The Graduate Employees’ Organization held a Halloween teach-in at the Illini Union Courtyard Cafe on Wednesday.
The graduate and teaching assistants of the organization did the work they would normally do in their office in a public setting, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., to raise awareness about the group’s main issues with the University.
“The big issues that are still on the table are health care and wages, but then our biggest issue is tuition waivers,” said GEO spokeswoman Stephanie Seawell.
Carry Osborne, teaching assistant and GEO member, said these issues affect the quality of undergraduate students’ education as graduate employees “teach 40 percent of intro-level courses at the University and 24 percent of classes overall.”
Amanda Butler, teaching assistant, came to the teach-in to make sure her voice was heard.
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“The point is making a statement to the University that we are not alone, and that this means everything to us,” Butler said.
Butler said a handful of undergraduate students approached her during the teach-in, and once they understood what the GEO was doing, they showed support and asked what they could do to help. She said students can contact the Board of Trustees to let them know the situation directly affects them and encourage the board to bargain with the GEO.
Butler rang a bell every half hour to signal GEO members to hold up signs to draw more attention to their teach-in. The signs identified the assistants’ departments, such as the one that read “NRES graduate student without a contract. Ask me for help.”
Butler, along with three other assistants, organized the teach-in. She came up with the idea of holding up signs to engage more with members of the public.
Tricia Dimit, who is on fellowship this semester but was a teaching assistant for several years, is finishing her time at the University. She said she still finds it important for teaching and graduate assistants to have tuition waivers.
Restrictions on tuition waivers may cause students looking to teach at this University to go elsewhere, she said.
“They’ll find a tuition waiver somewhere else, which means that the only students that will be accepting positions here won’t be necessarily the best and brightest in their fields,” Dimit said.
Hannah can be reached at [email protected].
