Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 17:00:42 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dennis Grammenos <dgrammen-AT-prairienet.org>
Subject: M-I: FORGIVE US, FOR WE HAVE SINNED...



The Daily Illini, U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Friday, 10 October 1997

p. 9 Opinions Editor

-----------------------
Graduate Employees Organization brings disgrace to student activism

Daniel C. Vock
----------------------

The Graduate Employees' Organization must be the most childish 
organization on campus.  While they aim for noble and worthy goals, these 
graduates resort to sucking their thumbs, wetting their pants and 
throwing temper tantrums.

Never wa this so apparent as at Wednesday's Board of Trustees meeting.  
WHen I walked into the Pine Lounge, my jaw hit my knee.  The place was 
packed.  While making my way to one of the few remaining seats, I smiled 
as I filed past students armed with signs, balloons and determined 
countenances that protested the imminent general fee hike.

The meeting opened with students addressing the trustees.  When Laura 
Appenzeller, president of Illinois Student Government, took the podium, 
the crowd greeted her with thunderous applause, a courtesy which the 
audience extended to every student who spoke.  And after Bill Winneshiek 
exhorted the BOT to eliminate Chief Illiniwek, the crowd applause 
persisted for nearly three minutes.  The crowd knew that the moment the 
applause stopped, the BOT meeting would begin and students would no 
longer have a voice.

That moment proved to be the high watermark of student opposition to the 
athletic fee.

As the gavel fell, GEO displayed its infantile tactics and discredited 
thousands of students and the immesurable hours they spent fighting this 
breach of democratic trust.

As the gavel fell, it became too apparent that GEO and its cohorts from 
Students for a Real Democracy didn't care to contribute positively to the 
process of government.  One of the great benefits of a democracy like 
ours is that anyone, including GEO and SRD, can attend a meeting of the 
Board of Trustees or other non-elected governing bodies.  

As the gavel fell, GEO announced to the world it was no longer interested 
in winning so long as it has a good time.

No, as soon as BOT Chairperson Susan Gravenhorst called the meeting to 
order, one Dennis Grammenos, a GEO member with a history of tactless and 
pointless public displays directed at administrators, yelled, "Why won't 
you let us speak? Why won't you let the GEO speak?"  Nevermind that six 
students just addressed the BOT (some even sporting GEO apparel)  or that 
GEO said more with its attendance than any speech its representatives 
could have given.  Grammenos soon answered his own question.

Quietly, I hoped his good sense or common descency would prevail and the 
matter would go relatively unnoticed.

But not caring a whit about respect (which begs the question: How is it the 
university is supposed to respect those who cannot respect it?), almost 
the entire audience rose as if on cue and chanted "No justice, no peace! 
No union, no teach!"  Then they stormed out of the Pine Lounge like a 
circus parade and left the BOT all alone to take care of such business 
as, well, as the exact fee increase that the GEO and SRD detested so much.

The Board recessed, cameras turned off, trustees relaxed and the chances 
of an upset plummeted.

So while a few trustees grilled University bureaucrats about whether 
students were consulted about tuition and fee hikes, all of our so-called 
"concerned" students were nowhere to be found.

When the meeting continued on Thursday morning, the suits and ties of an 
army of University administrators vastly outnumbered students in the 
audience.

It would have been nice to see a little bit of that opposition during the 
part of the meeting when the trustees actually voted on the fee hike.  

But that's not all, that's not all...

Sometime during the presentation about the revitalization of University 
of Illinois at Chicago, I found a stray copy of the GEO list of chants, 
songs and other assorted nuisance makers.

The oh-so-mature GEO, which purportedly loves democracy, has a song 
called "Roll the Union on,' which goes, "If the chancellor's in the way, 
we're going to roll right over him... If the Board (of Trustees) is in 
the way, we're going to roll right over them..."

But it gets better.  The last verse asserts, "If the courts get in the 
way, we're going to roll right over them."

That's one of the tamer songs.  No fewer than six songs and chants 
mention Chancellor Aiken by name.  One of them is just this: "Aiken 
beware, we are everywhere."

Just like these graduates, with their 20 years of schooling apiece, to 
show their maturity by calling the chancellor names and by threatening him.

This isn't to say that there are no mature members of the GEO.  Nor 
should the action of these dregs of the graduate college prevent graduate 
employees from unionizing.

But as a prospective graduate student --and prospective graduate 
employee-- I would be very wary of trusting my contract negotiations to 
the characters who showed up at the Board of Trustees meeting.

Like all too many activist groups on this campus, GEO thinks that 
ridiculing and insulting its adversaries --the ones who hold the power to 
change things-- will earn them respect.  It hopes it can bully its way 
into the hearts of administrators and trustees.

Which is too bad, because graduate employees, including those who did 
not attend Wednesday's meeting, spend a lot of energy on their cause.  
But, as the Illini football team can vouch, a lot of energy doesn't 
guarantee sucess.

People might argue that GEO and SRD turned out to the trustees' meeting, 
which is more than most students can say.  As true as this is, GEO 
serviced no one by showing up, but rather, reflected negatively on the 
student body as a whole.  No wonder one trustee thought the whole debate 
was about student empowerment and ego-massaging.

With friends like those in the immature GEO faction, who needs the Board 
of trustees to oppose us?


--------------
Daniel C. Vock is a junior in LAS.
He can be reached at vock-AT-students.uiuc.edu
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