The end of an academic year is usually an emotional roller coaster. Classes are coming to a close, in sweetness and glory ... or at least relief. Committees are realizing what they've achieved, if anything. (What a lot of committees I've been on this year, and what a lot of time and goodwill has been squandered in them!) The agitation of graduates about to bid farewell, new horizons and new uncertainties beckoning, is sensed by all.. But this year's ending is fixing to be rather more exciting than usual. Student academic workers - graduate teaching fellows and graduate and undergraduate research assistants - have recently unionized and have been negotiating a contract with the university administration. The administration, which has fought the campaign from the start, are stalling, perhaps hoping that the onset of summer will dissipate the mobilized energy. (This must be page one of every university administrator's handbook.) But the student union is wise to this trick, and so is threatening a grading strike, to start next Tuesday - one week before the end of classes. No agreement will mean students in classes graded by graduate students won't get their grades. The faculty has been asked to support the likely strike by not making contingency plans, and by not crossing the picket lines at the entrances to our main buildings should the strike happen. A strike would cause turmoil and distress, especially for students needing to present final work and send off transcripts, but that's sort of the point. "It's supposed to get ugly," one of my tenured colleagues observed with satisfaction.
By happy coincidence, my classes won't be so disrupted. The "Job and the Arts" class meets Monday, just before the strike. (Grades would have to be submitted by the graduate student teaching assistants, though, so might not happen for a while.) "Religion and ecology" had its final presentations this week, and we have a blog we can use in lieu of a classroom next week. But many of my faculty colleagues face starker choices. The student academic workers union hopes they'll hold class off-campus, but there aren't spaces enough in parks and cafes around school, certainly not spaces conducive to media-rich final presentations. I hope the prospect of protracted "ugliness" will push the administration to negotiation in good faith to avert it.
