When the Graduate and Fixed-Term Employee Organization (GFTEO) was established in November 1999, its goal was to "maintain a democratically elected collective bargaining organization affiliated with a nationally recognized union," according to its mission statement.

Some of the reasons for forming the organization included improving the quality of undergraduate education and having a significant voice in administrative decisions.

However, after being denied an opportunity to address the Faculty Senate during its Feb. 27 meeting, the organization's immediate concern became its right to be heard.

The group had planned to rebut Executive Vice Provost Rodney Erickson's memo, which explained why the administration is opposed to graduate employee unionization. Specifically, the administration says it only deals with faculty business and won't hear a graduate student issue.

This reasoning behind the refusal to hear the group's concerns is faulty. While graduate students are just that, students, it is absurd not to consider them part of the faculty. They teach classes and do a lot of work that professors do and should be permitted to voice their grievances. Otherwise, it would be way too easy to take advantage of them. In essence, they fulfill a dual role — as student and teacher.

The administration can't just expect the organization's members to desert their cause because they were not able to address the Faculty Senate during their meeting last month. They won't go away and have not for more than a year because they obviously feel they have not been heard. The problems the group argues it faces — lack of support from advisers, performing too many administrative tasks, etc. — need to be addressed sometime if this university is to legitimately claim it values its graduate students.

However, on the flip side, GFTEO seems to be asking for a little too much. One of its grievances is that they are asked to do work with little or no relevance to their degree (e.g. an American Literature graduate student teaching an introductory class in writing).

As stated earlier, graduate students are foremost students. They should expect to be have teaching roles, but shouldn't forget about the learning aspect of their education. They want to be treated more like faculty, but seem to forget that they're also students, and are here to gain a deeper understanding about their respective fields. Some introductory-level classes should be taught by graduate students. It is good practice for them if they hope to teach after they earn their degrees, and it relieves the load on professors.

The only way to resolve this issue is for both sides to compromise. The administration should allow graduate students to be considered part of the faculty because of all the faculty-related work they do for the university. Simply ignoring the issue won't make it go away. Conversely, graduate students shouldn't take advantage of their situation. They are students and should be expected to do some tasks for the faculty — in essence, they are like interns or apprentices. If each side continues to be stubborn on the issues, the problem will never get resolved.