APPRECIATING GRAD STUDENTS

Have you hugged your teaching fellow today? Next week is National Graduate Student Appreciation Week, or so proclaims one of the many faxes we at Dartboard received over spring break.

At first, we laughed, thinking it a clever April Fool's joke. After all, the life of a graduate student sounds downright exciting after reading the statement from the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students: "Without [graduate students], tuition would be higher, research wouldn't be as successful, our society wouldn't solve as many problems, and our lives wouldn't be as rich."

But then we realized: Life must really suck for students in grad school--kind of like college, but only worse. So what's the most appropriate way to show gratitude for the hard and often unrecognized work of our TFs?

It is customary for people in management to give flowers on Secretaries (or is it Executive Assistants?) Day. We at Dartboard have a few suggestions of our own:

.Freely dole out ratings of 5 on those CUE guide evaluations later this month;

.Give your favorite math TF a copy of Webster's dictionary;

.Write up a tenure denial letter, to prepare them for what to expect should they receive a junior Faculty position at Harvard.

Finally, we find it noteworthy that "appreciation days" (or weeks or months) seem to exist for some occupations but not others. When was the last time you celebrated National Supermodel Appreciation Day or National Sewage System Engineer Appreciation Day?

Thank you, graduate students, for all the little, underappreciated things you do. Oh, and don't forget: next month is National Journalist Appreciation Month.