TF Federation Faces Crisis Year

The easy part is over for the Federation of Teaching Fellows. Faced with an Administration that is politely but firmly uncooperative, the young organization begins the academic year with the growing conviction that argument alone may not be enough to achieve its stated goals of improving the pay and working conditions of Harvard's teaching fellows.

Ever since 150 teaching fellows voted the Federation into existence at a meeting in February, the group has cherished the unspoken hope that Harvard would see the reason of its position and agree peacefully to its demands. Every graduate student knows about the Marxist interpretation of history, but many of them apparently felt the class struggle does not apply to dealings between Harvard deans and Harvard teaching assistants.

Last winter the Federation leaders refined the vague consensus of the February meeting into three specific requests: a pay increase that would have meant $800 a year more to most teaching fellows; the abolition of the pay differential Harvard maintains between teaching fellows who have completed residence requirements for their doctorate and those who have not; and a redefinition of the University's criteria for measuring a teaching fellow's work load.

After circulating the requests among Harvard's 900 TF's, the Federation submitted them, with 500 signatures, to Dean Ford and John P. Elder, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

But the dean's reply, delivered late in May, was almost totally negative. Ford and Elder rejected the pay increase outright. They offered two new proposals on the junior-senior rate differential, both of which meant that the teaching fellows might lose as much as they would gain. Only with respect to work load measurement were the deans conciliatory, and even there they would accept only adjustments within the old system.

What stung the Federation's leaders most sharply, however, was the dean's assertion that TF's are not teachers, who exchange their services for pay, but primarily Ph.D. candidates whose teaching is a supplement to their education. The underlying premise of the Federation had always been that a teaching fellow is as much a member of the Faculty as a full professor. If a teaching fellow is merely a student picking up some financial aid as he learns, the Federation can hardly claim to be bargaining for a group of teachers working for Harvard.

In their last action before vacation, the teaching fellows sent a strongly worded letter back to Ford and Elder, expressing their dissatisfaction "when our real position as teachers and employees of Harvard is not recognized and when our reasoning is given only cursory notice or ignored entirely."

"Speaking on our part, at least, it would seem very unfortunate if our desire as a group to cooperate with the University would be frustrated because of your failure to recognize us fully," the letter concluded.

The lines are now clearly drawn. The Administration has turned the teaching fellows down, and the Federation has to find a way to make Harvard change its basic position. But how?

The Federation's spokesman, George W. Ross, a teaching fellow in Government and Social Studies, feels the group has two things going for it: teaching fellows' anger at not being taken seriously by the Administration, and the increasingly tight squeeze of trying to survive in Cambridge on a salary that rarely exceeds $2400 a year.

The problem for Ross and the other Federation leaders is to translate what they hope is widespread discontent into effective pressure on the University. The pressure could take a number of forms. Mildest of all would be a simple restatement of the Federation's three demands, perhaps in more emphatic terms. But it is hard to see why Ford and Elder should find the same arguments which left them cold in May convincing in October.

Another approach would be some form of using publicity against the University, an institution acutely conscious of its image. One avenue to this sort of pressure could be the American Association of University Professors, a prestigious body whose national president is Clark Byse, professor of Law. In the past, the AAUP has concerned itself chiefly with academic freedom, confirming its action on salaries to publishing yearly rating of universities by comparative pay scales. But the teaching fellows believe that the AAUP is about to take an active interest in the situation of junior faculty. Federation representatives conferred with local AAUP officials last spring and again this fall, coming away from the meetings convinced that they had at least the Association's sympathy. If the AAUP decides to support the teaching fellows, either through private influence on Harvard or a public statement, the Federation will have won a major victory.

Finally, there is the possibility, however remote, of direct action against the University. Some of the teaching fellows originally interested in the Federation envisioned it as a union, with the power to bargain collectively and to strike. The group has thus far shied away from suggestion of unionism, since it was clear last winter that very few teaching fellows were willing to antagonize Harvard and jeopardize their own futures with a walkout. Even now, it is unlikely that enough teaching fellows have been convinced of the University's inflexibility to take drastic action. But there are other, less radical measures the teaching fellows could take--refusing to grade for example.

But the central question is still just how much Harvard teaching fellows are willing to countenance, either by way of University intransigence or Federation activism. The Federation has no official membership, only a cadre of energetic organizers. It may find itself in the position of the advancing general who looks over his shoulder and finds to his horror that he has left his army several miles behind.

The Federation has already solved many of the problems of its infancy. It has an organization and a program, and plenty of time to inject itself into the University's budget plans. But it has never before had to overcome the resistance of a body as formidable as the Harvard Administration. Getting started was an achievement--but an achievement accomplished without opposition. The Federation's ultimate role at Harvard, and possibly its survival, will depend on what it can get done this year.