Date of Degree
2025
Degree Name
Ed.D. (Doctor of Education)
Department
Department of Counseling and Higher Education (CAHE)
Director
Nyunt, Gudrun
Committee Members
Jaekel, Katy; Mac, Jacqueline
Keywords
graduate student unionization, graduate assistants, motivations for union organizing
Abstract
The right of graduate student workers to unionize at private universities within the United States was reconfirmed in 2021 after years of uncertainty. The focus of this study was to understand specific challenges and desires, beyond wages and benefits, that drove students at a large private research university to organize for collective bargaining. This instrumental case study used constructivist grounded theory methodology to explore the motivations and issues that prompted students to unionize at a large, private, elite research university in the Midwest of the United States. The study provides insights into specific issues that were the platform for organizing, elucidates the drivers, or motivations, that prompted student workers to actively engage in union organizing, and identifies requisites needed for students to be able to engage in unionization efforts. This study found that union organizers’ value systems and concerns for others were their primary motivation for engaging in union organizing and that capacity and bandwidth were essential for students to engage in these efforts.
Publisher
Northern Illinois University
Rights Statement
In Copyright
Rights Statement 2
NIU theses and dissertations are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors, unless otherwise indicated.
Recommended Citation
Shannon-Hutchison, Cynthia, "Understanding Motivations for Graduate Assistant Unionization at a Large, Private, Elite Research University in the Midwest" (2025). Dissertations of Practice. 79.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/allgraduate-disspractice/79
