The Mission Statement of the Graduate Student Caucus The
Graduate Student Caucus (GSC) is an allied organization of the Modern
Language Association (MLA). We provide organized representation for graduate
students and other academic workers within the MLA and act to facilitate
communication between the MLA and its graduate student membership (a
constituency comprising one-third of the organization's current membership
and all of its future membership). We are committed to garnering broad-based
support and participation from all graduate students in the modern languages
and literatures.
As graduate students have traditionally been under-represented in the MLA's
governance structure, the GSC introduces motions and resolutions in the
Delegate Assembly; works to elect GSC members to the Delegate Assembly,
Executive Council, and standing committees; and otherwise uses existing
parliamentary channels to encourage the MLA to recognize and address
graduate students' interests, including pressing labor and diversity issues.
The GSC advocates for graduate students in their pursuit of equitable
compensation, reasonable working conditions, healthcare, and other benefits.
We denounce the use of corporate models in academic administration among US
and Canadian universities, and we assert that universities' greater reliance
on and exploitation of part-time and adjunct faculty both compromises the
quality of postsecondary education and represents an unsustainable future
for the profession.
Through our efforts within the MLA and by collaborating with other
activist groups in postsecondary education, we work to publicize and reverse
recent trends in hiring practices and in the mistreatment of graduate
student and part-time labor among US and Canadian universities. We do so
from the conviction that the first condition of academic freedom is a just
and equitable workplace.
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