Despite guarantees that academic life at Penn will not be disturbed by the Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania strike, professors remain divided on what their proper course of action should be.
In a recent e-mail, College Dean Rebecca Bushnell assured students that "the University will be open and operating normally" this Thursday and Friday.
"Classes will be held, and you should plan to attend," she wrote. "If for any reason your class or recitation section is canceled, your instructor will make every effort to reschedule it."
Yet regardless of such assurances from various administrators, professors plan to approach the strike in a variety of ways.
Economics professor Rebecca Stein wrote in an e-mail interview that she has decided not to hold the recitations for her class that day "in order to minimize confusion among my students."
"I expect no disruptions or setbacks" to result from canceling class, Stein added. "My students have some extra problems to work on during this hour, and this extra thinking time will serve them well."
Meanwhile, other professors are placing the decision in the hands of their students.
"I am leaving it up to my students whether or not they want to come to recitations on Friday," Religious Studies professor Ann Matter wrote in an e-mail interview. "There will be no penalty if they do not, but class will be held."
Mathematics professor Dennis DeTurck said he also plans to hold class that day since his students have a midterm next week.
"I have a lecture scheduled for Thursday, and I intend to hold to it," he wrote in an e-mail interview. "We really need to hold class."
Mathematics professor John Etnyre said that he has not yet made a decision about whether his classes will meet.
"I guess I'll probably try to see what happens that day," he said. "I hope there's not going to be a problem, but if there is, I'll try to adjust it so it's the least inconvenient possible."
Mathematics lecturer Idris Stovall said that his decision to hold class will "be an issue of security" when it comes to asking students to cross the picket line.
For other professors, the effect the strike might have on their classes is of little concern.
"I don't have any classes on Thursday and Friday, so it's a moot point," Economics professor Jere Behrman said.
But while History professor Steven Hahn does not have classes Thursday or Friday, he did say that if he did, he "would have liked to have the class meet ... but wouldn't have wanted to cross picket lines."
Instead, Hahn said, he would have sought to hold class in an alternative, off-campus venue.
And professors' differing opinions are not limited to their approaches to preparing for the strike.
English professor Peter Stallybrass, who signed the online professor petition that supports GET-UP, said that the graduate students' mission is an important one.
"I'm very much in favor of it," Stallybrass said. "Students should be organized ... they teach here, they work here. Their conditions should be regulated. This has already happened in so many other universities ... and no catastrophic things have happened anywhere else" as a result of graduate students unionizing.
However, Mathematics professor Charles Epstein said that GET-UP's goals are "completely contrary to my conception of what it means to be a graduate student."
"I think it's a bad idea," Epstein added. "I don't think the graduate students should go on strike, and I don't think the graduate students should unionize."
Stein said that while she is "not against unions or unionization efforts in general," she is not altogether happy with the idea of a graduate student union.
"I do have concerns that unionization by graduate students will turn the relationship between their mentors and themselves into an employer-employee relationship," she wrote. "I believe the graduate students themselves will be the ones to suffer if this happens."
Other professors are also taking a guarded approach to the situation -- especially since several of them were not aware of the impending strike or the issue it is seeking to confront.
"Literally, I've heard nothing about it," Political Science professor Regina Baker said. "I honestly don't know enough about it to have a stance on it. It raises an awkward question, though. If they're legitimate concerns, I don't want to do anything to undermine the graduate students."
