Yale TAs protest, withhold grades

Yale University's Graduate Employees Students Organization, a group of graduate teaching assistants, has refused to submit end-of-the-semester grades for their students. As a result, Yale seniors may have incomplete transcripts for their graduate school applications and some undergraduates might not receive grades on time. The organization, which has sought to become a labor union for graduate students in the humanities since 1990, wants lower health care costs, higher teaching stipends, smaller class sections and their own grievance procedure for complaints against the university. Yale officials said that would not rule out the possibility of expelling TAs who withhold grades. Penn Vice Provost for Graduate Education Janice Madden said no such situation has ever come up here. "There's never been a discussion about it," Madden said. Madden added that no union representing TAs exists at Penn. "I hope that we are treating our TAs well enough that a situation like that would never present itself," Madden added. Graduate students at Yale receive stipends of $4,970 for each semester of undergraduate teaching. The stipend was intended to compensate for 17 1/2 hours of teaching each week rather than the 25 hours per week TAs spend on teaching, according to the organization. Madden also said that Penn TAs receive higher stipends than Yale TAs. "Our strategy has been to get good TAs and pay them appropriately," Madden said. Jonas Zdanys, Yale's associate dean of graduate schools, said the graduate program provides fellowships and stipends, and that the students are supposed to teach and grade. The graduate organization formally represents 1,500 graduate students in the humanities and social sciences, 389 of whom are teaching assistants this semester. The organization has threatened a full strike next semester. Leaders of the two unions representing the workers said they expected to honor any picket line set up by the group. The New York Times contributed to this article.