To look at the headlines, it seems that the media care more than we do. News of the GESO grade strike, much of it gleaned from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, graced the pages of newspapers from Omaha to Orlando.M ore than ivy has covered Yale's ivory tower of late; graffitied accusations appear on the walls, and the media hold the spray can.
Recently, Yale's public image seems to have depended less on the actual developments in its union negotiations and the GESO controversy, and more on the partisan affiliations of the "public" onlookers. Depending on whom you talk to, Yale is either a be nevolent giant who graciously tolerates the demands of the greedy Lilliputians - graduate students and union profiteers - or it is an Oz-like configuration of smoke and mirrors, designed to shield a core of control-freaks who have made a series of tactica l errors. But neither position denies that University action is carefully planned. Publicity prepared for union conflict
Yale spokesperson Gary Fryer said that the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) has anticipated the union confrontation for some time. "I've worked here for two years, and this is the biggest issue we've faced," Fryer said of the union conflict. A former pre ss secretary for Mario Cuomo and the largest public employees' union in New York, Fryer has ample experience in publicity and negotiation to guide his latest maneuverings for the Administration. The OPA began concerted preparations last spring, when the U niversity failed to reach early agreements with the unions or GESO. "We made an effort to understand the facts, and to understand the policy with regard to those facts," Fryer said. "We expanded our research and knowledge through the efforts of people wit h expertise. We worked closely with the grad school to understand the students' position. Then we examined how best to articulate the information." The OPA decided to publish a pamphlet to combat the increasing exchange of misinformation. "We determined information was thrown around too loosely regarding policy, admissions.... We wanted to compile accurate information in a place where it could be more easily disseminated," he said. "We are here to interact with the media to explain as accurately as possi ble why we take the position we take." Media of resentment
What position the media take, however, is another story. The GESO grade strike made headlines in newspapers around the country, from USA Today's article Grad students fight class struggle, to the Sacramento Bee's straightforward Yale protesters arrest ed, to the campus celebrity, the co-authored article by Debby Applegate, GRD '96, and Bruce Tulgan, entitled At Yale, a decent life is a radical idea. The tone of some articles was, if not alarmist, alarming. In a Sun., Jan. 21 article about the discontin uation of the grade strike, The Houston Chronicle noted that a TA who had lost her teaching assignment "wore the invisible wounds of someone who had played with fire and been singed." In addition, her eyes were "red-rimmed from crying," and she sat "slump ed...in a white fleece jacket." The story quoted her: "'We met their deadline,' she said plaintively." GESO members consistently take the initiative to support their cause. To characterize them as sacrificial lambs demands even more initiative from the im agination.
On Sat., Jan. 13, the Omaha World Herald published one of the more extreme editorials on the grade strike. Opening with an estimate of the cost for an undergraduate year at Yale, the article followed this figure with the question: (continued from page one) "What are those students' parents to think if...teachers have refused to turn in first semester grades...? Among other things, those parents might not think highly of organized labor." The article later added: "Armed with a Ph.D. from Yale, these grad stu dents will become the intellectual elite - and in many cases the economic elite - of the early 21st century.... At Yale they will...generally live the life of Riley. Talk about the haves and the have-nots: Yale's teaching assistants are among the most pam pered people in America. But not spoiled enough, evidently, in their eyes."
The article's hostility can hardly cloak the resentment, nor can it conceal the anti-intellectual mobilization against the future "elite." The message reads: They will be better educated, they might make more money, they are not Middle America - let th em suffer their difference. When the bourgeoisie appropriates Marx, the accusations fly. The Administration, GESO, and Locals 34 and 35, however, are not responsible for loose articles. "The news clips are balanced and reasonably accurate. Of course, the contents of stories are sometimes objectionable. But it's all part of the game," Fryer said. A game with which each party is well-acquainted. A brief history of slander
Does the name John Sedgewick sound familiar? It would, if the article he wrote had not been lost in a blitzkrieg of Yale-bashing headlines. Just two years ago, the Harvard-educated journalist probed the depths of Old Blue notoriety after strafing Yale with his GQ article, "The Death of Yale." Sedgewick attacked Yale for its substandard physical plant, past faculty clashes, undesirable location in ugly, crime-infested New Haven, insuperable Harvard-envy, and many more imaginative if unsubstantiated prob lems. Yale's dining halls would have served humble pie, cooked in their allegedly-crumbling facilities, if only Sedgewick's claims had been based on accurate information, rather than uninformed guesstimates and outdated data. But the outside reader could not identify Sedgewick's inaccuracies.
Time proved even more resilient than GQ, however, as Sedgewick's tirade proved inconsequential and faded in Yale's collective memory. Prospective students continued to apply, and philanthropists continued to donate money, but the subsequent cease-fire ushered in the Bass Grant controversy. Heads rolled, figures flew, and professors proffered interpretive asides before and after classes. Yale's claim of integrity before $20 million appeared chivalrous. Its problematic debate over the merits of Western C ivilization was less gallant. Still less gallant was L.T. Grammer, the fraudulent Yale transfer student nabbed by suspicious peers and profs last spring, pilfering wattage from the Bass Grant limelight. While Bass Grant stories continued to grace The New York Times, Grammer was granting interviews with television's tabloid show Hard Copy. Writing on the wall.
Not to be outdone, Sedgewick's alma mater overshadowed Yale's media coverage with enough acumen to make him proud. Harvard's revoked acceptance of murderer Gina Grant, and the subsequent murder-suicide at Dunster House focused the media's attention on Harvard. These days, though, when the media mention Yale's lost Bass Grant, their fire falls on other schools as well. Most recently, many of the Bass Grant-related Western Civilization debates have been revisited at the University of Wisconsin, and Georg etown, with its streamlined English major requirements. The staying power of labor controversy
Will the GESO grade strike and the Administration's response vanish as quickly as other University conflicts? GESO chairperson Robin Brown, GRD '97, said no. "The public's perception is that there's something really wrong at Yale. People wonder, are th e grad students crazy? What is the administration doing? Why are they treating students that way?...What articles do is raise these questions," she said. According to Brown, the Academy's response was more defined. "In terms of the grade strike, the acade mic community found it appalling. Instead of negotiating with grad students, the administration blacklisted, fired, and made disciplinary charges against TAs, and this in the academic community was condemned," she said. Nor was this condemnation a silent one. Though its council would reject the amendment the next day on the grounds of conflict with established policy, the American Historical Association (AHA) passed the Bridenthal Amendment censuring Yale for its "use of academic disciplinary hearings, th e threat of expulsion, and the banning of strike participants from future TA positions as responses to the current Yale strike." The AHA recanted the statement the next day, but the message was clear. The delegate assembly of the Modern Language Associati on (MLA) also condemned Yale for "failing to respect" graduate students' right to participate in union activities "without fear of reprisals against their academic careers," as the Chicago Tribune reported on Wed., Jan. 3. In addition, the American Associ ation of University Professors encouraged Yale to recognize the graduate student union.
Brown predicted the treatment of GESO and the campus unions will have a long-term effect on the University and the way that it is perceived by the rest of the world. "It's going to take a long time to rectify [Yale's] image. They've tarnished their ima ge for a while.... The action of the faculty, not just the administration, was pretty appalling, and people have reacted strongly to that. They put Yale's reputation on the line with their behavior - that's something not easily repaired," she said. Brown stressed the need for the University to live up to its rhetoric and to uphold academic freedom. "The Administration is forcing grad students to choose between their consciences and their careers, which is a position that is completely antithetical to scho larship," she said. "Outside of Yale it's apparent that something is really wrong. And of course it didn't end with the grade strike."
If Fryer and Brown concur on any issue, it's the campus conflict's most extreme potential ramification: scaring away potential students and faculty. Fryer considered this possibility remote, and said that anyone who is considering Yale would care enoug h to learn the facts about the conflict. "When you have a good, valid position, you work hard to articulate that position.... The University has gone to great lengths to let people know that Yale is a great place to study, and also a great place to work," he said. In fact, Yale is running full-page ads in The New Haven Advocate and the New Haven Register to say just that. He noted that in addition to the attention on union negotiations and the grade strike, Yale has also received international recognition for recent research developments, including professor Robert Crabtree's and Juan Burdeniuc's, GRD '98, joint breakthrough research on CFCs, and The New York Times' recognition of Yale's endowment as one of the best-managed among peer institutions. "It's important to keep stories in perspective.... Good news isn't news.... When you deal with the media, stories that are negative receive more attention, especially when people go to great lengths to fan the flames," Fryer said of the critical media coverage .
Brown, in contrast, sees an immediate threat. "A former grad student who's been offered a job as junior faculty here came into my office the other day, basically to talk about whether she should take the job here or not. She said 'this is all anyone is talking about anywhere in the Academy,'" Brown said. Brown added that the woman later said, "'No one wants to come here any more.'" Brown found this claim substantiated by the responses to the Administration's clash with GESO, received at the Federation offices. "Our office was literally flooded with support letters which were unsolicited," Brown said. "Some alums wrote to support us and said they're never giving to Yale again, professors wrote to say they wouldn't recommend Yale to their students for gr aduate study, lecturers who were scheduled to come to Yale this spring wrote to say they won't go. It's the seriousness of what's at stake that's the real question. To participate in a policy of coercion is not something academics want to do.... It will r aise troubles in choice of potential faculty, students who are considering the grad school, and even potential undergrads, to a lesser degree."
Other sources, however, reported no such incidents. Executive Director of the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA) Eustace Theodore, PC '63, said the AYA has received no comments or questions about the grade strike or the union negotiations. "The alumni ar e quite involved with the University, but they take a longer view. They generally don't respond issue by issue," Theodore said. Despite national coverage of the grade strike, "the news isn't out there. Outside of New Haven, people don't hear too much abou t it." Brennan Pelosi, a graduate student of journalism at New York University, agreed. "Many more people get their news from television, and most of those from the local news," he said. Televised Yale stories, he explained, don't travel far from New Have n. But will Yale's rankings suffer?
As for the dread U.S. News & World Report rankings of American colleges, J.J. Thompson, Deputy Director of Research for America's Best Colleges, said that she would be surprised to see the recent events on campus affect Yale's listing. "The process is different at the undergraduate and graduate levels," she said. "Undergrad rankings are based mostly on objective data, with only about 20 percent based on reputational data, so I would doubt there could be much change, unless the number of applicants drop ped, or the applicant pool's test scores were lower - those would have to change." At the graduate level, the rankings are more at risk. "For the grad school," she said, "many disciplines are based solely on reputational data. If people see the strike as affecting academic quality, then the ranking could change." At the graduate level, questionnaires are distributed to deans and faculty members, depending on the discipline, and to presidents at the undergraduate level. "It will be interesting to see. The questionnaires are just coming back in now," Thompson said.
What of Yale's rank as a stronghold of scholarship and the intellectual elite - will this also suffer? Some graduate students claim, as Brown does, that the Administration's treatment of GESO hampers the free thought essential to the Academy and the in tellectual agenda. Again, Yale's reputational ballots have yet to be cast. The more parties on either side of the conflict accommodate the media and its spirit of resentment, the more they compromise their ideals for nice press photos.
Photo by Phil Forfota
Photo digitally manipulated by Franklin G. Othic
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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