don’t think I understood how amazing discovery is until I came here. I hope that these humanities grads are just as stoked on what they do as I am.
posted by E on February 16th, 2005 at 11:19 am
Exactly — the softer job market means that Humanities students are motivated to stick around longer. That is not UM’s fault — academic discipline is a choice. If you’re going into a field with a softer market (i.e., more people want to do it, or there’s less demand or a combination of both), you are going to have to expect to have less earning potential. Cry me a river.

And have you ever tried quantitative research with experiments? If so, have you ever had several 2-year experiments not work out? Try that, and then tell me that qualitative research takes more time.
posted by Anna on February 16th, 2005 at 11:23 am
Er.. the “exactly” was to Alex, not E.
posted by Anna on February 16th, 2005 at 11:24 am
a few random thoughts

GEO may not be perfect and the leadership probably is to the left of the average member but this is typical for a union and furthermore a union for graduate students is essential. I spent five years as a graduate student without health insurance because I attended a university in a “right-to-work” state where grad student unions were illegal. Salaries and benefits–not just titles–would be substantially reduced here at U-M without GEO.

Also, having GEO on campus indirectly enhances the value and quality of a PHD from U-M because we are able to recruit a higher caliber of graduate student because of the salaries and benefits, especially the guaranteed health insurance.

And from my own experience trying and failing to organize a union in grad school, there is no question that the sciences and engineering departments tend to be more conservative than the humanities. Graduates of these departments also have much better non-academic job prospects and this is surely a reason why they tend to be less sympathetic to a union–speaking not specifically of U-M but more generally across the academy in this country.

Finally isn’t this issue of skirts etc. less about the prospect of a dress code, which is remote, and more about getting the university to add a new protected category into the labor contract? And in broader terms, moving beyond the skirts issue, I disagree that the undergraduates aren’t in general supportive of GEO (and LEO)–quite a number of them were out marching in the labor action last year.
posted by Matt on February 16th, 2005 at 11:36 am
Ah, dissin’ students in the “other” disciplines - a time honored tradition of grad students everywhere.

I am just glad there are people out there working in both the hard and soft sciences. I think both are necessary to make the world a better place, and I applaud anyone who decides to go to grad school because it is a huge personal and economic investment of important years of your life.

I just wish you guys in engineering would figure out a way to make a shower that doesn’t go from 100 degrees to 10,000 in .00001 seconds whenever someone flushes a toilet in my building. I mean, what the hell are you guys working on that you’ve been too busy to find a way to fix this for me?
posted by DrMandrake on February 16th, 2005 at 11:37 am
You’re right about the the shower stuff Dr.M — and also about the put-downs that go between grads of different programs.

What a waste, and what a bunch of garbage.
posted by E on February 16th, 2005 at 11:49 am
I don’t actually hear anyone saying that the humanties or sciences shouldn’t exist or aren’t valuable — I’m certainly not. But I think that it’s important to acknowlege that some of the GEO activism is more a function of general frustration with graduate school (which tends to be higher in the humanities and social sciences for the reasons mentioned above, less earning potential, fewer job prospects, fewer outside funding opportunities) than with the real threat of a dress code or whatever other dreck GEO wants to dredge up to keep itself busy.
posted by Anna on February 16th, 2005 at 11:59 am
Dr. Mandrake,

All that you need is a cold water pipe with a larger diameter feeding the mixing valve that blends that hot and cold water together for your shower. Problem fixed.

Hey, you asked….quid pro quo for the drinking advice.
posted by todd on February 16th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
Man that dude on the front page of the Daily in the lavender dress and matching eye make-up was hot.
posted by yd on February 16th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
If the skirt thing actually happened, then that is some really bad reporting by the Daily.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 16th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
GEO takes about $70/semester from a GSI’s paycheck (that’s what it was when I was a GSI two and half years ago). Bad reporting by the Daily–never! I can’t believe it.
posted by AA Hater on February 16th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
“Like dying or paying taxes, University of Michigan students will be taught by a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) at some point in their time at the University” (from “Exposing GEO). Yes, everyone dies and pays taxes at least once in their time at U-M. I know I have…
posted by meg on February 16th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
To “GEO Member” what department was it? I have heard rumors about that having been said in my department and I am 99.9% it is not true. If it is another department, so be it.

I think one of the big reasons why GEO does no go over well with hard science people (and harder social scientists) is because so much of their organizing strategy is based on emotion which might play well in some departments but seems, frankly, insulting to departments who wish to review facts.

Regarding the money, it goes to things like rent for the office but also filing grievences for grad students who are overworked among other things.
posted by the pentaverate on February 16th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
I do know engineering students who are really into GEO and serious about labor organizing, but they’re usually not very ideological compared to what this Review piece would imply about a lot of the leadership. One student I know who was on the fence about GEO just couldn’t get past their “Unite!” posters with the pencil-clenching fist - they seemed overdramatic to him. I kind of like them, but I could see why they might be off-putting.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 16th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
I figure, as the Review’s writer for this story, I’ll clarify rather than enter the fray. These documents (as featured in the actual print version of the latest Review) were given to us anonymously, which signifies someone privy to this email chain took the effort to print off these docs and give them to us. It’s important to note, I think, that we view this as an entirely separate story unrelated to the initial story asking GEO about its upcoming contract negotiations.

We did the story for two reasons, primarily. First was Liz Ben-Ishai’s possible ethical lapse in revealing our writer’s grade status (which, according to the kid, was not only a flagrant violation of confidentiality rules, but was also a gross misrepresentation of his status in the class). Our second point was GEO’s leadership saying such ridiculous things about our publication. Please note, we don’t think there is anything unethical per se in this, nor that there is some sort of actionable offense. There isn’t. However, we do believe it merits some concern that, institutionally within GEO, such ridiculous sentiments exist–perhaps to the extent that our writers, our readers, or even those who share our edit page’s beliefs may not be able to get a fair shake in the class.

Also, it’s pretty funny, if you read the emails (which are, again, in the print version), GEO seems to think that we’re on a righteous mission to destroy them and unionized labor worldwide. One only can guess where these distortions of reality stem from.
posted by Mike O on February 16th, 2005 at 10:06 pm
If anyone knows FERPA well, chime in here. The original statement about the writer was vague, “not doing very well,” or something like it (which means anything from A- to F depending on your POV). Mike O claims that that was a misrepresentation of the student’s true performance. How we can interpret this as a breach of confidentiality? It seems more like just a dumb remark, like, “I didn’t think he could add 2+2.”
posted by Dale on February 16th, 2005 at 10:31 pm
Let’s be clear: my remark about grade status was a non-sequitur, and is of no consequence. The issue is Ms. Ben-Ishai’s revelation of confidential information, whether her speculation was accurate or not.
posted by Mike O on February 16th, 2005 at 10:36 pm
Ms. Ben-Ishai, in her email, wrote �[The writer] was a student in my class last term. Actually, he dropped the class midway�probably because he figured out my secret leftist agenda early on (and he wasn�t doing very well�which is confidential of course).� She knew that her actions constituted a violation of policy.

The comments by other instructors, while obviously inflammatory, are indeed not a violation of policy (as Mike O. points out). What is troubling is the fact that those who subscribe to views that these GSIs hold as “offensive homophobic, misogynist, racist” are then graded by these instructors.

What the Review has taken issue with, thus far, is the fact that after contacting several department leaders for comment on this breach of confidentiality, only two departments have responded - both with no comment. Anybody care to argue that these same departments would have no response had one of their own made racist, homophobic, or misogynist comments, which were then publicized campus wide?

And by the way, the Every Three Weekly rips off the Onion, not the Review.
posted by Ken Adams on February 16th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
The reason GEO holds the Review in such low regard is that they have humor such as the following:

“Over 200,000 people died in the tragic South East Asia Tsunami on Dec. 26th. In a related story, the university recently reported that 80% of econ 101 students will be left GSI-less this semester.”

http://www.michiganreview.com/article.php?id=1464

F’ing hilarious guys.
posted by the pentaverate on February 17th, 2005 at 1:09 am
I don’t find the Michigan Review as poorly as the Gargoyle - which simply put, is just not funny. Talk about ripping off the onion - they try to rip it off but fail miserably. What is it with the undergrads here? Where is the funny?
posted by DrMandrake on February 17th, 2005 at 1:31 am
With the “rips off the Onion” comment, I was just trying to imply that engineers are so out of it that we’d think that the Review was the same thing as the Every Three Weekly. Which we often are.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 17th, 2005 at 3:10 am
Oh, I thought the “rips off the Onion” remark meant that the articles are so absurd that, even though the Review staff thinks it’s being serious, it reads like a rip-off of the Onion. Which it does.
posted by Anna on February 17th, 2005 at 8:52 am
Mike, Ken — the following is a summary from the D of E FERPA Web site: “Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student’s education record…[with omitted exceptions].”

I’m still struggling to see what confidential information was released. That the author dropped? Ben-Ishai was about as qualified to evaluate a FERPA violation as you two are: not at all. She made a dumb comment, no more. Maybe that’s why no departments will comment — they have real problems to deal with.
posted by Dale on February 17th, 2005 at 11:30 am
Dale, let us suppose for a moment (hypothetically) that there was absolutely no *actual* ethical violation in the information she released. What the Review simply has to go on (because Ms. Ben-Ishai did not respond personally when given the opportunity to comment, confirm, or deny) is her statements. And her statements are clear. She was, at the very least, under the impression that the information she was commenting about was indeed confidential. And yet, having that knowledge, she proceeded to violate that very standard of confidentiality she acknowledged.

As for the actual violation, according to our reading of the relevant student rights and responsibilities clauses in the article itself, school administrators (GSIs included) would be restricted to releasing only specified portions of student information, which the University qualifies as “public.” Any other revelation, then, would seem to be a breach in confidentiality. Ms. Ben-Ishai revealed, nonchalantly, to her colleagues the status of a student beyond the university that, regardless of its practical implications, was beyond the scope of her authority. This seems to warrant at least some concern.

As for the department responses, please see our editorial–which is separate from my story.
posted by Mike O on February 17th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
I’m on a university committee that deals with things like that. The faculty where I am would get in very big trouble for it, so I wouldn’t just write it off as a “dumb comment”. The undergraduate may or may not have a legal case under FERPA, but still could take action if the remark can be shown to be not true (the gain from taking action would be small, so in practice it’s extremely unlikely; still, it’s a very bad practice to make remarks like that over email).
posted by Anna on February 17th, 2005 at 12:34 pm
Maybe so, Dale, but, and I’ll reiterate, Ms. Ben-Ishai finished her comment with “…(and he wasn�t doing very well�WHICH IS CONFIDENTAL OF COURSE)” (caps added). Whether or not this was an actual violation is somewhat less important than the fact that Ben-Ishai intentionally committed what she BELIEVED to be a violation of policy…and sent it to an entire mailing list.

If this simply was not a violation of any policy, the Review would have still appreciated that statement from the department heads.

The Review makes its attempt at humor in a small section on one of its twelve pages. The purpose of the paper is not humor (as much as Ann Arbor may see Conservative/Libertarian intellectualism as such).

And Anna, does your definition of “absurd” (as in the “absurd articles in the Review) mean “views that you don’t agree with?”

And the offer is still up for anybody to argue that this would have been accepted by the administration had GEO insulted homosexuals or minorities.
posted by Ken Adams on February 17th, 2005 at 12:34 pm
Absurd has a few definitions, but the one I was applying to the Review is, “Ridiculously incongruous or unreasonable. See Synonyms at foolish.”
posted by Anna on February 17th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
I have a pretty funny issue of the Gargoyle, from 1989.
posted by Dave on February 17th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
Pentaverate, I actually think your observation about the emotionalism of GEO is right on target, and I hadn’t really thought about it that way before. As a grad student (and an undergrad before that) I didn’t always find the actual content of GEO’s proposals objectionable, but the way it was presented was often grating. It’s hard for some of us to feel that graduate students at a good unversity are “oppressed” even though I always agreed that we needed healthcare and enough money to keep us supplied with skirts or pants. If GEO toned down the shrillness of its message and presented more facts (e.g., cost of living at UM versus other places, salary comparisons, etc.), they might have found more support from people like me.
posted by Anonymous on February 17th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
As someone who used to write for Serpent’s Tooth in the Michigan Review, I’d like to take this opportunity to defend it. Getting mad at the Review because of Serpent’s is like getting mad at the Daily because of Crime Notes. It has very little to do editorially with the Review. Yes, it’s often crude. And yes, the tsunami joke was awful, and I would’ve never run it. But you can’t let one bad apple ruin it for Serpent’s and the Review in general. Serpent’s reasons for being are A) to allow our writers to have a little fun, B) give opportunities to people who don’t care about politics but are good with zingers to join the staff, and most importantly, C) so people who don’t care about politics but enjoy a good zinger will have a reason to pick it up and read it on the bus, at lunch, or in their lecture. It’s merely an outlet to poke a little fun at those that deserve it (Michael Moore, MSA, self-important student groups with ridiculous acronyms for names) and maybe those that don’t (we were a bit harsh on John Navarre, in retrospect.) Sometimes the quality is good, and sometimes not, and when it’s not, well then, you got what you paid for.

(And finally, just to clear it up for an entirely new generation of students, the Every Three Weekly was started by ex-Review staffer, so yes, the Review and Serpent’s came first, by about 18 years.)
posted by Jim on February 17th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
“And the offer is still up for anybody to argue that this would have been accepted by the administration had GEO insulted homosexuals or minorities.”

It wouldn’t. But then again, if you’re comparing the discrimination of homosexuals and minorities to disagreement/disgust at one’s political ideology, then I’d say your way off base Ken. This a piss poor analogy for the following reasons:

1) You can’t prove the student in question was discriminated against, and as far as I know, the Review hasn’t said as much.

2) Sexual and racial minorities get beat down, paid less, and occasionally far worse by those who hate them for who they are. Conservatives, on the other hand, run the country. Don’t compare the two.

3) Most of content in the Review isn’t a sterile expression of the conservative ideology - its intentionally in-your-face, inflammatory commentary designed to piss people off. Not surprisingly, it does piss people off - GSIs included. There is nothing inappropriate about that.

Bottom line: Writing opinion pieces for the Review, or any college paper for that matter, means that the same people who will read your columns are the same people grading your work. Mike O and all the others at the Review should know that. If they feel as though they are being academically discriminated against because of it, then that’s a whole different story. But they’re not making those charges - they’re just making a fuss over nothing.
posted by Daniel Adams on February 17th, 2005 at 3:37 pm
Dan, let me first say that I think the numbers game is irrelevant. Conservatives are surely in “control” of national politics (to what extent there is a coherent sense of power is another debate), but certainly conservatism is a favorite punching bag in Ann Arbor. Like I said, though, numbers are eventually irrelevant.

With my story, I intended it to be as sterile as possible (if you think it isn’t, and I’m guessing you probably dont, email me and I’ll give more details). The fact that the Review pisses people off, though, is a good thing in some ways. But more importantly, it should get people talking and thinking. It should be a challenge to the status-quo in my opinion. It would be pure naivete to expect that, in a Review writer elevating himself into a position of somewhat public stature in campus publications, that it will inextricably have an effect on others’ immediate impressions, GSIs included.

But please don’t misconstrue my story as being just a whine or a rant. I undertook writing this story, because I think it is of legitimate concern. You yourself acknowledge that Ms. Ben-Ishai perhaps violated confidentiality. I think the reason the second point, about GSIs’ statements about the Review, was important to report wasn’t about concern for ourselves. My intent, at least, was to provoke discussion about whether such outrageous statements made by GEO *leadership* indicate an institutional situation at the University such that it may put those with conservative opinions (not exclusive to Review writers, mind you) at a disadvantage because of such extreme dispositions on behalf of those charged with grading our work.

I would hardly regard our story as “nothing,” though. After all, it has certainly provoked a bit of response (see above).
posted by Mike O on February 17th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
There’s nothing wrong with people getting pissed off by the Review, but some of these responses were over the top. The Review is a center-to-right-of-center publication that’s sometimes interesting and sometimes silly. I’ve seen student conservative publications that I’d consider misogynistic or racist, and the Review just isn’t one of them (the tsunami thing I see mainly as incredibly poor judgment.)
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 17th, 2005 at 4:01 pm
I was a UM grad student back in ‘88-’91, and Anna nailed all my gripes with GEO and the reasons it’s like what it is exactly. A couple of other anecdotes from the ‘91 or so meetings, which North Campus type me started attending for the humor value;

“We make less than people flipping burgers at McDonald’s”, to which I replied “Um, we’re making $14/hour (from memory, this may be off) not counting health or tuition benefits. What McDonald’s are you talking about and are they hiring?”. Turned out they meant “If you work 40+ hours at McDonald’s, you’ll make more than someone working 10 hours as a TA”.

There were a lot of fun playing with figures bits that showed me no one active in GEO had any feel for math. Or just tried to lie with statistics. At one point, they had a non-binding referendum for a possible strike and proclaimed that the results showed overwhelming support for it. Um, yeah, a lot of people who voted voted in favor…but if you multiplied that percentage by the percentage who actually voted, you were down in the 20%s.

My favorite though was the set of initial GEO demands in that bargaining session. I did some math and figured I needed to be very quiet. ‘Cause it turned out from a financial standpoint, the best thing for the Administration to have done would’ve been to say “OK. We agree to everything. We’ve signed the contract, here, you sign it now”.

And then, after GEO signed it, point out to them that 1) their financial demands were such that it was now more cost-effective for the U to hire non-tenure track PhDed instructors to fill the TA educational roles and 2) while the contract specified how much a particular TA would get in salary and benefits, there was nothing in the contract actually requiring that any TAs be hired. So y’all are all fired and we’re bringing in those now cheaper PhDs.
posted by tyg on February 17th, 2005 at 4:35 pm
I would agree with the idea that an intelligently-argued conservative perspective could be a positive thing for political discourse in Ann Arbor. But I’m still waiting for that perspective to come out of the Review.
posted by Nick on February 17th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
Well, for the record, I’ve always thought the Review was silly because the writing is bombastic and the content is trite. I’ve never found it to be particularly misogynistic or homophobic (or any of the other -ics). As you can tell by my views on unions, I’m not exactly a pinko commie and would have enjoyed a well-written centrist paper, even if I tend further left than that.
posted by Anonymous on February 17th, 2005 at 5:13 pm
er, that was me.
posted by Anna on February 17th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
Okay, it really needs to be pointed out that someone who’s working 10 hours a week as a GSI should not be thought of as someone who works 10 hours a week. Teaching is part of a GSI’s duties, but a PhD student who’s being funded as a GSI is not being paid primarily to teach. As I was saying on the Review’s forum, the university depends on the research of PhD students, and research is expected whether you’re a GSI, an RA or a fellow.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 17th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
I’m probably further to the right than 99% of the population of this town, but I generally find politics to be a major bore. But I don’t mind good intellectual discussions, so if anyone else is at Leopold’s tonight maybe I’ll see you there.

Or maybe people just argue about vodka vs. gin martinis at these things, I don’t know.
posted by Dave on February 17th, 2005 at 5:21 pm
Well, I have mixed feelings about that. I think that grad students are invaluable and contribute greatly to the intellectual life of a university. They contribute in ways that are tangible and intangible, as I’ve argued before (e.g., creating a vibrant intellectual community, performing research, serving on committees, etc.). However, I don’t think it’s a great thing for GEO to turn the relationship into an adversarial work-for-pay system. It’s the *unions* that have instilled the hours-counting attitude that would lead one to start comparing them to workers at Burger King.

The TA thing started not because Universities really need to have discussion sections — our university, for example, has gotten rid of them almost all together because the undergrads often see them as a waste of time — but rather as a means of funding the graduate students (and cutting costs a bit by off-loading the grading and logistics so that professors could handle more students, and yes, they have turned into more than that over time, but that’s not how they started). I think grad students lose track of the fact that Universities *want* them there and *value* them. I hate to see unions turn the funding into something it’s not, because that’s not what graduate school funding is supposed to be about. Graduate school funding is about giving students an opportunity to do what they love while taking the first steps toward a career, not about trading work hours for money.
posted by Anna on February 17th, 2005 at 5:33 pm
My problem with GEO is the one tyg pointed out… there’s a certain lack of foresightedness there. Their efforts probably do gain current members higher wages and more benefits, but at the expense of future members — of whom there will be fewer, because under the current funding schemes, there’s just not enough money to go around.

That, and that the one summer I was involved, they were up in arms over free child care. What the hell?

I think GEO sometimes forgets that the GSI is NOT suppoed to be a career. It’s there to enable to you afford to go to school, not support your family on.
posted by snickerdoodle on February 17th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
In response to Dan Adams’ post above…I understand your point about this not being a case of racial discrimination. I should clarify:

Whether the department takes action against those who had negative words for the Review (with the exception of Ben-Ishai) is not of major importance. Neither do their words come as a surprise - we are fully aware that publishing Conservative, aka “in your face” views, will bring some resentment. However, their statements - that the “so-called Review” was “racist,” “homophobic,” and that the “writers” were “blowhards” and some GSIs were “scared” and “appalled” to read the publication reveal a bias against Conservatives. So we have a group of people (some GEO members) that is essentially prejudiced against another group (Conservatives). Nobody was discriminated against here, and this is not our argument.

So if we these GEO members essentially said “Conservatives are idiots” and the administration had no response, my point was that had the GEO leadership said “Jews are idiots” or “homosexuals are idiots” - even in the context of private emails - there would have been an immediate response by the administration, especially had these comments hit the press. I also write this in the context of the Romance Language department response that “GSIs…have the right to their own…we do not monitor [their] statements.”

I’m not comparing the “beat down” or unequal pay of sexual or racial minorities to divergent political views. But since an evident bias against a group was blatantly obvious, a response from the administration, even to say as little as “we have reviewed these comments and found no grounds for action,” would have been appreciated.
posted by Ken Adams on February 17th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
I worked it out once, and being a GSI is a damn high paying job. Figure it this way: a 25% appointment (10 hours per week) comes with tuition waver (about $14k for an out-of-stater for a four-month term), health insurance (which COBRAs at $280 per month, times 4 months is $1080 for the term), life insurance ($10 per month), and a nice stipend (about $1200 per month).
To even this equation out, we’ll give access to the University Club, unlimited printing, and faculty library privileges a flat value of $20 per month.

That works out to $20,000 compensation for a four-month stint. Of course, since you’re only working 10 hours per week, that would be the equivalent of $80,000 if you worked full time. And since that’s for only four months, it’s $240,000 for the year in full-time equivalence.

In other words, GSIs and GSRAs (I’m guilty on the latter) are making out like bandits. I mean, we’re making a quarter million dollars a year in full time equivalency. That’s outrageous.

Which is why I don’t have much (any) sympathy for the GEO. Undergrads (and some grad students) are laboring awar at $12 or $15 per hour, with no benefits and paying full tuition. What we have here is an entrenched union that’s robbing the bank while other students are making pittances.

So, while I usually agree that the Review is a hate-filled rag unfit for canine clean-up, they are right to bring down the GEO. If those whiny folks don’t want to teach without GradCare covering their sex change operations, let them go somewhere else. I can think of a lot of other things the university can do with a quarter-million dollars per GSI per year.
posted by Dan on February 17th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
It is NOT a 10-hour-a-week job. By that logic, your GSRA is a 0-hour-a-week job, because you don’t acknowledge research as work.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 17th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
Mike O,

I do think that a provacative column can be a useful firestarter. Your column was well written and relatively free of the editorializing that characterizes (by design) most of the Review’s stuff.

I do not, however, agree that some members of GEO hating your paper is news, let alone enough to make it the cover sheet cum theme of your whole issue. Also not news: The violation of student confidentiality on the part of the GSI, which in my opinion, is an issue between the student and the University.
posted by Daniel Adams on February 17th, 2005 at 10:26 pm
I’m GSIing for the first time this semester (.25 appointment). Frankly, I don’t feel like an oppressed worker but rather a spoiled grad student most of the time who’s getting full tuition and a generous stipend for work that does take up some time but I don’t find TOO difficult. I’m certainly working less than I did at my old $12/hour work-study position and the work is far less-tedious for the most part (though I’m just beginning grading our first round of papers and exams!). So… GEO is doing something right, because it’s a pretty damned good gig, especially seeing as most of my cohort are going into massive out-of-state-tuition debt as I speak. Thus, I find GSI life pretty f-ing tolerable. I have trouble with GEO…I know some of the people very involved with them, but it’s definitely this hardcore leftist crowd… I’m a liberal, but don’t buy into all this union mythology and can’t compare myself to the UAW sit-down strikers (you oughtta SEE the free planner they give you– oh look, this day in 1906 “Western Federation of Miners leaders Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone were framed on murder charges in Idaho; 18 months of defense work and over $150,000 later, all are cleared”). I’m a fucking grad student going to school and living comfortably for a comparably small workload that seems to interfere with my studies less than an average work-study position might. I’m glad we have the union if they got me these fine benefits, but I sometimes wonder if they expect a little much from the university (come on, how many workplaces pay for sex-change operations???), and many of those involved do seem to be the uber-humanitiesish types we all find grating at times (or am I Othering them?). Verdict: I’ll strike if need be, but sometimes the rhetoric and demands seem a little obnoxious.
posted by not a bad gig, really on February 17th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Dan, I do believe that this is a matter of perspective. I can say what I do not believe, though. I don’t think the Review is practicing a self-aggrandization of sorts in this story, which you seem to presume we do. I would argue that while, yes, that a Graduate Student union in Ann Arbor being vociferously liberal is not a shock, we don’t view this as being as superficial as you might. You point out on our blog that you have had conservative GSI(s). But even you must acknowledge that this is likely the exception, not the rule. This story isn’t meant to promote victimization on our part, or other campus conservatives. We think that, given the comments in question are among GEO leadership, there is a risk of institutionalization of these trains of thought which might actively work to the detriment of those with dissenting opinions in highly subjective fields. We’re not saying these documents conclusively prove such a thing–but certainly, they provide some damningly incriminating statements. Either way, the final point is that this story should be provoking discussion and critical thought, no matter the conclusions. However, it seems a bit effortless to write it off without considering what the story is meant to make the reader think about. (Especially if in consideration, it is written off because of the source–which I remind Mr. Adams and all that they (he) know considerably nothing about *hateful* sentiments or lack thereof amongst its members.)

As for the violation of confidentiality, I can say with great confidence that the student in question wishes nothing more than to expose Ms. Ben-Ishai, while also taking private action against her within the University. He was enthralled by the story. I wonder, though, if this student were to go to the proper authorities and Ms. Ben-Ishai were excused from the matter–something you, Dan, would seem to indicate by your statements would be inappropriate–if then a story would exist.

Or say they just showed utter diffidence in the face of allegations with documented proof…?
posted by Mike O on February 17th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
That’s exactly why it does not benefit grad students to equate grad school stipends with labor in exchange for pay. It devalues the research that graduate students do, since GEO’s arguments emphasize how important it is for the University to have GSIs. By that logic, the University could argue that teaching is “labor” and research is a learning activity for the benefit of graduate students and should be uncompensated (or only compensated via grants). The GEO argument is completely counter-productive.
posted by Anna on February 17th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
Wow, a bunch of comments slipped in — I was referring to the GSRA 0% effort comment.
posted by Anna on February 17th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
Sorry to ruffle feathers, AAIO.

But it comes down to a question of what you are paid to do. I am paid to research 20 hours per week. That’s the research that I do for a professor on a grant. I don’t think that I deserve to be compensated for my own research, or the time I spend in class, which takes up a lot more than 20 hours per week.

If you are a GSI for one or two sections and you are paid to work 10 hours a week, then that’s what you should be working. Okay, maybe it’s 12 or 15 hours, but it’s still what you are being paid to do. There is a critical point here:

YOU ARE NOT BEING PAID TO GO TO SCHOOL.

Your job is not being a graduate student; it is the teaching or research that you are paid to do. Your tuition waiver is a fringe benefit — that’s how it’s taxed, and that’s how it is. Just because you teach 10 hours per week and spend 60 more in class, the library, the office, and the lab does not mean that you are being compensated for 70 hours of work per week.

When you do Ph.D. research, you are working for your union card, the doctorate. You don’t get paid for it. You get paid for your teaching output and/or your research output that you do as contract work. That’s the value that you provide to the university.

But let’s say that you work 80 hours per week and deserve compensation for every minute. That’s still, taking your $240,000 package, and dividing it by 80 hours per week for 50 weeks per year, $60 an hour in cash and prizes.

I don’t know many other 26-year-olds who enjoy that kind of income.
posted by Dan on February 17th, 2005 at 11:02 pm
I do believe I confused “Dan” and “Dan Adams”…please consider the “Mr. Adams” in my last post to refer to “Dan.”

(See, this is why I use the last name initial.)
posted by Mike O on February 17th, 2005 at 11:08 pm
Dan — I think that you’re right in that I think students should be glad that they are able to do the work that they do and that the University makes it possible. But the stipend is what allows you to keep body and soul together so you can go to school. The way you help defray the cost of the whole stipend program is by adding value via teaching and contributions to research. No one would find the 20 hours or 10 or 15 worth what it costs to educate graduate students, which is even more than the figure you came up with, because tuition does not cover the costs of having students on campus. Grad student funding is not the same thing as trading labor for pay!
posted by Anna on February 17th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
hey, you don’t have to tell me that being a GSI or RA is a great job. But you are being paid partially to do the research that goes into your thesis. Otherwise, it would be cheaper to hire lecturers who are paid only to teach. The research that goes into your thesis is absolutely valuable to the university.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on February 17th, 2005 at 11:12 pm
A couple notes

1) Candidate tutition goes down to $4,000. So the $14,000 number is not completely accurate.

2) The quality of grad students’ research reflects positively on the institution from which they EARNED their phd. So you are doing research for the university in some sense. Also, anyone who has a phd knows that your peers are an invaluable resource and therefore some of this compensation can also be viewed as being payment for helping your peers. I really hate it when people treat these in kind transfers the same as lump sum payments. Please take an econ class…please.
posted by the pentaverate on February 17th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Mike O, I’ve been taken to task before for having the temerity to use the same name as someone who has been on this blog longer. But it’s the only name I have. So sorry for the confusion.

It seems there’s two different types of GSI/GSRA:

1) The Ph.D. candidate/pre-candidate. These people spend 10-20 hours per week teaching or doing paid research, 20-40 hours per week doing their thesis research, and perhaps up to 10 hours in class. They may also tutor on the side. They are in it for the long haul and the GSI/GSRA money is given with a wink and a nudge — everyone knows they’re really there to work on the Ph.D. They got their offers for money before coming to AA.

2) The professional school student (let’s say, the law school student). Most of these people pay to go to school, and pay quite dearly. But a lucky few get elevated amongst their classmates and become GSIs/GSRAs, often in different departments (poli sci seems to gobble them up). These people are not being paid with a wink and a nudge. They got their positions after they got here and only hold them for a semester at a time.

The Ph.D. folks are given minimal work duties in exchange for going to school. The other folks, though, just strike it really, really lucky.

If we’re going to pay people to go to school, then let’s just abolish tuition for Ph.D. programs. But why some law students get bundles of cash thrown at them for little work while others will have to spend the next 25 years paying off their debts is beyond me.

The question thus is: are the law student teaching a section of poli sci 101 and the poli sci Ph.D. student doing another section the same thing? Or is one a wage laborer and the other a stipended student?

Seems to me the GEO wants to have it both ways. But the bottom line is that if we opened the GSI/GSRA openings up to market pressures, the pay would slide WAAAAAAAYYYYYY down, because a lot of very talented, intelligent people would be happy to be Ph.D. students and get paid a lot less for it.

Perhaps I’m out of whack here. Hanging around with economists all day every day will do it to you.
posted by Anonymous on February 17th, 2005 at 11:29 pm
Dan — Check your math. You can’t simply multiply the total compensation for a person working 10 hours a week with someone working full time, since the tuition, insurance and everything else stays the same! Only the stipend increases, so we’re not making NEAR the quarter million dollars that you allege.
posted by Anonymous on February 17th, 2005 at 11:32 pm
I have to disagree about the market forcing the stipend down — at least with respect to med/basic sci Ph.Ds it already exists — and I think it has forced it up. Even I could appreciate that the good schools were in competition for good grad students. Schools without good stipend packages/strong funding are not going to recruit as well as those that do. This is true for friends of mine who are grads in non-science programs too.
posted by E on February 17th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Sorry, that last long-winded one was me.

And Pentaverate — spillovers and externalities exist in all jobs. Academe has no monopoly on that. Everything you said is true as well for, say, law firms or speech pathologists. All in-kind transfers have a monetary value, although there’s usually a discepancy between the value of the seller and of the buyer, which creates net welfare gain.

And helping peers is done because peers help you in return. Bob Axlerod is the leading scholar in this, and he’s on the faculty at UM. And try to get your full daily dose of fiber.
posted by Dan on February 17th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Dan,

Point taken about peers helping you as well. I am not sure that it all balances out though. Will have to think about that. I’ll go talk to Bob.

The deeper point about the in kind payments is that you cannot value them at the same amount as a lump sum payment. Granted, there is some monetary value you can attach to it but (like the statement about only being able to duplicate the stipend) it is another problem with those lofty numbers people like to toss around.
posted by the pentaverate on February 17th, 2005 at 11:47 pm
Sorry for clogging the thread. Last comment:

Yeah, I know the quarter-million figure was completely out of whack, since the fixed costs for the U of the first hour or GSI/GSRA work are much greater than the marginal cost of working an extra hour. It was my rhetorical flourish — and I wanted to see how long before I was called to task for it.

I’m just trying to get really good at lying with numbers so I can get a job on the Bush budget team.

(Actually, as the effort increases from 0 to 25%, the size of the tuition waiver increases. So what you have is a high vertical-axis intercept, a steep upward sloping curve to a 25% effort (where slope equals change in stipend plus change in tuition waiver, and then a close-to-flat curve from 25% to 100%, rising only slightly as the stipend increases.)

The standard neoclassical assumptions don’t really work in graduate education, but it’s an interesting though experiment to try to make the rules fit. They don’t, though, really. Basically, grad school is an apprenticeship. Apprentices don’t get paid much, but they get a helluva lot of knowledge as the main part of their compensation package. They don’t, however, get to unionize.

Good night!
posted by Dan on February 17th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
I’m in a “professional school” (urban planning), and I can attest that perhaps we take a different view of things than you PhD students who are doing “research” and writing “theses” and “disseratations.” For me, it’s a very, very, very well-paying job and that’s why I have trouble complaining. Nearly free tuition AND living expenses AND benefits? Don’t mind if I do. Whether I can get one of these positions for another semester is another matter.
posted by Brandon on February 17th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
No, I don’t think you’re right about net welfare gain. You are taking $100 away from one person and decreasing their utility as such. But the other person does not benefit by the full $100 because their spending is restricted. So you could make assumptions about how the first guy benefits from the production of the second guy but it is not obvious that there should be a net welfare gain.
posted by the pentaverate on February 17th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
So I lied about the last comment thing. I love discussing this. How big of a geek am I?

Pent, it would depend on the shape of their demand curve. In this case, I made the assumption, which I find realistic, that if the grad student was given a $14,000 lump sum payment as part of the GSI package, she would spend it on tuition. And since being enrolled as a student (ie: paying tuition) is a prerequisite for being a GSI/GSRA, they would have to make this payment. It’s like being paid $50,000 for a job or being paid $45,000 plus a company car. (Assume the car you would buy would cost $5,000 per year.) Since the car is a prerequisite for getting to work, either way you end up with the same compensation package. (Of course I am also making the assumption that all cars are the same and provide the same utility, etc.)

My statement on net welfare gain was based on the premise that tuition is essentially an arbitrary figure dreamed up by the U. If they give you a $14k tuition waiver, but that education is worth $20k, that’s a $6k welfare gain. If I have an old table that I could sell for $10 but I give it to you and you value it at $20, that’s an increase in consumer surplus. Producer surplus is down by $10 (the market value of the table) but consumer surplus is up by $20 (your valuation of the table), there’s a $10 net gain. Seems to me the same concept applies to tuition waivers.
posted by Dan on February 18th, 2005 at 12:03 am
But Dan, what if you lived in a pedestrian-friendly, high-density New Urbanist community where you could walk directly to work, take your bike, or walk to a transit stop? Then you could spend your $5000 on the finer things in life, like FCB slurpees!

As I write my urban land use planning take-home midterm,
posted by Brandon on February 18th, 2005 at 12:07 am
I wish I could have posted the 100th comment. Damn.
posted by Dave on February 18th, 2005 at 1:05 am
I simply believe the error in logic happened a long time before any of this discussion - and this is where I think Mike O’s perspective is moronic: the political affiliation of a graduate student teacher shouldn’t matter at all. Grad students are hired to teach COURSE MATERIAL, not POLITICAL IDEOLOGY. Who gives a shit if my romance language TA is a liberal or conservative. The TA is not there to teach liberal romance language or conservative romance language. He or she is there to teach you how to speak spanish. And who gives a shit about what some romance language TA writes to her friend about the academic competence of some student? In the end, neither you, nor the TA, nor your stupid claim against this person violating your rights matters. You should be more concerned about getting your degree and passing your courses and less concerned about writing some asinine column in an unread and unappreciated conservative rag about the bread and butter notes exchanged among a bunch of overworked and underpaid grad students. Don’t you have NAFTA to worry about? Aborted babies? Why aren’t you and your conservative buddies getting together to think of more great tsunami jokes to pull out in your Serpent’s Tooth column? Do you actually take yourself seriously? Do you think anyone gives a shit? Just stop it.
posted by DrMandrake on February 18th, 2005 at 2:41 am
To Mike O:

I don’t see how the Review has escaped criticism for broadcasting this alleged breach of confidentiality to everyone on campus and anyone with an internet connection. Did the Review obtain written permission from the student in question in advance of becoming an accomplice to the increased violation of his federal privacy rights? The GSI made these comments to a closed listserv but the Review decided to tell everyone, for reasons that I expect had more to do with editorial politics than news, since the Review’s anti-GEO editorial stance is well known.

To Dan, your comments about GSI salaries are totally illogical. By your math the average professor here works about six hours per week because that is the average time spent in the classroom. Plus the cavalier attitude that grad students should just be grateful to be students misses some key reasons why university support for graduate studies should cover the totality of the graduate school experience and not just classroom teaching or research.

First of all, before widespread funding of graduate school most members of PhD programs came from affluent families that could subsidize 6-8 years of study with uncertain job prospects, and working-class students were severely underrepresented in grad school (they still are but less so). Second it is not fair to ask graduate students–especially in the humanities–to assume large amounts of debt when the job market is so imbalanced. Third grad students in the harder sciences bring in much federal money through their research and why shouldn’t they share in the bounty? Fourth the university has moved toward cost-cutting with more and more teaching done by GSIs and lecturers for several decades and so GEO and LEO were the necessary and perhaps inevitable response to this pattern. Finally without generous fellowship as well as teaching and research support U-M would simply not be able to attract the best graduate students in the current market.
posted by Matt on February 18th, 2005 at 10:07 am
Back in my day, Mr. Sosniak made all women wear skirts or dresses, but I once had a very open minded boss who allowed pants suits “if they covered the buttocks”.
posted by Anonymous on February 18th, 2005 at 11:01 am
Matt, You are totally off-base.

1) I am in the biosciences and have submitted many grants, so I am speaking to you from experience. It is cheaper and more convenient to have full-time lab techs and programmers than it is to have graduate students because I have to pay for their stipends and their tuition (I’m pretty sure this is how it worked at UM, too, though I didn’t pay much attention when I was a GSRA). Why do I pursue funding for graduate students, then? It’s because a) I enjoy my interactions with them and enjoy mentoring, b) feel that it’s important to be part of training new scientists, c) find it worth the investment of 3+ years of my time to have the last 1-2 years during which time they are full collaborators in the cases — hit or miss — that they actually are extraordinary, d) find that sometimes the intellectual stimulation of having graduate students around my lab is good for me. That latter thing adds no value at all to the NIH or NSF or the UM. Nobody in the sciences wants grad students around because they are cheap labor. They are the *most expensive* labor available to me and they work fewer hours *for* me than lab techs and research assistants becuase they are busy being trained via coursework and pursuing their own interests (as they should be), which are not often part of the central focus of my grants. Plus, I have to pay for all *their* research out of my own funds. Yes, I sometimes get something out of it in terms of eventual publications, but not as much as I would if I just invested in lab techs who would run the experiments I want to have run that are central to my own research and will thus facilitate more funding. By the way, this all is not lost on NIH — they also see it as part of their mission to train up-and-coming scientists. They know that investing money in students is an investment in the future. They don’t give a hoot, seriously, about the students’ own research. Sometimes it pans out and that’s a bonus, but it’s not expected.

2) The world does not owe any humanities (or any other) students positions in graduate school, especially given that there is not as much demand for them as there are students coming out with degrees. So to say that UM owes students money for graduate school so that they do not have to go into debt because they won’t be able to pay off those debts given the soft market is just plain nonsensical.

3) Working class students are underrepresented in graduate school for reasons that are *far* downstream from graduate school funding. It is because fewer even get in a position to APPLY to graduate school, not because of uncertain funding prospects. So to blame poor graduate school funding for the inequities you see in terms of class (and race for that matter) is just plain wrong. I can tell you this from being on our admissions committee that we simply do not even get enough lower-income applicants who are in the ball-park. Belive me, we try.

4) The only thing you have right is that the UM has to be generous to attract good grad students. That is true. But you are absolutely wrong about why that is important from the perspective of the UM. It isn’t important because the top graduate students will bring in funding or do a good job teaching (after all, there is no reason to think that a student who’s an amazing Gertrude Stein scholar is going to be an amazing English Comp teacher). It is important because it allows the university to attract top-rate faculty. I say this, too from experience on the job market and from recruiting senior faculty members to our own department. Aside from funding and space issues, that’s one of the things that is most important to faculty (for the reasons I mentioned above).

The university administration and faculty are not out to screw graduate students, which is why I find GEO’s attitude so baffling. They work hard to figure out how to cover costs so that they can accept the maximum number of graduate students and so that those students don’t have to be totally miserably poor — so that they can be part of educating them and benefiting from the intellectual environment that graduate students help create. Personally, my lab would probably run more smoothly if I eliminated the students and hired one good programmer and two full-time lab techs. But I don’t because I like the stimulation. I think it’s a privledge to have graduate students, and hope that the students in my department feel as priviledged as I do. What a great thing that we can all do this thing that we enjoy doing. Why can’t you see that?
posted by Anna on February 18th, 2005 at 11:23 am
DrMandrake,
If you think the political ideology of grad students and professors does not matter at all and that bias does not make its way into the classroom, then you are terribly misguided. Ask any student taking classes in a polsci or history department. The problem, as Mike O pointed out in one of his earlier posts, is that these views among GEO leadership reflect an institutional bias against conservatives that will affect the way those students are judged in class.

And as to your question “who gives a shit about what some romance language TA writes to her friend about the academic competence of some student?” The university does, or at least should. I’ll remind you that Ms. Ben-Ishai followed her comment about the student’s academic performance with the phrase “(…THIS IS CONFIDENTAL OF COURSE) (caps added).”

Nobody cares if GEO likes the Review. Nobody likes the Review, we are used to it. It’s Ann Arbor. But these emails among the GEO leadership are certainly news (just look at the response it has generated).

So you stop it.
posted by Anonymous on February 18th, 2005 at 11:58 am
First, to Dr. Mandrake: I agree; Graduate Students are hired to teach course material, not political ideology. But to deny that the subjective, radical politics of GSIs often enter the classroom in such a way that they stifle true discourse would be more asinine of an assertion than most others in this commentary. Again, we agree: students should be concerned with getting good grades and a degree. But what if there�s an institutional situation which puts students of a particular perspective at a disadvantage in grading and other consideration for their subjective opinion, versus the subjective opinion of their GSIs. Do such harsh statements on behalf of GEO *leadership* not at least stimulate critical thought of the structure of this University. Furthermore, this isn�t so much a matter of a GSI�s politics. We�re not trying to hunt down and out all the Democrats. If we we�re trying to out those on campus who had simply voted for Senator Kerry, it would be far more arduous than listing five GSIs in our story. The matter at hand is the ridiculous and unfounded statements creating an environment that stifles the purposes universities are intended to promote. And in the end, you confirm the need for such debate, by your own name calling and superficial assumptions. You would assume that conservatism is a static entity with no lifeblood, when its very existence has been quite a dynamic one. If all we had to worry about were NAFTA or abortions, would the Review not have run out of fodder, say, oh, two decades ago?

To Matt: I believe your criticism is misguided. You bemoan the lack of criticism for the Review for supposedly breaching confidentiality in its exposing Ms. Ben-Ishai�s own breach. However, if you will read above, I note that the student in question not only consented to our story, but encouraged it. I�m puzzled as to why you�re trying to find problems where there are none.

It�s not the Review�s position that all members of GEO or all GSIs are a useless drag on the University. However, in order to have a system that benefits all for the best, this situation must, in the least, be scrutinized by the thoughtful mind.
posted by Mike O on February 18th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
But obviously Mike O, nobody should be surprised. That the Review has received little support - even for the breach of confidentiality - is not an unexpected occurrence. That is why I originally made the comment regarding public opinion had the GEO leadership’s comments been geared toward a racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual minority group. You better believe this campus would have been calling for heads.

The Review writers would be willing to discuss any issue with enlightened, intellectual discourse. While GEO may assume that the Review tends to be anti-union, its leadership should at least be able to state and defend its position for some undergrads (since this may very well impact tuition). The fact that GEO declines to defend its position or debate the issue on a factual basis, and would rather resort to juvenile name-calling is exactly what the Review is trying to avoid. Calling a group “racist, homophobic, and misogynist” with no basis is not the type of debate students, nor the University I hope, would like to foster in classrooms.
posted by Ken Adams on February 18th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
I don’t believe that the information that was exchanged among the people on that listserve was that incredibly sensitive or harmful to the individual in question.

On the other hand, as I think about it, if I as a researcher using human subjects, told another researcher not to test subject X because she was a bad subject, I think I would be behaving unethically. Certainly I wouldn’t be stupid enough to put such a thing down on paper - because in the end, everything I have ever written but shouldn’t have has come to bite me in the ass.

So that TA was acting stupidly, but in the end, was any real harm done? You can make a mountain out of a molehill, but in the end, it only makes people like me look at the Review as a gadfly, trying to look like serious investigative journalists with your own Deep Throat providing confidential emails (ohhh! the intrigue!) but in reality being full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. So the GEO won’t talk to you? Isn’t part of freedom of speech the freedom not to speak when you don’t have anything worth saying? Do you seriously care about what they have to say anyway, or are you going to just criticize them anyway for not sharing your values? Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does, why should you?

That said, I don’t like GEO and I don’t like the Review, each for their own reasons. I really don’t like many things in Ann Arbor except for this blog, the soup at Le Dog, and my car, because it allows me to get the hell out of this place.

And if you don’t like the professors and TAs in history and poli sci, there is always the option of boycotting these classes. Take econ instead - I’m sure you’ll find people who share your values there.
posted by DrMandrake on February 18th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
God, I go on a coupla-day bender and I come back to 103 comments?
I’ll leave off of the “How much are grad students worth” argument, because frankly I’m not informed enough to offer anything of worth.

As far as the Review, something that no one has mentioned which to me seems fairly obvious is this: Conservatives have historically been anti-union. It’s one of those “free market” things. That the union would therefore be hostile to them is pretty understandable, unless you want to be a whiner.
The reason this is comedy gold is that a (most likely indulged) grad student made a snarky remark about MR, and MR turned it into a fucking whingefest because they have nothing better to do than worry about being persecuted. One might say that this is because they’re not actually being persecuted, so have little to occupy their time. Or maybe they just feel left out since everyone else on campus gets to whine about being oppressed, so they want to dress up as agrieved too.
But it’s hilarious either way. (Oh, and of course instructors color their discussion with their own politics. The good ones can give convincing arguments. Either way, the role of a goos student is to formulate intelligent responces to those views and to reexamine their own assumptions, not to play diaper-clad sissy whenever something offends their delicate sensibilities).
posted by js on February 18th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
DrMandrake,
So is your point that a GSI who admittedly violated department policy should not be punished because there was no visible harm inflicted? An act that violates policy is a violation, regardless of the outcome.

And if you were in possession of the views GSIs hold (in their own words) toward a group of students on campus, would you choose not to publish them? The article was meant to spark conversation and debate (which, obviously, it has). It was also meant to question the role political bias among GSIs may play when grading undergraduates. This is a completely legitimate and newsworthy story to report.

And as for the Review not caring about GEO’s response - this is ridiculous. Since undergrads would likely bear some of the costs of increased wages/benefits for GEO members, the GEO demands should be reported - and scrutinized. Simply avoiding contact with any organization with a divergent view is a childish way out.

In fact, it is not entirely true that GEO completely denied commenting on the issue. In another Review article this week, a number of GSIs commented anonymously that the demands ware excessive given the current financial conditions of the University. Another GSI described the demands as �…outrageous, my father is a regional manager at a major American corporation and I already have better health care than he does.�

Finally, assertions that students who can’t handle the liberal bias in history and poli sci fields “boycott” the departments are particularly ludicrous. Why don’t we pack the Women’s studies department with chauvinists? If the women don’t like it, they can get out. Or the University could hire a plethora of racists to teach the African American Studies classes and students could then �formulate intelligent responces [sic] to those views and to reexamine their own assumptions� as JS offers. Students pay to receive a balanced education, not a political or personal agenda.

Put a conservative in a class with a GSI who openly hates conservatives, and we have no problem. But put a Jewish student in a class with an openly anti-Semitic GSI�

You can call it whining all you want, but its the truth.
posted by Ken Adams on February 18th, 2005 at 3:29 pm
Anna, thank you for putting what I would have liked to say much more eloquently than I could have.

Mike, I am pursuing career opportunities in the non-profit sector, so on a personal level I completely agree that it would be great if society could fund things that were worthwhile. (I suppose discussing the sapphic discourse and female gender constructs in the novels of Proust is somehow worthwhile. Not to knock humanities folks. I have a graduate degree in literature as well.) I would love someone to pay me a load of money to do research for an NGO. But if that happens, it’s going to be an NGO or a foundation, not the university. It’s not the university’s job to fund things just because they’re “worthwhile” (by whatever criteria).

Like it or not, we’re in a capitalist system where market demands, not some ethereal sense of rightness, distributes resources. Want to know why there’s no job market for humanities Ph.D.s? Because they don’t provide anything that people outside of the university systems and a few private groups will pay for. There are far too many Ph.D.s in the humanities out there for the job market to support them — many of the humanities professorial organizations are now admitting this and actually calling for less Ph.D. students. The job market is saturated.

I’m sorry. I personally consider the study of art or human nature more worthwhile to our society than minting another code monkey. (No, AAIO, I don’t mean engineers, I mean the people who just write code but can’t think at high levels because it wasn’t part of their training. UM engineers are among the brightest, most interesting people I’ve ever met.) But business that make things that people buy (&c. &c.) want code monkeys, not NGO researchers and certainly not scholars of Victorian feminist poetry.

I still maintain that there are two different questions going in this gargantuan thread: should grad students be paid to go to school, and are GSI/GSRAs providing wage labor or just being subsidized?

Finally, I have no problem with my “cavalier attidute” that grad students should be grateful for the opportunity. I am DAMN grateful that I come from a family that values education, that I don’t have to work to feed my sick parents or siblings, that I fooled the people at UM admissions into thinking I’m somehow smart or interesting, and that I get to spend several years in my mid-20s putzing around a campus learning about whatever my heart desires. Grad school is hard work, but listening to grad students whine about it is a lot like listening to President Bush whine that “it’s hard work” being President. Nobody pushed us into it. We chose to be here.

So, yeah, I think we should be grateful for this opportunity. Damn straight.
posted by Dan on February 18th, 2005 at 3:55 pm
Dan, you made an excellent point about the market. However, I think the university itself must be considered as a distinct market, in terms of its demand for degrees, and its ability to provide quality degrees at that. (Let us, for the moment, pursue that the effect of the real-life job market�s influences on degree choices is more-or-less negligible.) The demand within the �markets� for degrees and particular majors direct resources, most notably time�spent in lecture and doing homework or research. The allocation of resources in a market isn�t devoid of the values of individuals, as abstract as those values might be. Accordingly, in evaluating the demand for certain fields of study within the context of the University as a market, the allocation of resources necessary to achieve a degree (time) is determined not by the demands of students, but ultimately the University itself. How is this so? Well, take two examples: First, the University does still encourage discussion sections. Obviously a discourse of some sort is taking place by order of the school administration. Also, core curricula, particularly in LS&A, surely seek to direct the resources of time into certain areas of academic inquiry (from Race & Ethnicity to Natural Sciences).

If you�re simply making the point that, on the macroeconomic level,