(From Dennis Baron, Department Chair)
At the English department faculty meeting held this afternoon, May 3,
2000, the twenty-one members of the faculty present voted unanimously
to endorse the following statement prepared by Bob Parker and Ania Loomba
in support of the GEO:
We, the faculty of the Department of English at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign join with our colleagues in the Department of History
to support the rights of graduate employees to organize and bargain
collectively, and we call upon the university administration to recognize
the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) and to sit down and bargain
with that organization in good faith and in the interests of graduate
employees and other interested parties. We believe that recognizing
the GEO will improve working conditions for graduate students, improve
the relation between graduate students and faculty, and help us attract
and retain the best graduate students at the University of Illinois.
In addition, to date 36 members of the faculty have signed an endorsement
of this statement, copies of which will be sent to the Provost after other
faculty have had the opportunity to sign it.