Photo by Matt Connors from from April 11th march

Yale opposes the unionization of graduate students, who do a great deal of the teaching at most universities these days. Matt Connors, who recently had a show of his paintings at Jeff Bailey Gallery, is working on his MFA there, and wrote to me about it. There was a strike last week, and I believe Columbia grad students were involved in a solidarity action. Quoting his email:

The art school is one of the only graduate programs at Yale that receives almost no tuition remission, no health care and gets paid less than half of other graduate student teachers.

Knowing what it costs to get an MFA at Yale, and knowing the odds of an artist making enough money to pay off the debt required, this means the diversity of the student body becomes rather limited -- those rich enough or crazy enough to risk it.

Here is a web page on the strike, plus an article from the Yale Daily News.

P.S. I have four(!) significant consulting projects going on right now, so I apologize for the rather light blogging.