BY JOHN K. WILSON In a major victory for graduate student employees, Columbia University has agreed to a framework to recognize the Graduate Workers of Columbia-UAW (GWC-UAW) and the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers-UAW (CPW-UAW) and begin good-faith contract negotiations with the UAW. The Framework states that an agreement “must not infringe upon the integrity of Columbia’s…
BY KELLY HAND The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) recently released a research brief analyzing results of a survey of humanities PhD recipients who were three, eight, and fifteen years out of programs at thirty-five institutions. With a data sample of 882 respondents, the report focuses on PhDs working in academic and nonacademic jobs “closely…
BY JAMES FERRY When I submitted my piece for the September-October issue of Academe, “How the Academy Saved My Soul—and Maybe My Life,” I figured that, at best, I might end up guest blogging. So being asked to blog about my feature article feels a bit…weird. I’d much rather blog about why I lacked “contributor…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL The following is an excerpt of my address to graduate students at the University of Rochester commencement. My full remarks are available here. I suspect that one of the reasons that the University asked me to serve as your speaker is that I have had many opportunities to re-invent myself in…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In a post for Talking Union, Paul Garver provides details on the decision of Harvard University to recognize and to bargain with the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers. Some of the basic details of the vote on unionization are not especially surprising: Of the ca. 5000 eligible Harvard graduate students/research…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following statement is reposted from the website of the University of Chicago chapter of the AAUP. Statement of Concerned Faculty in Support of Graduate Students United The University of Chicago’s campaign against graduate student unionization has significantly damaged the integrity of the University both morally and intellectually. In his February…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Today, the University of Chicago Graduate Students United announced that they are withdrawing their request to have the NLRB recognize the overwhelming vote last October to form an AFT/IFT/AAUP-affiliated union. This is not the end of the union movement, but a tactical move to prevent the Trump Administration from overturning precedents…
BY HANK REICHMAN Fifty years ago this April the administration of Columbia University deployed the New York City Police Department to clear hundreds of student protesters from five campus buildings they had occupied for nearly a week, during which the police ran riot, indiscriminately beating students and faculty members, protesting or not, while “clearing” the…
BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier this week word arrived that Princeton University history graduate student Xiyue Wang, sentenced in July by the Iranian government to ten years in prison for alleged espionage, is being transferred from general detention to Ward 7, a more extreme prison unit run by Iran’s intelligence agency. When Wang arrived there, his…
BY WENDY BROWN Wendy Brown is Class of 1936 First Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the Berkeley Faculty Association. The following is the text of her speech today at the NO to the Grad Tax walkout rally in Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza. It is hard to…