LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Students categorized unfairly

To the Editor: I found it interesting that the health plan for future medical professionals was so expensive for so little coverage, but that was yet another sacrifice I was willing to make for my degree. Then the city and the University decided that we were employees and not students. Therefore, the stipends were taxed by federal and city authorities as salaries. We are pigeon-holed into whatever categories that the powers that be feel necessary, depending on the situation. We are taxed as employees and given health benefits and pay as students. I am beginning to wonder if a union would not be useful to define our position. The fact that the University is against unionization reminds me of private company resistance in the days of sweat shops and child labor. David Peritt Graduate Student Immunology Department Madden responds To the Editor: History doctoral student Ed Baptist was correct in his admission that he was "unclear" about my comments in your December 14, 1995 story about the Yale TA protest ("TAs could strike here, too," DP, 1/16/96). A DP reporter asked me whether we had ever discussed how to respond if TAs withheld grades at Penn. I replied that we had never had a discussion about responses to TAs withholding grades. I never said that there had been no discussion of unionization among graduate students. Mr. Baptist has also been given some inaccurate information about TA stipends at Yale. Yale TA stipends range from $1,420 to $5,780 per semester and do not always include tuition awards. But the issues that concern me are not comparisons to Yale, but rather that we are providing multi-year support packages that are sufficient to attract the very best students to doctoral study at Penn and to allow them to complete their degrees on a timely basis. Graduate students of the highest quality are central to the research and teaching missions of this university. Janice Madden Vice Provost for Graduate Education Sociology Professor Business blocks sidewalk To the Editor: I think your picture on the World Page (DP, 1/16/96) says it all. Campus Text's operation may save some students money, but it sorely inconveniences anyone who wants to walk down the east side of 38th Street. Passage was difficult at best in the fall. But now with snow piled high on the sidewalk, pedestrians are forced to inch their way through the mass of bodies waiting by the trailer. While free enterprise is a laudable undertaking, Campus Text has no right to limit access to the public sidewalk. Carol Fritz Nursing School Contracts Coordinator