Council of Graduate Students

Rebuttal to AAEP contractual claims

The document attached above entails a complete rebuttal of numerous claims made by the Chair of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy and their executuve committee.

As the document will cover, AAEP leadership has refused to meet with CGS representation last week.

Instead, they met with the local departmental student group, which were not as familiar with grad student contractual issues and not charged with the ability to negotiate on that topic.  

The result was a bevy of misinformation from AAEP leadership that was not backed up by fact.  Included also were threats to actually increase GTA workload as a result of the CGS report, the exact kind of academic bullying the students had initially reported being afraid would occur. 

I have since taken this issue to leadership in both the Graduate School and Arts and Sciences.  Arts and Sciences have reported back that they are the proper venue for dealing with this issue and it has now been given to Dean Shanda to address.  There also has been indication that, as a result of bringing these issues to light, Arts and Sciences will begin to look at how all their depts determine what justifies 20hr of GTA work.

CGS' position is that, in the case of AAEP, the 5hr requirment must cease immediately.  The dept's own internal handbook is clear on what consitutes a 20hr GTA appointment (a fact that the executive committe of AAEP appears unaware of), stating that all 20hrs are to be spent on teaching duties.  This request has been relayed to Dean Shanda.

However, should the policy not cease, and students in the dept continue to feel intimidated, it may be necessary to vote on a resolution in the next delegate meeting in support of AAEP students to make it completely clear how inapproriate CGS feels this dept's leadership is behaving.