Wednesday, September 3, 2008

The Poster Campaign

This poster campaign is being conducted concurrent with negotiations and attempts at communication with faculty and administration--to the point of consulting with a union lawyer, who everyone had a chance to speak to (albeit within a four hour time frame on a Monday afternoon). Both the teaching workload and the cutting of funding are central issues at stake in these negotiations.

I might add that these issues are interdependent--people are taking a longer time to finish their degrees because the workload has been increased, severely inhibiting progress in the program (not to mention a dearth of diverse course offerings, and conspicuously absent and ineffectual faculty advisers.) The administration consistently demands that the department do more with less. Cutting funding of PhD students who had the misfortune of being funded as MA students is the result of the same mentality that caused the initial increase in workload: IT'S CHEAPER. The graduate school "doesn't perceive our program as very credible" because we have become a service organization at the mercy of the administration's mandate to teach as many students for as little money as possible. Seriously, do you know how much students/parents pay to "attend" your classes compared to what we're paid? Do the math. It's sickening.

In short, this is a very complex situation, and the signs are there merely to raise awareness. We appreciate your input.