Special Meeting of the Board of Regents

　　2012年4月5日，一名博士生在華盛頓大學校董公聽會上的激昂發言。
　
　　上周四參加了校董公聽會（Special Meeting of the Board of Regents），而且不只是當觀眾。

　　系上對博士生的經費支持一直相當吃緊，但過去獨立講師（註）得以透過系上雇用閱卷助手（grader），算是讓論文與教學兩頭燒的博士生稍感安慰的一項措施。然而去年九月，正當系上行政人員寄出e-mail告訴大家要雇grader請找他，幾分鐘後，系主任便用同一封e-mail，突然宣布系上不再提供博士生講師雇用grader的權利。
　
　　我當時在台灣生著重病，一心想著忍著病也要準時回西雅圖教書，卻看到這種非常不尊重博士生的對待，忍不住聯絡學生工會（The Union for Academic Student Employees），希望能為自己、為其他同事爭一口氣。沒想到雖然工會很願意幫忙，基於自己的種種天真，整件事情最後只得到一些敷衍的結果。想想世界上還有多少更不公不義的事，而自己至少還有薪水彷彿已經領受系上莫大的恩典，也就沒有再多想這件事。
　
　　直到兩周前，看到校董公聽會的通知，確實一度想要報名發言，只是忙著開學便自然地擱置。這時工會正好到博士生辦公室來鼓勵大家報名，我便沒想太多地填上了我的名字。幾天後，拿出半年前寫給工會的陳情信，在工會代表稍微潤飾後，便在公聽會上進行了我的三分鐘發言。
　
Good afternoon.  I am Yu-hsuan Su, a 4th year Ph.D. student and an independent instructor in the Department of Economics.  I am also a member of UAW 4121.
　
I want to spend a little time talking about how academic quality is being threatened in my department by the University’s lack of investment in academic student employees. Until recently, the department of economics used to allow all instructors teaching independent sections to hire graders to help grade exams, quizzes, and homework.   However, the department suddenly announced in September 2011, three months after graduate students signed the autumn teaching contract, that because of budget cuts, the department will not be able to provide graders to graduate students teaching their own class.
　
Each quarter, around a thousand undergraduate students are taught by these independent graduate instructors in over 25 classes in the dept. With the possibility of hiring a grader, instructors have more freedom to assign written assignments and put more short answer questions in exams rather than multiple choice questions.  For disciplines like economics, which involve a lot of problem solving skills, more assignments and quizzes are extremely beneficial for students to succeed in their studies.
　
With the absence of graders, graduate instructors in economics have to move to fewer and more basic assessments to stay within our workload limits. Some instructors are forced to adopt online homework or quiz tools provided by textbook publishers. These assignments do not provide the same level of learning and understanding that we were able to produce when we had graders.  This also incurs additional cost to students.
　
Last year, the mantra from the UW administration was: we need to raise your tuition by 20% to preserve academic quality and access. If this was really the case, why would the UW chose to eliminate dozens of graders who provide a much better educational experience for an extremely low cost? Even with a strained budget, the equation just doesn’t add up. And what will this mean for next year's budget: Still higher tuition and fees with even less academic quality? The University’s priorities seem to be misplaced.
　
When we work hard to maintain the quality of undergraduate education, current graduate instructors should not be forced to overwork or delay their own progress, and the funding for hiring graders should not crowd out the number of student instructors or administrative staff that can be hired.  I urge the university to designate funding for graders to departments that used to allow graduate students to hire graders so that the quality of both undergraduate and graduate education can be maintained.  More broadly, I urge the University to take the necessary steps to invest in academic student employees who do the actual teaching and research that makes this university great.
　
Thank you.
　
*Thanks to Garrett Strain for some editing.

　　
　　除了我以外，陳情的內容不外是抗議學費飛漲、指出研究生一邊為學校工作還必須繳相當於薪水7%左右的強制費用、要求維護學校中下層員工的基本權益、協助弱勢學生等，也有人相當激進地直接告訴校董「他們根本不適任校董」，因為他們的企業背景與高等教育的宗旨其實有嚴重牴觸。二十幾位發言者大多是以英文為母語的人，令我更加感激大家給我的掌聲。公聽會的門口有警察，會議室後面站滿穿著會服的學生工會成員，但整場公聽會算是相當和平理性。
　
　　這大概是我第一次參加捍衛自己與他人權益的正式活動。經過去年的失望，我當然不能再天真地冀望這三分鐘的熱血沸騰就能帶來多少實質影響，事實上我也知道這世上比這件事更值得關心的事情實在太多。只是姑且在這裡做個紀錄，紀念一下我小小的公民參與經驗。

　　
（註）獨立講師跟助教不一樣：同樣是由博士生擔任，獨立講師的薪水每個月只比助教多一兩百塊美金，助教是協助正職教授或講師帶實習課，獨立講師是從設計教學大綱、教課、出考卷到給分數一手包辦，教授僅掛名監督，通常沒有實質介入或協助。