Members of the Teaching Assistants' Association graded papers, looked over exams and passed around pizza boxes on the floor of the Bascom Hall rotunda at a protest Monday against cuts in state education funding.
In addition to showing their opposition to the budget cuts, the approximately 70 ""Brown Bag at Bascom"" attendees gathered to demonstrate their continued support of collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin.
""It is important that we are here to remind both stakeholders or interested parties on campus as well as away from campus that the university works because we do,"" said Adrienne Pagac, a graduate student in Sociology and member of the TAA.
TAA Co-President Kevin Gibbons called the event a success.
""I think it's exactly what we were looking for just to take up some space in Bascom to show that we are still opposing a lot of the issues being put forth in the legislature,"" Gibbon said. ""I graded a bunch of papers. Everyone was staying quiet and getting things done while at the same time exercising our First Amendment rights.""
The TAA also announced its opposition to the New Badger Partnership and the proposed split of the UW System.
The TAA, which represents 3,000 graduate employees at UW-Madison, approved a motion to oppose the proposed partnership at a general assembly meeting Sunday.
The group called the partnership a threat to affordability and accessibility in public education, and said it objects to the ""non-transparent and undemocratic process"" by which it was designed.
""We are going to advocate strongly for a new process,"" said Gibbons. ""If the chancellor and if the government wants to make these serious changes to UW-Madison and the UW System that they should undergo a longer deliberative process with the people and the university community.""
