English Department Faculty Pass Resolution in Support of GEO

(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.