To the Editor:

On Tuesday, April 10, the Graduate Student Assembly will be hosting an open forum on graduate student unionization at Yale. The meeting will take place from 4-6 p.m. in the main lecture hall of SSS (SSS 114, at the corner of Grove and Prospect streets). We have invited a panel representing a diversity of viewpoints on the unionization issue: a representative of the Graduate Employees & Students Organization, a student opposed to graduate student unionization, Yale’s Provost Alison Richard, Professor of Psychology Peter Salovey, Professor of American Studies Michael Denning and a member of an established graduate student union at another university.

We are writing to invite you to attend this open forum. The discussion will have three parts: a brief presentation by each panelist, responses to questions submitted in advance and an open discussion between panelists and the audience.

We encourage all members of the Yale community to submit questions for the panel. There are three ways to do this: one, send an e-mail to graduate.student.assembly@yale.edu; two, visit the GSA’s Web site (http://www.yale.edu/assembly); three, leave a question in the drop box at the McDougal Center. Questions will be sorted by a group of GSA representatives and shared with the panelists before the meeting. In order to be considered, your questions and comments must be received by Thursday, April 5.

As you may know from the Yale Daily News, GESO has refused the GSA’s initial invitation to participate on the panel at our open forum. We very much regret their refusal, and our invitation to GESO will remain open. However, we feel that this event can still provide a valuable service to the graduate school community.

Unionization is a very important issue for graduate students at Yale, and this meeting will provide an opportunity for an exchange of information and opinions across the university. We hope to see you on the 10th!

Tyler Radniecki GRD’05

March 27, 2001

The writer is chairman of the Graduate Student Assembly