Academic unions
Despite small membership, they work
to increase and protect student rights
By WALLY BENSON
Of the Emerald
The term “student union” may
conjure up thoughts of a building
or a joining of two students, but to
majors in eight fields of study, it
means a body of representation.
No, there aren’t bargaining ses
sions and wildcat strikes, but
these academic student unions
do, indeed, keep an eye out to
protect those they represent. A
brief description of the student un
ions contacted by press time fol
lows.
THE STUDENT UNION OF
ROMANCE LANGUAGES —
SURL, as it is known in intimate
circles, is composed of about 36 to
40 Graduate Teaching Fellows
(GTFs), according to president
Meredith Reynolds. The union is
restricted to graduates, both
GTFs and regular grads.
Formed about three years ago,
SURL exists to protect the
graduate student’s interests and
rights. SURL representatives
serve on every department com
mittee but one, and its representa
tives can vote at department fa
culty meetings. Reynolds says the
union is very active in making pol
icy, including those relating to the
undergraduate program in ro
mance languages.
Reynolds says the union has a
very good relationship with the
romance languages faculty.
“They consider us colleagues,
she says, “because we are en
tirely responsible for the sections
we teach. We are not just assis
tants.”
Reynolds says SURL will spon
sor an orientation for new GTFs in
the department next fall, espe
cially for the foreign GTFs, who
often have a harder time adjust
ing.
including the procedure for pre
paring the comprehesive exams
graduate students must take to
receive their degrees. They will
also work to change the history
THE PHYSICS STUDENT
UNION—This union had quite a
year last year. The "biggie,” ac
cording to current president John
Ralston, was getting a successful
THE GRADUATE HISTORY
CLUB—Also composed of
graduate students, the GHC has
representatives on most of the
major history department commit
tees, according to current presi
dent Nancy Carpenter. This last
year the dub was successful in
getting through a “major reform”
in degree requirements for the MA
program.
All history graduate students
are automatically members of the
dub, although only about 15 of the
30 grads are active in the club.
The dub organizes monthly semi
nars at which faculty give papers,
and also sets up mandatory
graduate seminars for the faculty,
so the graduate students can be in
a dass composed solely of other
graduate students.
Next year, Carpenter says the
club will institute some of the
Changes for the Ph.D. program,
department policy of having stu
dents fulfill requirements in a cer
tain order.
Carpenter says the member
ship of the club is smaller than in
the past, because, simply, there
are less graduate students. She
says this is partially because all
specifically graduate student ac
tivities have been phased out of
the history department. This de
velopment makes Carpenter all
the more happy the club exists.
"We need to keep paying atten
tion to graduate education when
the crisis in enrollment is causing
attention to be turned to the un
dergraduate more and more,” she
says.
The club meets in the Graduate
Student Lounge, 255 PLC, with
meetings called as needed, which
Carpenter says is usually every
three weeks to one month.
reform of the Teaching Assistant
(TA) allocation procedures. In the
past, the department had not
notified TA recipients right away.
The PSU helped make it mandat
ory that the students who were
going to get a TA position be in
formed as soon as possible.
Composed primarily of
graduate students, the union also
changed the time of year the
“qualifier was given to physics
graduate students. The four-day
test, which graduate students take
if they wish to get their Master's
degree or to continue in the Ph D.
program, used to be given during
the middle of fall term, when stu
dents had to worry about mid
terms. Now, the test is given the
first week of fall term each year.
Also last year, the union re
ceived a complaint from students
that a particular professor was not
very effective at teaching a par
ticular course. The union wrote
this professor a letter, telling him
what the students had said. Ral
ston says he isn't sure if it's a di
rect correlation, but he says the
professor quit teaching the
course.
Every physics student is au
tomatically a member, although
the most active members are
graduate students. Ralton says
one thing the union is trying to do
is to bring the undergraduates in
closer to the union and the de
partment.
THE MUSIC GRADUATE
GROUP—The basic thrust of the
MGG, says past president Shirley
Miller, is to serve on the graduate
committee and vote on prospec
tive interns to the doctoral prog
ram.
Any grad student is automati
cally a member of MGG, which
meets every other week at
lunchtime in one of the class
rooms.
The PSU meets in the Bnney
Lounge on the first floor of Sci
ence I, and usually gets about
20-25 students at a meeting.
No undergraduates are members
of MGG.
Last year the group earned
enough money from selling prog
rams at concerts, selling T-shirts
during the year and sponsoring
the Spring Concert to provide two
$100 scholarships. At the end of
the year, the group sponsors a re
ception in honor of degree candi
dates.
The MGG also puts on a spoof
concert in May, called the Rites of
(Continued on Page 31)
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