Your arguments make very very little sense to me. I think the article has been written with very little thought or research.

best. letter. ever.

I get what you are saying, but no need to fan the flames anymore, eh? Remember, the grad students and the undergrads need not be pitted against one another! And we grad students, in my opinion, need to take the lead in healing the rift that the admin tried to create.

Of course, we as instructors should make students earn their grades in our classes. Otherwise, their degrees are worth nothing. But in this moment, let's celebrate our gains.

Do what I do - put in your syllabus that any student who texts or sleeps will be marked absent without warning or notice. If your attention isn't on the class, you might as well not be in class.

Letrell Crittenden's degree is certainly not in business, at least I pray that it is not.

Perhaps Letrell does not understand that when a person (student, or thier parents) pay for a promised service it is up to the service provider (The University via thier faculty, staff, TA's, assistants, etc) to make what is promised available. The individual or group that pays for the service has every right to take full or partial advantage of that service.

The service provider has no right or abiality for that matter to force a purchaser to take advantage or not take advantage of what they provide.

Would it make sense for Verizon, AT&T;, etc. to dock you for unused minutes, or McDonalds charge you for not finishing your big Mac? Of course not.

The only part of your whole letter that even approached making sense is the part where a student may direclty or indirectly prevent another student from taking advantage of education that they paid for.

Maybe if the TAs weren't so dull and boring, students might actually engage in the class. My time with TAs are hellacious, at least my engineering professors for the most part make class interesting and/or pleasurable. They explain where, what we learned is used, they explain where that material relates to their own research and/or private industry experience, their cheesy jokes, etc... I actually look forward going to professor lectures but become very unmotivated to going to see TAs for recitations or those crappy 100 level gen. ed. classes which are completely run by grad students. Its so awful, its like someone taking a hacksaw to my skull listening to some of these TAs speak.

Learning is not a service or a product that an instructor provides in return for the payment of your fees. Learning is something that an instructor fosters in you, the student. If learning is akin to a product in any way, then it is produced by both student and instructor. You can't help to produce your own learning if you don't show up.

LMAO!

*dies*

My instructors already do that. Welcome to the world of personal responsibility.

FYI

Your bottle of formula is warming in the microwave.

I thoroughly enjoyed this editorial. As a graduate student who worked my butt off to get into an Ivy League institution (I know what you're thinking, and no, mommy and daddy didn't pay my way), my observation is that U of I undergrads, as a whole, do not take their education seriously. Prior to coming here I've never heard of blaming instructors for not learning material, not coming to class, etc. The idea being that since you are now in college, you, as an undergraduate, need to initiate learning. Too often do I encounter students who expect to be entertained, fed, and burped during every class. Frankly it sickens me, and in my mind the true desire to learn, taking personal responsibility for achievements and failures, as well as holding oneself accountable for what is learned/not learned is what separates schools like this from the elite.

You clearly missed the point of the letter.

Maybe a TA can help you figure it out.

Maybe if the foreign TA's would learn English, undergrads would pay attention to the course more. I have sat in countless 100 level courses during my academic career where none of us understood what the TA was saying. This is especially applicable in the Math Department. A little advice for the Grad Students. You won the battle. You got your contract with the majority of what you asked for. Stop fanning the flames. You accuse undergrads of acting like babies but Grad Students have been doing the same. Even after the strike was over, you keep talking about how you have been wronged. IT IS OVER ALREADY. Act like adults now and try to bridge the rift that was created between Grad Students and Undergrads in my eyes by both the Administration and GEO. Both parties are guilty in my eyes. A note for the Administration In your recruitment materials, you should put in fact how many courses are taught by TA's. I seriously screwed not knowing this before hand. I would have NEVER came here if I knew truly how the campus functioned. I am glad to be out of here in three weeks. Good Riddance.

How charmingly xenophobic! As a student, you are responsible for doing research when choosing a university. The information is readily available in many college guides. Large courses and TAs are par for the course at research institutions. The schools attract big name professors who are focused on research, and TAs carry much of the teaching load. It's like that is at Harvard, too. Universities portray themselves in the best light in their materials. It's your job to find out if the place is right for you.

xenophobic, maybe, but true? definitely.

I had a math TA who told us he had no idea how to teach the material since he had never taught a math class before.

i had an econ TA who barely spoke english and when questions were asked of her, we were directed to the professor. who, in having 600-some students, i'm sure was delighted by his TA's lack of correspondence with the class.

i find it hard to believe that i am the only one who dealt with teachers who either did not know what they were teaching or couldn't communicate due to a language barrier. it's unfair to have to pay for college to fund TA's who CAN'T TEACH.

National average for TAs teaching courses is about 7%. I could not find a school other than Illinois that is at about 25%. Top R1 schools like UNC, Michigan, Cal, Virginia are at 5% or lower... And Harvard, less than 2% of undergraduate courses are taught by anything less than a faculty member. I agree, doesn't take much research to find out Illinois uses TAs more than any other large state school. ILLINOIS IS NOT ON PAR WITH OTHER LARGE STATE SCHOOLS.

As a undergrad, had the same problems as you. Illinois admin some how makes no differentiation between TAs and professional instructors. They also don't know, that knowing the material well doesn't mean you can teach it well. Also another problem, Illinois admin, TAs and even many undergrads are convinced this is the way it works at all large state schools. So wrong, did my undergrad at Illinois and did my grad work at University of North Carolina, another large R-1 school. At UNC, when I was there at least, less than 2% of undergraduate courses were taught by graduate instructors, otherwise most undergraduate students graduated with all their instructors being associate professors at the minimum.

Illinois admin are at fault here. University of Illinois faculty are some of the best compensated of all major R-1 state schools. They should be given higher teaching loads and therefore less dependence on graduate instruction. I think the undergrads will be happier to see they are getting more for their money with professors and graduate instructors will be happier with less of a responsibility to undergraduate instruction.

Trying to feel better about your pointless strike by giving others a hard time huh?

Professors should keep doing what they are doing. At least, they are giving undergrads the opportunity to learn, unlike TAs who decided it was a good idea to simply drop their responsibilities.

I'm sure you'll get back to me saying how anybody who ever skipped a class has no right to complain about the strike, but we both know that is not the case. But hey... whatever makes you feel good right?

BEGINNING this spring all TAs should start these things? Why haven't you been doing it all along? You wanted a raise and all along you've been teaching students that they can get away with being lazy and late? No wonder so many undergrads hit a brick wall when they reach the real world. I agree with you. Start doing your job. I can't believe you got anything you asked for in your strike. Any TA who hasn't lived up to this letter already should have been fired long ago.