"Over the last five years, people have become increasingly aware of casualization where tenure track professors are retiring, and their positions aren't replaced," Mitchell said. "Instead, adjunct teachers and graduate students are being hired to do the same teaching."

As a result of this practice, Mitchell said there is a surplus of Ph.D. candidates because colleges accept more graduate students to teach at reduced salaries but then do not offer them any opportunity for occupational advancement.

Antony Dugdale, a sixth-year student in Yale's philosophy and religion department and GESO member, said practices which adversely affect graduate students also harm undergraduates.

"[Casualization] is a great way for universities to get teaching done by cheap workers," Dugdale said. "This is great for the endowment but not great for the undergraduate. Undergrads should have permanent, stable teachers instead of a fly-by-night workforce."

By providing graduate students with better working conditions, Dugdale said undergraduates would also benefit since graduate students could concentrate on teaching instead of worrying about making ends meet. He also said giving graduate students opportunities for job advancement would help undergraduates since it would provide them with a stable teaching staff.

However, undergraduates are being taught and evaluated more by non-permanent teachers than by full-time faculty. In a study recently released by the GESO, it was reported that nearly 70 percent of undergraduate classroom instruction at Yale is performed by graduate students or adjunct instructors while faculty only perform 30 percent of this instruction.

Furthermore, these TA's perform the bulk of "behind-the-scenes" grading and evaluation of undergraduate work.

While the GESO is affiliated with the Local 34 and 35 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Yale has refused to recognize the union, insisting that they are students and not workers which has prevented the GESO from negotiating with the university.