As increasing numbers of graduate students across the country have gathered and organized in the past three years, Harvard's graduate students have remained remarkably silent.

Some attribute the calm to general apathy, others to better working conditions for teaching fellows (TFs) and research assistants, but the Harvard scene appears relatively unique as unrest spreads at both private and public institutions.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, part-time faculty and graduate student instructors do more than half of all teaching in American universities--shrinking the job market for newly-minted Ph.D.s and putting the teaching burden on lower paid and less experienced teachers.

Yet since the 1970s, Harvard's graduate students have made no move towards collective bargaining.

"Unfortunately, grad students at Harvard are not extremely active," says J. Gregory Foster, president of the Harvard Graduate Council, a group composed of students in all the University's graduate programs. "Most are committed to getting work done and getting out."

But other graduate student officers, like Ian A. Richmond, incoming president of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences' (GSAS) Graduate Student Council (GSC), say relatively good conditions for TFs make organizing unnecessary.

When the Grass Isn't Greener

Part of the calm in Cambridge may be attributable to the fact that Harvard graduate students do not have to face some of the concerns that ignited graduate students on other campuses across the country.

Not only do Harvard's graduate students workers have salaries and benefits far better than those of their counterparts at large state schools, but they outrank even those at comparable private institutions.

"Compared to Yale, we're heavenly," says Carlos Lopez, the current president of the Graduate Student Council (GSC). "Historically, we haven't had the kind of problems that Yale has had. It could be better but it's not oppressive."

Unlike Yale students, who fought for insurance and other fringe benefits beginning in the early 1990s, Harvard's grad students have insurance figured into their tuition costs.

Unpaid teaching requirements are sometimes a requirement of some departments at Yale, according to a report released last month by the Graduate Employees and Students Organization at Yale.

At Harvard, Lopez says, teaching is considered part of the financial aid package, which is unusually generous at the University.

More than 85 percent of GSAS students receive financial support from Harvard or other sources, and the $13,000 salary for a half-time teaching fellow is well over Yale's figure.

Although Harvard graduate students say they sympathize with their cohorts at other institutions who decide to unionize, they say there is really no need at the University.