The relationship between a graduate student and their faculty mentor
represents a very personal and dynamic partnership. The imparting of
knowledge and experience combined with support for and encouragement of
creativity and individuality are fundamental contributions of the
successful mentor. For their part, successful graduate students
ultimately provide new insights, challenge conventional thinking, and
extend a mentor’s perspective and experience. Because of the
interdependence between mentor and student, their relationship is of
necessity very personal and highly individualized. Success of such close
personal interactions is predicated on accessibility, open-mindedness,
mutual respect, honesty, and trust between these two individuals. In my
experience no two students have been alike. Hence, my relationship with
each of my students has been unique to them. Insertion of
intermediaries, surrogates, or union representatives is incompatible
with the essential one-to-one nature of mentor – graduate student
relationships.
Yeah, a personal and dynamic partnership with set wage rates and benefit schedules brought to us courtesy the university administration. They’re already inserting themselves as intermediaries in that “essential one-to-one” relationship. They just want to maintain their monopoly. Good gods, that explanation takes me from mildly to ambivalently in favor of unionization to strongly in favor. Doublespeaking weasels.
Seems to me that the kinds of things unions would be interested in would be negotiated between the students/union and the department-level or university-level administration–not with professors. Although there may be valid arguments against grad student unionization, the idea that it comes between the student and his/her advisor seems a completely specious one.
I guess the one place this might come in is if a professor wants the student to TA N semesters because of funding issues, and the student wants to TA fewer than N semesters. I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing unions would negotiate in this setting. But either way, I agree with you that it’s hard to see what issues like wages and number of hours TAing have to do with the kind of intellectual mentorship the writer of that paragraph is talking about.
A situtation in which the students are financially raping the institution is not conducive to open dialogue and constructive learning, so we much prefer a situation in which the institution is financially raping the students. Have a nice day.
Yes, it is complete horseshit. Every time I get an email from OHR these days I have to brace myself for propaganda of the most blatant sort. Not that the emails from the union are much better; the dialogue on this issue has not been terribly sophisticated on either side.
To what are they responding? It doesn’t seem like what they’ve said here has anything to do with unionization, creativity, individuality, blah blah blah. Unless, that is, they’re trying to tell you that working with others, as a union requires you to do, is a threat to individuality…and if they’re saying that, they either think you’re stupid or they have the common sense/street smarts of an armadillo.
But yeah, why did they send you this email?
Yikes. I wonder how many faculty members actually buy into any of that dreck? Most I know wouldn’t. I’d bet it’s from some consultant-type that the U H-R dept hires to represent their interests.
As much crap as they fit into that single paragraph, I still could never be in favor of unionization myself. I believe that the unions long ago abandoned representing people who need their help, and are now simply another corporation themselves, always on the search for new clients to increase their own revenue stream.