Hey all!!
The GTFF needs you! We’d like you to help us promote the League of Educators and Scholars Slashing Tuition’s (LESS T) ‘Education is Not a Commodity’ rally and panel ideally in class THIS WEEK. Some of you will be teaching sections Thursday or Friday, others may be teaching their own classes, and still others have labs. Whatever your (appropriate) contact with undergrads, we’d really appreciate it if you would plug the rally and panel. Here’s a suggested blurb you could use (perhaps while introducing yourself….):*
“My name is (_________) and I am a (Masters/Doctorate) student in the (_______) department. I am also a Graduate Teaching Fellow, which means I am employed by the university to teach and grade this course. I am a member of our labor union, the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, which is currently working with undergraduate members of the Multicultural Center to help reduce tuition. You may know tuition was increased 6% in 2012. What you may not know is where that money goes. You each pay, roughly, $250 a month for this course. I teach (X) number of students. That’s $(X times 250) amount of tuition paid total by my students, YOU. I make about $1000 a month. Faculty, on average, make about $60,000 per year, so $5000 a month (and they teach more than one class). A small portion of your tuition goes to maintenance costs and student funding. The rest pays hefty salaries to the administration and maintains the UO’s $90 million surplus. Please join me at our rally next Wednesday (October 3rd) 11:30a-1:30p at the EMU amphitheater and/or the panel Wednesday of week 3 (Oct 10) at 7p in the Gumwood room. There’s also a Cowfish event Friday Oct 5!”
Also consider offering extra credit (or talk to the faculty instructor about that possibility) for the panel.
To review the important stuff:
‘Education is NOT a Commodity’ RALLY–Wednesday of week 2 (October 3) 11:30a-1:30p at the EMU amphitheater.
Cowfish fundraiser–Friday of week 2 (October 5) 9:30p at Cowfish
‘Education is NOT a Commodity’ PANEL–Wednesday of week 3 (October 10) 7p at the EMU Gumwood room
There will be more actions to come (including coordinating with our brothers and sisters in Corvallis, California, and Washington), but its really important that we get the ball rolling here on our campus now!
In solidarity,
Dana Rognlie
Ph.D. Student in Philosophy
University of Oregon
VP of Membership Communications
GTFF AFT-local 3544
*UPDATE: The GTFF trusts the discretion of members on how to appropriately approach undergrads about this exciting movement.
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