GSU publishes first quarterly newsletter

GFC's sister organization, Graduate Students United (GSU), recently released its first quarterly newsletter, GSU News. It opens with the following paragraph:

The first issue of GSU News appears in the wake of massive budget cuts announced by the U of C administration. Talk of change is everywhere - but change for whom and according to what priorities? GSU is still celebrating the victory of major wage increases last summer, but our situation remains precarious, given high fees and inadequate health insurance. There is still a long way to go in our organizing efforts. To raise consciousness about graduate student labor and GSU's work, we've put together this newsletter for our members and for the campus at large.

GSU News reports on the state of campus labor, the national effects of economic crisis, our unanswered 2008 petition to the administration, and other university news. It also contains a poem, a story, a survey of GSU members, and a personal tale of organizing.

GSU News can now be download it from GSU's website; for a paper copy, just ask a GSU organizer or email GSU.

GFC's Recommendations to AR Committee

Recommendations of the Graduate Council’s Graduate Funding Committee to the Provost’s Committee on Advanced Residence and Time to Degree

March 25, 2009

Introduction
In light of the significant progress that has been made on issues of graduate funding over the past two years, the Graduate Council’s Graduate Funding Committee (GFC) hopes that the Provost’s Committee on Advanced Residence and Time to Degree will take bold action to address graduate students’ concerns about the residency system, particularly Advanced Residence status. In recent years, administrators at many levels of the University have acknowledged that the residency system reflects priorities that are out of step with changes to the graduate funding policy at the University of Chicago. In short, the practice of charging AR students tuition penalizes graduate students in the most crucial years of their doctoral research, when the University should be aiding them toward completion of their degrees.

These students are often leaders in their departments; they serve as the most experienced core of graduate student teachers; and they will soon be the most prominent ambassadors of the university’s scholarly reputation. To this end, the GFC recommends that this committee take steps to ensure that AR status is no longer a burden for graduate students, but a position in which doctoral students can best succeed in their scholarly and professional pursuits. We are aware that some measures have already been taken to alleviate costs for graduate students in the 2009-2010 academic year, including a 2.5% stipend increase for students receiving stipends, and a temporary freeze of out-of-pocket AR tuition costs. The GFC wishes to urge this committee to take further steps to address the specific needs of AR students, who will not benefit from stipend increases. This document offers a detailed listing of the GFC’s concerns and recommendations about Advanced Residence and Time to Degree, as well as GFC', culled from students’ anecdotal experiences as well as the Graduate Council Open Forum held on March 9, 2009.

GFC’s Concerns:

AR Tuition:
AR tuition constitutes an unnecessary and unacceptable burden on graduate students attempting to complete their research and write their dissertations, and it remains unclear why it is one they must continue to bear. High out-of-pocket expenses for AR tuition (~$2350/yr), plus out-of-pocket costs for health care coverage (required for AR students in the Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Divinity School at ~$1800/yr), result in an average cost of ~$4150 per year that AR students must shoulder simply to remain enrolled. While more research is needed within the university to determine the impact of funding on time to degree, national studies have demonstrated a clear correlation between funding and time to degree. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the costs associated with AR status serve more to hinder student progress than enhance their scholarship or hasten time to degree.

AR Student Life:
In addition to the financial cost, the transition from scholastic residence to advanced residence marks a radical shift in a graduate students’ relationship to the university. Often, the intellectual and emotional framework that was successful during coursework and exams no longer works for a project the size of a dissertation. Traditionally, dissertation advisors provide support and help their students make the transition to independent academic work. For those students that finish quickly it is likely that they are getting the support they need. However, there are a number of systematic reasons that students do not receive the necessary support: (1)Many faculty advisors are overburdened and may not get back to their students with comments or advice for months at a time. (2) It has become common for faculty to leave the university for an appointment at another school. Distance often attenuates relationships. (3) Sometimes life simply intervenes and an advisor passes away at a critical time. Additionally, there are substantive reasons that students may want to look to someone other than their dissertation advisors for support. There is a power dynamic that comes into play where students may feel it is strategic not to reveal some of the difficulties they are having to the person who will be writing recommendation letters on their behalf. And, of course, some professors are more adept at others about giving advice on how to manage the challenges of a dissertation. Reducing time to completion requires ensuring that all students have access to a support structure, even if their advisors are not able to provide it.

Dissertation-year fellowships:
While a 2007 report (see “Background” below) found inconclusive evidence regarding the impact of funding on time to degree at the University of Chicago, it did find that large dissertation-completion grants are quite effective at improving time to degree. Yet the economic recession and its impact on endowments and center budgets have threatened many dissertation year fellowships. Meanwhile, outside funding opportunities are also becoming more difficult to obtain due to the impact of the recession on funding bodies. Additionally, some University center-based fellowships, as well as external funding (such as Mellon grants) have highly restrictive guidelines, hindering AR students who have completed these fellowships but find they need more time to finish their degree.

Departmental-level flexibility in determining time to degree:
As the effort to assess the effectiveness of current funding policies proceeds, GFC is concerned that the committee could do more to account for differences in departmental requirements (e.g. field research, language preparation) in determining time to degree. In particular, generalizations within a division as well as comparisons of University of Chicago departments and committees with similar programs at other institutions can be misleading unless a thorough comparison in difference in cohort size, departmental requirements and effectiveness (e.g. professional placement, awards, publication, research grants, etc.) is also included.

Health care coverage:
Health insurance as a required out-of-pocket expense for AR students is objectionable. Yet, even though graduate students have consistently indicated that health care is a key concern, university-paid health insurance for AR students is again being overlooked in committee recommendations and action steps from the Provost’s Office. It is unfortunate that neither the Provost’s Committee on Advanced Residency and Time to Degree nor the Vice President and Dean of Students Committee on Health Insurance and Costs has addressed this issue, in spite of the individual suggestions, survey results, and graduate student committee reports and petitions that have raised concerns, leaving the GFC wondering whether this issue will only continue to fall by the wayside.

Information about the AR system:
GFC would like to ensure that in addition to current AR students, incoming graduate students are fully informed about changes to the AR system. It is striking that while departments and divisions provide graduate students with information on their first five years of study, there often little mention of what students face after their fourth or fifth year, a silence which only contributes to the confusion associated with AR status. Often departments believe that students’ experiences at these later stages are highly individualized, while much of the evidence indicates that many stumbling blocks—finances, dissertation progress, health care, graduate student parenting—are shared.

Student Participation:
The lack of student participation in graduate funding decision-making initially sparked the development of the “Proposal for Changes to Current Doctoral Funding” (2007) and the work of the GFC, an oversight that was reflected in the 2008 Working Group for Graduate Student Life’s identification of “a clear desire from graduate students, one shared by many faculty and administrators, for greater student representation on committees at several levels.” Over the past year, administrators and faculty have been consistent in their efforts to include graduate students on university committees. In particular, the GFC applauds the length to which to the Provost’s Office has gone to include student representatives on committees regarding issues of graduate funding.

At the same time, the GFC is concerned that in addition to participation, graduate students could also benefit from greater transparency and engagement with committee members. Not only would it benefit graduate students to have a better sense of the issues being discussed, but it would also enrich the committee’s information gathering and decision-making process to hear from a variety of student voices. In particular, GFC has been concerned that the Provost’s Committee on Advanced Residence has not yet met publicly with graduate students.

GFC’s Recommendations:

AR Tuition:
For more than two years, graduate students have consistently recommended that university officials strive to reduce or eliminate out-of-pocket AR tuition because of the obstacles it creates. In line with these concerns, expressed in various surveys, proposals, town hall discussions, and online surveys, the GFC reiterates its call for a waiver of out-of-pocket AR tuition. To practically implement this recommendation, GFC suggests that the Provost’s Office implement an immediate waiver of out-of-pocket tuition for all AR students in academic year ’09-10 and work with divisional deans to develop and implement a long-term plan to eliminate out-of-pocket costs for students in a manner that accounts for the budgetary needs of divisions that have come to rely on revenue from Advanced Residence tuition.

If an immediate waiver is not possible within the short window remaining in the current budgetary cycle, the GFC recommends that the committee do all that it can to implement a reduction in out-of-pocket AR tuition for the 2009-10 academic year in an effort to decrease this burden on AR students as much as possible, particularly given the current economic recession.

AR Student Life:
The GFC recommends that the University provide more extensive supportive programming for students in their dissertation years. We call on departments to institute more administrative support structure for students, and on the University to provide the services of dissertation coaches, perhaps through the Student Counseling and Resource Service. Many of our peer institutions offer such services, and anecdotally we understand that such one-on-one coaching has been effective in assisting the progress of dissertation writers and reducing time to degree.

Dissertation-year fellowships:
GFC recommends that the university increase the number of divisional and university-wide dissertation-year fellowships in an effort to ensure that the total number of these fellowships available in academic year ’09-10 does not fall substantially below the number available during the previous academic year. Not only would this allow the Provost’s Office to sustain its commitment to maintaining current levels of graduate support, but it would also represent a direct investment in facilitating an improvement in graduate student time-to-degree.

In an effort to address the impact of ongoing budget cuts on time to degree, the GFC recommends that this committee conduct a review of academic center-based fellowships and department endowment-based fellowships that will be reduced. In late February and early March, this committee learned directly from the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture and the Scherer Study for American Cultures that their dissertation funding was in jeopardy. While both centers have now announced fellowships for 2009-2010, the GFC nevertheless maintains that a review should address the possibility that a delay in economic recovery will significantly impact the availability of dissertation year fellowships.

Departmental-level flexibility in determining time to degree:
The GFC recommends that this committee charge departmental faculty and departmental student associations with jointly developing department-specific expectations for time-to-degree that address the concerns of both faculty and student representatives. More broadly, the GFC hopes that this committee can address AR status in a manner that is attuned to the particular research demands and scholarly needs of each academic program. Just as the Provost’s Action Steps provided departments with the option to adopt or reject a decrease in enrollment in exchange for universal graduate student funding (the option known as “slots for cash”), it should also allow departments with flexibility in determining time-to-degree, only this time through a process that includes graduate student representatives.

Health care coverage:
As it has over the past two years, the GFC recommends that the University of Chicago reduce the burden of AR status by providing health insurance to AR students. Many graduate students have suggested that the university do this by following the example of many of its peer institutions that offer health coverage to teaching assistants. An initial step towards meeting these concerns would be for this committee to detail in its final report which university officials are understood to be directly responsible for addressing these concerns, as neither the Provost’s Office nor the Vice President Dean of Students office has adequately addressed them.

Information about the AR system:
The GFC recommends that the AR committee work with Graduate Council to produce a document or presentation for incoming graduate students to help them plan for addressing the funding needs of AR status. For instance, David Mihalyfy’s presentation to the Graduate Council Open Forum on March 9th could serve as the foundation of such a document. In addition to communicating information on AR status to incoming students, the GFC recommends that we work with the AR committee to create a workshop on long-term budgeting and financial planning for both incoming and current students.

Student Participation:
The GFC recommends that this current committee, as well as future committees convened around student life, schedule brown-bag discussions, open forums, or town-hall discussions at the outset of their efforts, so as to hear student questions and concerns before they begin to develop action steps. Afterwards, these committees should convene regular public meetings to update students on their progress and solicit feedback. The GFC also recommends that committees invite graduate students to come before the committee at the same intervals at which administrators and faculty members are invited to discuss matters before committees.

Background:
This section is intended to provide further background regarding recent changes in funding and academic programs for graduate students at the University of Chicago.

Over the past two years, the University of Chicago has made substantial institutional and budgetary commitments to improving the education and experience of its graduate students. Beginning with President Robert Zimmer’s announcement of the Graduate Aid Initiative (GAI) on February 7, 2007, incoming graduate students have benefitted from increased stipend and summer research support, and both incoming and current students have had access to University-paid and provided health insurance up to their fifth year. Other commitments have included:

- the convening of a Working Group for Graduate Student Life in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Divinity School in May 2007;

- the appointment of Cathy Cohen, the David and Mary Winton Green Professor in Political Science and the College, to the position of Deputy Provost for Graduate Education on January 1, 2008;

- the announcement of “Action Steps to Improve the Experience of Graduate Students in the Humanities, Social Sciences and the Divinity School” on February 25, 2008, which included an increased number of summer and dissertation year fellowships, the implementation of a minimum stipend in some departments and committees (in exchange for a decrease in enrollment) and inclusion of Divinity School graduate students in the GAI;

- the development of a Graduate Student Parent policy, which allows graduate students who are new parents greater flexibility in meeting their requirements;

- the announcement of an update to these Action Steps on April 18, 2008, which suspended the annual five percent increase in Advanced Residence tuition for the 2008-09 academic year;

- and the announcement of an “Increase in Remuneration for Graduate Student Teachers” on August 25, 2008, which raised the pay of graduate student teachers across a number of designated positions and maintained the same level of stipend reduction for the 2008-09 academic year.

Taken together, these initiatives reflect a radical shift in both the priorities and philosophy behind graduate student funding at the University of Chicago. Moreover, each new initiative has served to strengthen the lines of communication between graduate students and the administration. But while each new initiative has made a positive impact on various aspects of graduate- student life, a significant aspect of graduate student education has gone largely unaffected by these bold policy changes. This is all the more surprising considering the repeated references to the flawed priorities of the Advanced Residence (AR) system in various working group and committee reports, but, to date, no action has been taken to fix it.

The GFC has consistently called attention to the problems faced by graduate students in AR. In early Spring 2007, the ad hoc group that would become GFC prepared a “Proposal for Change to Current Doctoral Funding,” identifying AR tuition as one of six areas in which inadequate funding support proved burdensome to students. Produced over a three-month process of deliberations that included the participation of student representatives from 32 departments and committees across the three divisions, the proposal was refined and ratified according to input received from town hall meetings attended by over 100 students and responses from 581 students in an online survey. Given such widespread participation, this proposal has been perhaps the single most concise and articulate expression of graduate student concerns prepared by graduate students at the University of Chicago. It remains the logical starting point for any analysis of graduate student opinion on the issues of graduate student funding.

Committee members presented this proposal to President Zimmer on May 7, 2007. While calling attention to six core concerns, the two-page document highlighted the degree to which the lack of support and high level of tuition significantly altered the relationship of graduate students in AR to the university, such that AR tuition presented “an unnecessary and frequently crushing financial burden to students, slowing their progress toward degree and forcing them to focus on subsistence rather than scholarship.” It also argued that “there is no compelling reason why [health care] coverage should be limited to students in their first five years of doctoral study.” With the lack of University-paid stipend support or health care coverage and the increased tuition and health care cost, AR status has become not a privilege, but a staggering disadvantage. As a result, the proposal called for the elimination of this disadvantaged status, calling on the University to waive all out-of-pocket tuition for students and provide university-paid health care for students during their first twelve years.

The GFC has not been alone in raising these concerns. During the 2007-08 academic year, Graduate Students United (GSU), an organization of graduate student employees at the university, circulated a petition among graduate students in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Divinity School. Noting that the University of Chicago is part of a minority of schools that does not pay their student employees’ health insurance and that the AR out-of-pocket tuition compels graduate students who can qualify for a teaching position to structure their teaching to the demands of the university’s billing service, rather than academic and professional needs, the petition called for the provision of health insurance for all graduate student employees and fee remission for all students in advanced residence. GSU members collected 541 signatures and submitted them to Deputy Provost Cohen on May 2, 2008.

Following the efforts of the GFC and GSU, various committee reports have also called attention to the obstacles students in Advanced Residence face. In its February 25, 2008 report, the Working Group for Graduate Student Life proposed “an urgent review of the level of Advanced Residence out-of-pocket tuition, and of the procedure by which annual increases are reckoned” as the level of tuition has annually increased at a level (~5%) markedly higher than the rate of inflation and “this is an area of significant anxiety among graduate students.” In addition to concerns regarding these large automatic increases, the Working Group also noted that these charges seem disproportionately large in contrast to the minimal resources these students use. Moreover, the Working Group noted that these tuition charges are levied at the very moment when most students lose institutional support, while these same students are most in need of avoiding distractions from their dissertations.

In their discussions with graduate students, members of the Working Group found that in the three divisional units under consideration the average times to degree were well over six years and that AR tuition “represented a significant financial burden that was being laid on students well in advance of the time when even the speediest students might be expected to finish their doctoral work.” In contrast to the GFC and GSU recommendations for a complete tuition waiver, the Working Group expressed its desire “to see a reduction in this charge, and, ideally, a new formula for calculating future increases” as “the level of tuition has risen too quickly.” It also recommended a waiver of tuition for the fifth (or sixth) year of doctoral research (AR1), concluding, “AR tuition makes a very small contribution to the university’s budget, but is a significant burden on students’ individual budgets, and at a time when that sum is particularly hard for students to find.” The Working Group also noted that in the Spring 2007 online survey that informed the proposal to President Zimmer, graduate students reported improvements in health insurance coverage and care were their top priority. However, the Working Group did not make recommendations in regards to health care and acknowledged that this was the one area where student feedback was unanimous in its disappointment.

Rather than taking action on the Working Group’s modest recommendations in regards to AR tuition, the Provost’s “Action Steps,” released on February 25, 2008, tasked Deputy Provost Cohen with convening another committee of faculty, students, and staff on Advanced Residency and Time to Degree to review the AR system, “focusing in particular on the out-of-pocket tuition paid under advanced residency and its yearly increase.” The Action Steps also made brief reference to graduate student concerns regarding health care costs and services, but no mention of health insurance for students in AR. The failure to take action on AR recommendations and omission of health care coverage largely shaped graduate student responses to the Action Steps. A GFC survey released on February 26, 2008 found that among 455 respondents, four of the top five most important issues to graduate students (out of seven options given) were, in order, access to health care, teaching pay, dissertation year fellowships, and AR tuition. Reflecting in part the expectation of graduate students for substantial progress on these issues, survey participants gave the University response to their concerns about AR tuition and health insurance the lowest and fourth lowest ratings, respectively.

Deputy Provost Cohen’s “Memo to Graduate Students Updating Action Steps,” issued on April 18, 2008, was the first announcement to address potential changes to the AR system. In it, Deputy Provost Cohen announced a temporary suspension of the annual five percent increase in AR tuition for the 2008-09 academic year while a Committee on Advanced Residency convened to “explore how the AR system might be restructured to lessen the financial burden confronted by graduate students entering AR status” and “investigate the link between the AR system and the time to degree among our students.” Issued a little more than a year after the “Report of the Working Group for Graduate Student Life in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Divinity School,” the memo made no reference to recommendations from the GFC, GSU, or previous committees. Unfortunately, this memo made no mention of examining access to university-paid health care coverage for AR students.

Notes from March 9th GC Open Forum on the Effects of Teaching Pay, Advanced Residency, and Budget Cuts on Graduate Student Life

Graduate Council
March 9th, 2009
Minutes

Attending: Dave Amare (Psychiatry), Danielle Traister (Law),
Elizabeth Faga (SSD), Suzanne Devkota (BSD), Madeleine
McLeester (SSD), Melissa Rosenzweig (SSD), Mary Leighton
(SSD), David Mihalyfy (Div), Debra Erickson (Div), Lily
Chumley (SSD), Greg Davidson (Hum), Rod Edwards (Hum),
Elizabeth Hutcheon (Hum), Jacqueline DeFoe (PSD), Raoul
Ruparel (SSD), Jasmine DeJeors (SSD), Owen Kohl (SSD), David
Lyons (Div), Jim Shilkett (Booth), Frank Bednarz (Law),
Melissa Barton (Hum), Tom Perrin (Hum), Celeste Moore (SSD),
Jarrod Wolf (College), Jamila Michener, Michael Deuser

I. Intro / Overview of the Forum (Brian Cody)
A. Goals of the forum:
1. Students gain understanding of decisions and
deliberations under way
2. Administrators gain understanding of student concerns and
experiences
3. Students can visualize and understand funding trends for
the future
4. All participants feel that they’ve been understood and
have understood
5. A clear sense of resolution and next steps
B. Student concerns (advanced residency committee)
1. No/limited information available pre-entrance about time
to degree
2. Lack of information about course planning, fellowship
opportunities
3. Different funding situations due to international status,
family situation, departmental peculiarities
4. Teaching opportunities and teaching aid
5. Advanced residency tuition, tuition increase
6. Lack of departmental structure, information about course
and other planning, disconnect between professors and students
7. Dissertation workshops and support (inter or
intradepartmental)
8. Support for career goals outside academia

II. Report on Advanced Residency Committee
A. Cathy Cohen
1. The committee began meeting in spring 2008, working on fair
methods of supporting AR students and lessening time to degree
2. In order to support AR, we realized we have to focus on SR
years as well
3. Have talked with departmental chairs, students, deans
4. Committee will make recommendations to the provost, who
will then evaluate, discuss, and decide which recommendations
to accept
5. AR tuition will increase, but student out-of-pocket
payments will remain the same next year
6. Overall graduate student support has been making
significant progress recently
7. Hum/SSD students in SR years will get a 2.5% stipend increase

B. Q&A;
1. Has there been discussion about extending health insurance
provisions for AR students?
-That’s actually in the purview of a different committee
(student affairs)
-We know it’s a real priority for graduate students
2. A stipend increase for SR students is great, but it takes
more than 5 years to reach the degree – what about help for AR
students?
-We’re trying to extend/expand dissertation fellowships
-Increased teaching remuneration
-Tuition you pay for AR next year is not going to increase
3. There are areas of the university where dissertation
fellowships are being cut because of economic reasons (not
necessarily direct budget cuts). is the university able at all
to take steps in response to this? Such as offering healthcare
grants, or suspending AR tuition for those who have lost
dissertation fellowship funding?
-It’s not possible to completely suspend AR tuition
-We have to think of a system that can alleviate AR funding
pressure but still maintain the excellence of grad programs
4. When will the committee make recommendations?
-Recommendations will be made in the spring, not
implemented until fall
-Committee isn’t quite finished working yet
5. Raising the AR fees by 5% wouldn’t make that much
difference to students who find a way not to pay (teaching,
fellowships, etc) – but it’s difficult for those who do have
to pay. Are waivers possible for those in the latter situation?
-I don’t think waivers can happen next year – how to decide
who would get one, and where would we get funding for them?
6. Some pre-GAI students have to pay AR starting in the 5th year
7. Is there discussion of dissertation fellowships being
extended beyond the eighth year? Or a case-by-case evaluation?
-It depends on the division to some extent (some endowed
fellowships have restrictions, some don’t)
-There are a limited number of fellowships to go around
8. In the anthropology department, time to degree is not
viewed negatively – there need to be department-specific
discussions of a viable, useful, efficient time to degree that
we should fund
-AR committee has met with department chairs to discuss time
to degree and reasons behind it, and we are considering info
from peer institutions as well
9. Where exactly do AR tuition fees go?
-They are part of general divisional revenue – departments
don’t really have separate budgets
10. How and why did the AR tuition system come to be? It seems
illogical to ask people to pay just when they no longer have
stipends/income.
-The current AR program was first put in place in 1984; prior
to that, residency was counted by full-time registered
courses...there was no program after that. Grad students just
stopped registering, we had no idea who was an active grad
student until they graduated
-AR was established as a less expensive way to access
full-time student privileges – this was especially important
for international students’ visa purposes
-There was also an ‘Active File’ status to remain registered
and have library privileges only – this was eliminated in 2000
-The idea of AR was a way to keep access to full-time
privileges while students worked on advanced degrees; fees
were meant to be low enough for students to handle
11. AR students pay only a certain amount out of
pocket...could you raise the fee only for those who have it
covered, and not raise it for those who are broke? To what
extent is this real vs. on paper money?
-AR tuition is going to increase 5% across the board, but the
amount that students pay out of pocket will not increase next year
-Tuition paid is still real revenue money
-This doesn’t mean committee won’t recommend restructuring
of AR
12. I wonder if university couldn’t negotiate with fellowship
funding organizations/foundations to allow more funding to AR
students?
13. If the AR committee is considering heavy loans as a viable
funding option, given the economic situation...please don’t.
-What we are trying to determine is the university’s
responsibility to fund students through their studies, versus
what should be the student’s burden
-Most students/faculty don’t actually know what the median
time to degree is
14. We probably won’t ever be able to convince department
chairs to reduce time to degree – departments are the ones who
are practicing the field. Being paid to attend graduate school
is the only way some programs can even exist.
15. It’s the segue from SR to AR that is not smooth – GAI
might even make it more difficult to make the transition
16. The anthropology department here is one of the best in
the country, so cutting time to degree may actually break what
doesn’t need fixing – it very much depends on the discipline.
Is there a possibility of adjusting AR fees according to
discipline?

III. Teaching Availability for Next Year
A. Cathy Cohen & Divisional Deans
1. Under the GAI, students must teach 5 points by end of 5th
year
2. We know there is concern about the availability of
positions next year
3. (Presentation slides about numbers of GAI students,
teaching points, teaching positions by division and overall)
4. 1659.5 teaching points available next year; 879 teaching
points required from GAI students
5. Cathy will come back early spring quarter with updates
B. Q&A
1. Anthropology students are expected to be out of the country
4th and 5th year – should we be considered on a different year
scale?
-We’re not going to penalize students who are doing fieldwork,
teaching expectations are on those who are here
2. Have you factored in those without teaching requirements
but also without funding? (so they need to take teaching
positions anyway)
-We don’t know who those students are, no way to know if/how
students will decide to teach
-We understand that ‘need’ is different from ‘requirement’
3. Were these numbers formulated before policy was established?
-They were, and we are continuing to refine them
-We started developing the GAI in fall 2006; wanted to move
quickly to have it in place by admissions season – so in a
sense we did not crunch the numbers before that time
4. How are you reconciling the application process (where
positions are determined by professors/departments) with the
desire to fill positions?
-We have discussed teaching requirements with the College
making sure those who are required to teach get the necessary
positions; expect the College to cooperate
-College has declared that it would like to choose lecturers
independently, but not necessarily so for TA positions
-Divisions provide a lot of funding for teaching in the College
-Teaching requirements are not new; different departments have
found their own ways to work it out over the years
-Teaching in the Core is decided through the Collegiate Masters
5. Given that it’s better for grad students to teach later on
in their careers, and better for undergrads to be taught by
more mature grad students, what is the point of having the
requirement to teach in the 1st five years (as opposed to
anytime in the graduate career)?
-We have found that helping students learn how to teach
earlier in their career is actually beneficial
-If we provide the proper support and training, you can be a
great teacher 3rd or 4th year
-There is another committee looking at pedagogical support for
grad students
-In an academic career, you are often evaluated on teaching
ability as well as research – teaching needs to be part of
graduate education
-The 5 points system is new, but not teaching requirements
in general
-We don’t intend for people to teach in 1st or 2nd year
6. It sounds like the priority for teaching positions goes to
those with the teaching requirements; what do people who have
financial need but no requirements do? Is there someone who
can monitor these things and help people find positions?
-We try to accommodate all students who want a teaching
position, but there is no guarantee (also need is subjective)
-We will track those people
7. For those who are required to teach, and we do everything
we can to get a position but don’t get one, what happens to
our funding?
-First place to go is your department and dean of students
(and contact Cathy)
8. Do you have a figure for those students teaching in year
6 or above?
-We asked the deans to give us the numbers for students who
were teaching in years 1-5, then estimated by percentage
9. For the anthropology department, where we are in the field
years 4-5, would there be any flexibility regarding teaching
requirements, so that stipends for those years are not cut so
severely?
-We will work with the anthropology department
-What we have in place is not different from the policy of
peer institutions

IV. Budget Cuts
A.SSD
1. There’s plenty for everybody to hate in the budget, and
it’s not a position we would like to be in or planned to be in
2. University endowment has dropped from $6 billion to $4
billion, and we are still waiting on enrollment numbers for
next year
3. We have been asked to reduce division budget expenditures
by $3 million from this year
4. About $1 million will be cut from admin/operating expenses
5. We will mostly eliminate visiting professor positions
6. We are slashing intake of new PhD students by about 1/3
next year, with very carefully regulated offers
7. We are trying to realize some additional tuition revenue
through expanding the masters programs
8. We will continue to support the financial commitments we
have made to current students, at the price of deeper cuts
elsewhere
9. There will be a mall cut in number of Core lectureships
and prize lectureships
10. Departments have had to cut their operating budgets as
well, eliminating some TAships and lectureships
11. Slower rate of adding/replacing faculty; less staff
support for students and professors
12. Impact of this year’s endowment reduction will not
actually hit until fiscal year 2011, but budgets are being
reduced so as to prepare for it (maybe even too optimistically)

B. Humanities
1. We are doing similar things as SSD – smaller incoming
class, fewer faculty appointments
2. Not yet making staff cuts, but not refilling some open
positions
3. We are honoring all financial commitments to graduate
students

C. Q&A
1. We have heard summer provost grants will be cut this
year, is that true?
-That’s under Kim Goff-Crews’ purview this year
2. Can the university manage its endowment so as to avoid this
kind of dip even in bad economic times?
-All of higher education is being hit by this, though overall
we have lost less value than market as a whole
-We may have to increase endowment pay outs; we are already
consuming principal as it is
-We haven’t seen this drastic a collapse in equity markets
since the 1930s
-Since the end of WW2, equities have grown faster than
inflation, and endowments have been increasingly aggressively
invested
3. Were these budget cuts factored into the teaching
position numbers?
-Cathy will check again
4. Is there ever going to be a hard cap on the funded years
of study?
-It’s not in the recommendations right now, but can’t say that
it will never be

GSU Statement on Wage Increases

Dear fellow graduate students,

Graduate Students United would like to convey its appreciation to the Graduate Teaching Committee for taking much needed action to redress the dismal state of graduate teaching compensation at the University. In particular, we would like to express special gratitude to the student representatives on the committee, Jeff Rufo, Kalina Michalska, and GSU organizer Andrew Yale, who devoted their time to making student voices and concerns heard. As many have seen, Provost Rosenbaum has chosen to accept all of the committee's recommendations, which raise compensation for
teaching assistants from $1,500 to $3,000, and for lecturers from $3,500 to $5,000. All other grad student teachers have also received raises, with the exception of those paid by the hour.

The committee should no doubt feel proud of the work they were able to do, and the changes represent a significant, material improvement in the quality of life for students working on this campus. We know that we are not alone when we look at our budgets for the year to come with more optimism than before. And after almost ten years without a raise, this move was long overdue.

But much is still to be done. The University is still among a minority of schools nationwide that does not pay health care to its employees – and many of us will have to deduct $1,845 from our new salaries to pay for health care. High advanced residency fees still force students to take jobs on campus to break even. This slows time to degree and creates a labor glut on campus — an odd scenario at a time when faculty and administration want to accelerate our progress toward our degrees. On May
20, GSU submitted a petition of 490 signatures to the administration, demanding that the university waive AR fees and pay for student employee health insurance. We are still waiting for a response.

More broadly, job access and working conditions remain ill-defined and open to abuse. Not all students, faculty, and administrators have the same expectations for interns and TAs – and what one student actually does for $3000 could be radically different from the next. Furthermore, it remains unclear how administrators prioritize student access to necessary jobs while ensuring that all students will remain financially secure. These issues will only become more complex when students funded through the Graduate Aid Initiative begin to seek teaching employment.

Luckily, the solution to these problems is in our hands. Action on student wages only came about when students organized, rallied, wrote letters and taught-out. Provost Rosenbaum acknowledges as much in his report. We all put this issue on the table and made administrators take action. As much as GSU appreciates the hard work of the committee, and looks forward to seeing it continue its work this coming year, we want to give equal thanks to all of the graduate students, from all years, divisions and schools, who came out in support of these issues.

The message going forward should be clear. The administration can be made to acknowledge the rights of graduate student employees – but we have to press the issue. By organizing together, we can consolidate the gains of the last year and ensure that all of our concerns are met. And by acting collectively, we can ensure that graduate student workers will play a sustained and meaningful role in negotiating the way this university operates. It is a mistake to leave graduate student needs solely in the hands of appointed committees that fundamentally have no power to make decisions. To represent our interests, we need to build an employee union with the power to bargain directly with the administration. If we don’t seize this chance, graduate student workers will again slip off the agenda and conditions will again be allowed to stagnate. We may all be richer for a time, but we’ll be selling ourselves, and future generations of students, very short.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday, September 16, at 4pm in Haskell 101.
Email us at gsu@riseup.net, or see our website at http://uchicagogsu.org/

See also the Provost's report and announcement:
http://provost.uchicago.edu/pdfs/interim_grad_teaching.pdf
http://provost.uchicago.edu/pdfs/student_remuneration.pdf

Interim Report from the Provost's Committee on Graduate Student Teaching

Interim Report from the Provost's Committee on Graduate Student Teaching
http://provost.uchicago.edu/pdfs/interim_grad_teaching.pdf

Dept. Provost announces increase in grad teaching pay

To: Students, Faculty, and Staff
From: Cathy J. Cohen, Deputy Provost for Graduate Education
Thomas F. Rosenbaum, Provost
Date: August 25, 2008
Re: Increase in Remuneration for Graduate Student Teachers

We are writing to update you on the work and recommendations of the Provost’s Committee on Graduate Student Teaching. We are pleased to announce that we plan to accept the recommendations of the committee, as detailed below. This will result in a significant increase in the remuneration for graduate student teachers, effective during the Autumn Quarter beginning in September.
In February 2008, the Provost, the Deputy Provost for Graduate Education, and the Vice President and Dean of Students established a set of action steps to address some of the key issues raised by graduate students during the previous year. One action was to have the Deputy Provost establish a committee of faculty, graduate students, and administrators to explore issues related to graduate student teaching. The Provost’s Committee was asked initially to focus on issues of remuneration for graduate student teachers, issuing an interim report at the end of Spring Quarter 2008. The Committee would then return to work Autumn Quarter 2008, addressing issues of pedagogical training, delineating graduate student teacher’s responsibilities, reviewing job classifications and the possible need for newly defined positions, and designing a plan to monitor the experience of graduate student teachers in the classroom.

The Committee submitted its interim report to the Provost at the end of June with a set of recommendations regarding remuneration of graduate student teachers. The report can be found in the news section of the Office of the Provost Web site (http://provost.uchicago.edu/). A series of meetings followed to obtain wide feedback on the report. We first met with members of the Committee in early July to discuss their findings and address any outstanding issues. We then met with most of the Deans of the Divisions and provided a period of comment for those Deans who could not attend the meeting. Toward the end of July we met with representatives from the Graduate Council to receive their comments and concerns. All of these meetings proved to be informative and insightful.

As noted above, the Provost has decided to accept and implement all the increases to graduate student teaching remuneration recommended in the report. These increases will take effect Autumn Quarter 2008. The total cost of these increases in remuneration for the 2008-09 academic year is $2.8 million. Maintaining remuneration at these increased levels will require similarly sized expenditures in future years which the Provost’s office will fund.

In the report, the committee makes specific recommendations for increasing the remuneration graduate student teachers receive across a number of designated positions. The recommended increases apply only to those making less than the recommended amount. Positions paid more than the recommended amount will remain unchanged.

Listed below is a summary of the accepted recommendations.

· Increase the remuneration for lecturers from $3500 to $5000
· Increase the remuneration for course and teaching assistants from $1500 to $3000
· Increase the remuneration for laboratory and lecture teaching assistants in the Biological Sciences Collegiate Division from a range of $650-$2750 to a range of $709-$3000
· Increase the remuneration for writing interns from $1900/$2000 to $3000
· Increase the remuneration for core interns from $1500 to $3000
· Increase the remuneration for writing program lectors for undergraduate courses from $1400/$1500 to $2500
· Increase the remuneration for writing program lectors for graduate courses from $2000 to $3000
· Increase the remuneration for preceptors from the range of $2500-$6500 to $7500 over three quarters
· Increase the remuneration for lectors in language departments from $1500 to $3000
· Increase the remuneration for drill instructors from $800 to $1500
· Increase the remuneration for studio assistants from $1000 to $1500

We urge each of you to read the entire report which is posted on the Office of the Provost website to gain a better understanding of the changes in remuneration recommended and accepted.

In addition to the increase in remuneration, we are adopting the recommendation of the committee to reduce stipends for teaching commitments in the 2008-09 academic year by the previous, lower remuneration levels for all teaching positions. Specifically, those students in the Social Sciences and Humanities Divisions whose stipends are scheduled to be reduced for required teaching expectations will have their stipends reduced only by the previous remuneration levels instead of the newly increased remuneration levels. Thus, students who were scheduled to have their stipends reduced by the amount they will receive for serving as a teaching assistant in one course as part of their teaching requirement will have their stipends reduced by $1500 instead of the new rate of $3000. This delay of one year in adjusting stipend reductions to reflect the new rates of remuneration will allow students time to plan for increases in their stipend reductions in accordance with their teaching requirements. We will begin to reduce stipends at the new levels of remuneration beginning in the 2009-10 academic year. We refer you to the report and your Dean of Students for greater clarification on how stipend reductions will affect students in each division.

We will continue to monitor annually the remuneration provided graduate students, with the goal of remaining competitive with our peers. We do not want to increase remuneration this year only to find ourselves in the same situation five years from now. As always, budgetary decisions must be made in the general context of the many demands on resources across the University.

As noted in the report, the issue of competition and comparisons to peer institutions is a complicated one. There will be those who point to other schools that seem to pay their students more to teach. On this issue we have two thoughts.

First is the recognition that a number of schools use a different system for calculating remuneration than what most of our divisions currently use. Some of our peers use a system of teaching fellowships in place of the general stipend support we currently provide. Students awarded a teaching fellowship are often expected to teach during the designated years of support. In such a system, if a student receives a teaching fellowship of $20,000 for the year and is required to teach three courses, the school might list the remuneration for graduate student teaching as $6,666 with the understanding that pay for one course is equal to one-third of the teaching stipend. We currently do not use teaching fellowships, so it may appear that our remuneration for required graduate student teaching is less than another school although our students are receiving the same amount of yearly support—often with a smaller teaching requirement. The use of teaching fellowships by other schools is not the reason we have trailed our peers in what we pay graduate students for their services in the classroom. In the past we neglected to pay attention to this important area of compensation. The use of teaching fellowships by other schools, however, makes comparisons of graduate student remuneration across schools more difficult.

Second, a number of schools have been able to increase the remuneration of graduate student teaching by limiting which students are eligible to teach. Specifically, at some peer institutions, students are only eligible to teach while receiving stipend support or holding a teaching fellowship—often during the first five to six years of graduate study. We do not impose such restrictions on graduate student teaching. The University has benefited from the expertise advanced graduate students often bring to the classroom. That said, we want to state emphatically that these increases in remuneration should not be seen as endorsing or facilitating an increase in the number of graduate student lecturers. We strongly encourage all divisions to work with their departments and programs to devise systems so that advanced graduate students have to rely less on teaching for needed support and can instead devote more of their time to completing their dissertations. These issues of teaching among advanced graduate students and time limits or caps on teaching will be addressed by the Provost’s Committee on Advanced Residence and Time to Degree.

We also want to underscore our belief, echoed by the committee in its report, that graduate student teaching is just one dimension—although a critically important one—of graduate education more generally. Classroom experience is an opportunity for graduate students to hone their communication, listening, and evaluation skills. In the classroom, through the guidance of a professor, graduate student teachers learn how to present material, listen to and address contradictory arguments, and evaluate and constructively engage the written and verbal work of others. We believe that teaching is an experience that benefits all graduate students whether their careers will be strictly academic or they choose some other arena through which to make a contribution. We hope that departments and programs across the University will take the announcement of these increases in remuneration to discuss among their faculty and students the purpose of teaching and how the teaching experience of graduate students can continue to be improved.

Increasing the remuneration provided graduate student teachers is part of our continued commitment to enhance graduate education at the University of Chicago. Over the past three years we have made significant investments in numerous areas to ensure that our graduate students have the resources and support they need to be successful in their endeavors. Through the Graduate Aid Initiative (GAI), we have significantly changed our funding packages, providing five years of full funding and health insurance and two summers of additional support to nearly every student matriculating to the University since Autumn 2007. We are expanding the GAI to include newly matriculating students in the Divinity School. For those students not covered under the GAI, we have worked with departments and divisions to increase the minimum stipends of many underfunded students.

The University now guarantees that every graduate student who matriculated since 2003 will have health insurance through the balance of their first five years of graduate school. We increased the number of Provost Summer Fellowships awarded this summer from 25 to 100. Provost Summer Fellowships will again be available next year. We will award 50 fellowships in the summer of 2009, up from the 15 originally budgeted. We have funded a new set of dissertation fellowships that will be available for at least five years, the first fellowships having been awarded earlier this year. The administration has secured an endowment of $6 million from the Mellon Foundation explicitly for the funding of graduate education. In the first five years of the endowment the award will be used to fund dissertation fellowships. More recently we suspended the annual increase of 5 percent in Advanced Residence tuition. We also have created a policy to ensure that graduate students who are new parents have greater flexibility in meeting their requirements.

Although we have made substantial progress in reinforcing the core aspects of our graduate programs, we will continue to review our policies and support. For example, the work of the Teaching Committee will continue through the Autumn and Winter Quarters. The Provost’s Committee on Advanced Residence and Time to Degree will intensify its work over the next year; the Vice President and Dean of Students, Kim Goff-Crews, will move forward with her committee to explore issues that confront international students; and the Council on Teaching will devote some of its time in the upcoming year to examining the training provided graduate student teachers.

One very important goal of our work concerning graduate education has been to strengthen the lines of communication between graduate students and the administration. Leading our efforts in this area is Professor Cathy Cohen, Deputy Provost for Graduate Education, whose responsibilities include not only providing better coordination across units responsible for graduate education and making the necessary changes to enhance the educational experience we provide graduate students, but also making sure that the concerns and opinions of graduate students are seriously considered when we decide our priorities and our commitment of resources. Toward this end, all of the recent committees examining issues that directly affect graduate students have included graduate student representation. As we did in this instance, both the Provost and the Deputy Provost have met with representatives from the Graduate Council to seek their input on the recommendations forwarded from University committees. We also have made ourselves available to discuss recommendations and decisions with a wider group of graduate students through forums and other meetings.

To extend this type of exchange between graduate students and the administration, this fall the Deputy Provost will begin a series of meetings with the graduate students in each department, program, and school. These meetings will be opportunities to hear the concerns of graduate students and also to discuss the efforts of the administration and how best to improve graduate education generally across the University. She also will continue to make regular presentations to the Graduate Council and will for the first time meet quarterly with the Directors of Graduate Studies across the University. We believe that graduate students are an important part of the University community who hold a unique perspective on the education delivered to both graduate students and students in the College. We want to hear from and work with graduate students. None of this is meant to supersede the essential communication and work that happens within the divisions, departments, programs, and schools, which hold the most important responsibilities in planning, improving, and protecting the exceptional education we offer graduate students.

We thank the committee for its hard work and look forward to its final report, which we expect to receive toward the end of the Winter Quarter 2009. Enjoy the rest of your summer and we look forward to seeing you in September.

For more: http://provost.uchicago.edu/pdfs/student_remuneration.pdf

Maroon Op-Ed: Strength in Number by Megan Wade

A recent article in the Chicago Reader sums up well the problem facing graduate students across the country: It is “the university as corporation, [the model in which] some university heads are calling themselves CEOs, graduate students are more than ever an exploitable source of cheap labor, and most Ph.D.s are doomed to a lifetime of multiple, low-paying, part-time jobs.”

While some universities move to amend the situation, the University of Chicago administration, once again, follows rather than leads. Provost Thomas Rosenbaum’s recommendations on graduate funding in February, while providing some additional funding opportunities, failed to address key financial issues for students—instead treating them as if they were employees of the University. (Though where that line rests is unclear. At an open forum in March, Rosenbaum consistently described departments as “hiring” rather than “admitting” graduate students into their Ph.D. programs.) Issues of increased pay for all teaching and T.A. positions, as well as the provision of appropriate benefits like health care for student employees, remained unresolved.

Click here for more:
http://www.chicagomaroon.com/online_edition/article/10487

Memo from Board of Trustees Student and Campus Life Committee

The University of Chicago Board of Trustees
Student and Campus Life Committee

Memorandum

To:
Hollie Gilman, Undergraduate Student Liaison
John Mark Hansen, Dean, Social Sciences Division
Rick Rosengarten, Dean, Divinity School
Erica Simmons, Graduate Student Liaison

From: Klingensmith, Chair, Student and Campus Life Committee

Subject: Recent Meeting on Graduate Student Funding Issues

I am writing on behalf of the committee to thank each of you for participating in the May 5, 2008, meeting to discuss graduate student issues, particularly the University's financial support of current and future graduate students. Strengthening our graduate programs has been identified by the administration as a strategic priority, and the Board recognizes and appreciates its importance. The Student and Campus Life Committee has the particular responsibility to understand the situation of the current and future student body so that it may advise the whole Board on strategic matters connected to student and campus life that support the institution's overall mission.

Although specific academic and administrative decisions remain the province of teh faculty and administration, it was very useful for the Committee to hear from your different perspectives more about the context and complexity of the issues having an impact upon graduate education at the university. We recognize and are sympathetic to the concerns expressed to us by current graduate students and wish that the University must manage carefully all of the many worthwhile demands on its resources and make decisions in the best interests of the University as a whole.

We wish to thank in particular, Erica Simmons, Graduate Liaison, for raising many of the issues we discussed thoroughly through her term. We have been impressed with the work of the students who have supported her efforts and brought forth information and arguments that enabled all of us to think more broadly about these issues.

To be sure our discussion reinforced the importance of enhancing the graduate student experience in all of its components. We appreciate all the work that has been done to date and the Committee looks forward to being kept appraised by the administration of the work of Cathy Cohen and Kim Goff-Crews, including their review of teaching stipends and advanced residency tuition.



c: Members of the Student and Campus Life Committee
James Crown, Chair, Board of Trustees
Robert Zimmer, President
Thomas Rosenbaum, Provost
David Fithian, Secretary of the University
Kimberly Goff-crews, Vice President and Dean of Students
Martha Roth, Dean, Humanities Division
Cathy Cohen, Deputy Provost

Analysis of Teach Out(side)

The Teaching Out concluded on May 29th with roughly 1,500 undergrads, grads, and faculty participating. All this means that that with no budget, with poorly populated contact databases, only 10 days of preparation, and an informal agreement between the Graduate Funding Committee and Graduate Students United (GSU), we were able to motivate some 1500 or so people to recognize this cause and participate in an action. Since the Apple action several months ago, these numbers have constantly increased, and it seems now, exponentially. Since we began organizing this event, we have improved our contacts with students and GSU is building a membership base of student interested in improving the plight of student employees on campus.

The recent Maroon editorial aside, in the year or so since the GAI was announced, the efforts of GFC and GSU have been, at the very least, successful in bringing attention to issues that have been sorely overlooked for too long and, more realistically, have stirred a bureaucracy, notoriously lethargic in its efforts to recognize grad student quality of life issues, into making some movement.

While speaking with a member of the Graduate Funding Committee yesterday, it was brought to my attention that none of the committees focusing on advanced residency fees, health care, or international students plan on dropping any real suggestions until well into the next academic year. For those of us who will be back on campus in September, it would appear that we have to start thinking about these over a long period of time. And in regards to next year, we have the added advantage of a very receptive Student Government and the Liaisons to the Board in key positions to help build networks and voice our concerns far more directly to the administration than in the past.

Moreover, this administration is the first in recent memory that has had to contend with a determined, organized, responsive, and angry grad student body, coalescing – slower than we may have wished – into a formidable opponent. And whether or not one sees correlation or causation in such a situation, there is one thing we all know for sure: while this may be the best any administration has offered to grad students in years, they are still going to have to do a hell of a lot better if they don’t want to see 2000, 3000, 5000, or more students protesting on the quad next year.

If you have any thoughts, comments, or concerns, feel free to post them below.

Pictures from Teach Out(side): May 28th and 29th

Summary of Teach Out(side):

# of classes taught out on the quads:

Wed: 20-25
Thurs: 65
Total: 85-90 classes (impressive!)

Best class period: Thursday morning 10:30 – Noon @ 23 classes out at the same time

- from noon – 1:30 we had at least 17 classes outside

- it should be noted that at this point it was sunny and warm.

- Rain started around 1:15 and continued for about half an hour into the 1:30 – 3pm class period, so very few classes came out; but we still had 4 groups, sitting on fieldstone, huddling in archways and otherwise going on and beyond the call of duty.

- If it had not rained, we would have topped 100 classes over the two days.

A fairly conservative average class size would be 15 (many groups were 20+, some 30+ and of course there were smaller discussion groups, but I think 15 is fair and even 20 wouldn’t be stretching it).

So, if we use the most conservative estimates, 85 classes times 15 students per, we had 1275 grads, undergrads and faculty out there over two days. At the high end (90 classes * 20 students per) we had 1800 folks on the Quad.

Wednesday, May 28th 2008






Thursday, May 29th, 2008