While the GESO grade strike may have officially ended on Fri., Jan. 14, the English Department is still feeling its consequences. Appointments for four spring semester Part Time Acting Instructors (PTAIs) remained undecided until Wed., Jan. 24, when three of them were assigned regular teaching assistant jobs. The fourth, GESO Chair Robin Brown, GRD '97, received a position on Thurs., Jan. 25.
Of the 83 graduate students who participated in the grade strike initially, approximately 30 were fired for failing to turn in grades before the deadline. According to the GESO office, all PTAIs except Chris Cobb, GRD '96, Christina Ruotolo, GRD '96, Rebecca LaRoache, GRD '96, and Brown were reoffered their original or equivalent PTAI positions for the spring semester. The four, originally slated to lead English 118 and 129 sections, have only been offered regular TA positions, depriving them of their PTAI status.
Brown said, "I don't think it had to do with what we did because it was what everyone else did. This is just the arbitrariness of the University. They needed to make examples out of someone."
Langdon Hammer, BK '80, GRD '89, director of undergraduate studies in English, said the decisions were not arbitrary. "The fact that the English department has taken the longest to secure spring appointments for the grad students in question reflects the nature and schedule of the teaching fellow appointment process. The department is not singling anybody out," Hammer said.
Hammer said the English department was not handling the grade strike differently than any other department. "As I understand it, with the four grad students in question, they retained their grades until the GESO vote to end the strike on Sunday evening. We had a directive from the University that people in that position would not have their appointments as PTAIs restored in the spring," he said.
The French department has also come under criticism for its hard-line stance toward grad students participating in the grade strike. A memo dated Sat., Dec. 15 warned the French PTAIs that failure to "perform any aspect of a graduate teaching assignment" would "jeopardize a student's opportunity to continue teaching in the department of French." The letter was signed by Denis Hollier, department chair; Christopher Miller, acting chair; and Edwin Duval, director of graduate studies; in addition to the chairs of four elementary and intermediate courses.
However, Duval said the memo has been taken out of context. "The memo was meant to get out what was discussed in a low-key, friendly meeting" that was held on Dec. 12, he said. According to Duval, the purpose of the memo was to inform the graduate students of University policies concerning the grade strike. "I don't think anybody at the meeting would find this [memo] coercive," Duval said. Insisting that the memo was intended to prevent TAs from losing their spring jobs, Duval explained, "None of us wanted the students to suffer any of the consequences."
While Duval would not speculate as toM-Jthe effect the memo had on students contemplating a grade strike, all the PTAIs in the French department turned in their grades well before the Administration's Jan. 9 deadline and retained their spring teaching positions.
Hammer noted that the English department has been working to alleviate the effects of the strike and that all four graduate students retained positions within the department.
Cobb expressed mixed sentiments about getting the new TA position. "I am less angry than if I was unemployed, but it doesn't change my feelings of the principle of the original firing," Cobb said. He said that the loss of the PTAI position frustrated him because of the work that had been put into the class in the fall semester. "If my job hadn't been taken away I would have been working with the same students [from the fall semester] with whom I had developed a good rapport. This has been a source of bitterness for me."
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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