FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
From:
Leo Parascondola
To:
Workplace
Date:
May 24, 2001
Posted:
May 25, 2001
Subject:
SUNY Dean Ousts Chair
SUNY-Buffalo Dean Ousts Chairwoman
for Not Reprimanding T.A.'s
in Suspected Labor Action
By ANA MARIE COX
A dean at the State University of
New York at Buffalo has
removed the chairwoman of the English
department for refusing
to discipline teaching assistants
who were suspected of
withholding undergraduate grades
as a protest against
low-paying stipends.
On May 17, the dean of the College
of Arts and Sciences,
Charles L. Stinger, asked the professor,
Barbara Bono, to sign
a memo he had prepared informing
the teaching assistants --
who earn about $8,500 a year --
that failure to submit grades
was a "serious dereliction of academic
responsibility" and
that they would be "subject to serious
penalties," including
being declared ineligible for reappointment
to an
assistantship. The letter also warned
that "participation in
any such unauthorized job action
may also well be deemed
illegal under New York State Law."
The teaching assistants'
union, the Graduate Student Employee
Union, is affiliated with
the Communication Workers of America.
Representatives of the
G.S.E.U. could not be reached for
comment. Mr. Stinger said
that his memo and his request that
Ms. Bono sign it were
prompted by a report that 80 percent
of the English department
teaching assistants had not submitted
grades for the spring
semester.
Ms. Bono refused to sign the letter.
Mr. Stinger told her that
she could not continue to lead the
department, although she
would maintain her tenured faculty
position. Both Ms. Bono and
Mr. Stinger agree that these events
took place within the
first 10 minutes of the meeting.
According to Mr. Stinger, he dismissed
Ms. Bono because "she
expressed considerable sympathy
for the student situation and
didn't see that forceful action
was required." He added,
"Being unwilling to take action
in those circumstances made it
impossible for her to fulfill her
responsibilities as chair."
Ms. Bono said that she had refused
to sign Mr. Stinger's memo
because "my basic instinct was maternal
and collegial. I was
not going to turn to threatening
my students." She added that
it would not have been her place
to send such a memo: "It is
the dean who hires and presumably
the one who would have to
fire the T.A.'s."
The afternoon after Ms. Bono was
removed from her position,
the memo she was asked to sign was
sent out with Mr. Stinger's
signature. It was followed by two
formal letters reminding
teaching assistants that they would
be dismissed if grades
were not received, and that they
were considered to be
breaking the law by withholding
the grades.
Since Ms. Bono's dismissal, the university
has received all
the grades. However, Mr. Stinger
said that the New York State
Governor's Office of Employee Relations
would investigate the
incident. Said Mr. Stinger, "The
office must investigate
whenever there is a suspicion of
an organized job action by
civil servants, which graduate students
are, under New York
state law. They've sent a questionnaire
and we've been asked
to supply information to them."
Ms. Bono said she knew that some
teaching assistants had
discussed withholding grades in
protest of the stipends. But
she said she had discouraged them,
both in conversation and in
an e-mail message.
Ms. Bono said that after removing
her from the department
leadership, Mr. Stinger continued
to question her about her
knowledge of the T.A.'s protest.
She insisted that, in her
message, she had urged the graduate
students not to withhold
the grades. According to Ms. Bono,
the dean then said, "Well,
I'll have to see that e-mail." She
refused to show him the
note. "It was a private e-mail,"
she said, "And I didn't want
a couple of students to be earmarked
as leaders."
Justifying his request for the correspondence,
Mr. Stinger
said that the e-mail message "can't
be construed as a private
communication. Any communication
with the T.A. was one she was
doing as chair of the department."
Peter S. Gold, Buffalo's associate
dean for general education,
said that Ms. Bono's dismissal was
a result of a situation
that "spiraled out of control."
"My own sense," he said, "is
that the students had no idea what
was at stake here" when
they decided to withhold the grades.
He pointed out that the
T.A.'s did turn them in once they
were told to do so.
Mr. Gold, who was present when Mr.
Stinger removed Ms. Bono as
chairwoman, said that in his opinion,
Ms. Bono didn't see the
situation with the same degree of
seriousness as Mr. Stinger
did: "She thought that this was
under control, that the T.A.'s
would turn in grades late and it
wouldn't be a problem."
Ms. Bono said that after dismissing
her, Mr. Stinger
"expressed regret." She said that
later in the meeting, Mr.
Stinger asked her how she would
modify his memo to the T.A.'s
if she were the one sending it.
"I said I would take away the
intensifiers and change the tense
to the conditional." But,
she added, "Surely I must be only
advising you, because I'm no
longer chair."
____________________________________
Copyright 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher
Education
This material is distributed for educational
purposes only.