Inside Higher Ed
by Colleen Flaherty
May 10, 2022
Indiana University at Bloomington’s Faculty Council held a rare emergency meeting Monday evening to discuss the fallout from the ongoing graduate assistant strike for union recognition and the administration’s response to it.
Attendance at the in-person-only meeting was about 730—many more than the 200 professors needed for a quorum but fewer than the 800 needed to vote on resolutions without sending them out to the faculty as a whole for ratification.
Still, turnout at the dinnertime meeting, on the eve of the first day of summer classes, signaled how high the monthlong strike’s stakes have become, for faculty members and everyone else involved.
“The strike has gone on for longer than people initially expected,” said Benjamin Robinson, chair of Germanic studies and president of the campus advocacy chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “And [university] leadership escalated the crisis. Leadership provided no movement or resolution of the crisis.”