A graduate-student group is telling potential Quakers that their Penn education may not be worth what they'd be paying for it.
Members of Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania, which is seeking recognition as a union from the University, have been passing out a study indicating that many classes are not taught by full professors to accepted students and their families.
Many of those students are on campus for Penn Previews, a program that lets students who may enroll get a better feel for Penn.
The study, released in March, shows that 40 percent of College of Arts and Sciences courses were taught by tenured and tenure-track professors last semester. The remainder were taught by other faculty and graduate students.
GET-UP contends that by employing teachers who receive lower salaries than professors, Penn is cheapening its education.
But passing out the flyers wasn't intended to drive away the prospective students, GET-UP member Peter Gaffney said.
"It is to make them aware of how the administration treats its workers and where the resources are going," the Comparative Literature graduate student said. "This is the kind of information [students] don't get from the administration ... but this is exactly the kind of information they come here for."
But School of Arts and Sciences Dean Rebecca Bushnell said the data in the report are skewed.
GET-UP's actions won't have a significant effect on the number of students who will attend Penn in the fall, she added.
"They do have the right to hand out the leaflets. But I think once the [prospective] students talk to our students or go to our classes ... they will see the quality" of a Penn education, Bushnell said.
"I think it is a shame that [the group] is implicity denigrating the work done by our faculty and the quality of our teaching," Bushnell added.
Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson agreed, saying the flyering does not have any significant influence on the Penn Previews program.
And while some parents attending Penn Previews with their children said they sympathize with GET-UP's cause, they added that the group's efforts were unlikely to affect their willingness to send their children to Penn.
Tom Tonnesen, a parent from Cedarburg, Wis., acknowledged GET-UP's arguments.
"I think they have a legitimate concern. ... [Graduate students] carry the heavy load of these classes," he said.
But his daughter Sonja Tonnesen, who plans to enroll in the College of Arts and Sciences next fall, said that her perception of Penn hasn't changed.
"We discussed the study last night in our hotel room and ... the fact that all statistics can be as reliable as a person wants them to be. But [GET-UP's] purpose is important," she said.
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