This is an archived article. For the latest news, go to the Advance Homepage . A group of graduate students known as the Graduate Employees Organization on Feb. 27 announced a campaign to form a union in a statement timed to coincide with a national Day of Action for graduate employee unions. The drive is led by Steve Gensemer, a fourth-year student in the doctoral program in physics. He said the initiative was spurred by worries about the impact of budget cuts on graduate students.
Graduate students have no way of planning out the rest of their careers.
They don't know whether they will have assistantships and they have no recourse for anything the administration chooses to do. It has a lot of people scared. The Graduate Student Senate began discussing the possibility of organizing a union in February 1996, Gensemer said. The Graduate Employees Organization was formed in the fall as a subcommittee of the senate and has the support of that organization, according to Julie Cyr, its president. Jim Henkel, associate dean of the Graduate School, who first heard about the initiative last week, said he is waiting for more information.