Advocate Online

They're Talking On Campus.
. . . About union rights for grad assistants. The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that graduate teaching assistants are employees under its jurisdiction and eligible for collective bargaining under the protection of the National Labor Relations Act.

The decision gives graduate assistants at independent colleges across the country the legal standing they've been working toward in their battle for union rights.

The case involved New York University and its graduate students and upheld an April ruling by an NLRB regional director in New York.

Some public universities already recognize bargaining units of grad assistants, but the nation's private institutions-including NYU—have denied grad students bargaining rights, maintaining that grad assistants are primarily students.

. . . About the sale of stock in the University of Phoenix's distance-education unit, the first market test of a public offering of stock for a distance-learning institution.

The University of Phoenix's parent company, the Apollo Group, has issued 5 million shares of a so-called tracking stock, tied directly to the performance of the company's University of Phoenix Online division.

With over 75,000 students, the University of Phoenix is now the nation's largest private university. About 14,000 students take courses online. Apollo's chairman says that the Phoenix online program is growing twice as fast as the university's on-the-ground program.