Petition for Recognition of the Teaching Assistant Organization

We, the undersigned, are petitioning for the recognition of the Teaching Assistant Organization as an official organization at Indiana State University, for purposes of booking rooms and sending announcements over university channels.
While we do understand that traditional protocol requires organizations to register through the Student Government Association, we feel that it would be both inappropriate and ineffectual for a group of graduate students to register with an organization that does not represent graduate students, nor for a group of classroom instructors to be required to register with an organization designed to represent their students.
At the same time, however, an organization does not exist to channel and present issues of concern for teaching assistants and graduate assistants. While a Faculty Senate, Support Staff Council, and Student Government Association exist, no body consists of and operates for graduate student employees exclusively. It is our hope to change this.
Unfortunately, though, without official university recognition, difficulties arise in our attempts to post announcements on Pipeline and to book spaces for meetings, difficulties that question the Universitys commitment to academic freedom and peaceable assembly.
Thus, it is with a commitment to the furtherance of democratic dialogue that we, the undersigned, ask for the recognition, by Indiana State University, of another avenue for meaningful discussion on our campus: the Teaching Assistant Organization.