Tag Archives: graduate students

Labor Board Gives NYU Graduate Students Another Shot at Union Vote

The Chronicle: Labor Board Gives NYU Graduate Students Another Shot at Union Vote

The National Labor Relations Board this week reversed a regional director’s decision that had stymied efforts by graduate teaching and research assistants at New York University to vote on union representation.

Monday’s 2-to-1 decision does not give the graduate assistants the green light to engage in collective bargaining, but it does say that they deserve a full hearing on their request for a union vote. The regional director had rejected that request in June without a hearing, citing a 2004 decision by the national board that halted unionization of teaching assistants at private colleges on the grounds that they were students, not workers.

Binghamton University killing: Al-Zahrani asked about a transfer 30 minutes before stabbing

Press & Sun-Bulletin: Binghamton University killing: 46-year-old grad student charged in professor’s death

Less than 30 minutes before he allegedly stabbed Binghamton University professor Richard Antoun to death on Friday, Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani approached professor Joshua Price to complain of financial troubles and inquire about transferring into the doctoral program that Price directs.

Al-Zahrani, a 46-year-old post-graduate student in the anthropology department, had met with Price once or twice before, Price said, the first time on the afternoon of Nov. 10.

The New York Times: Binghamton Student Says He Warned Officials

VESTAL, N.Y. — In this small upstate college town, there were many who tried to comprehend how a popular 77-year-old professor who championed antiwar philosophies would have come to such a violent end: stabbed to death in his office on Friday, by, the police said, a graduate student whom he knew.

Strike Begins at Illinois

Inside Higher Ed: Strike Begins at Illinois

As graduate teaching assistants formed picket lines on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus Monday, administrators tried to assuage concerns that the university is maneuvering to end tuition waivers.

The Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), a union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, commenced a strike Monday after contract negotiations broke down over a single issue. The GEO, which represents about 2,700 student employees, agreed to strike when administrators rejected a demand for more robust protections of tuition waivers. The university put forward its own language on the issue, but GEO leaders said it fell short of ensuring that waivers for out of state students would be retained.

Doctoral Students Think Teaching Assistantships Hold Them Back

The Chronicle: Doctoral Students Think Teaching Assistantships Hold Them Back

A new survey of recent Ph.D. recipients has found that more than four out of five of those who received paid teaching assistantships believe that having them prolonged their doctoral education, though not enough to keep them from completing the programs in a timely manner.