PublicationsPublications
On February 25th, 2010, the administration released the "Provost's Response to Graduate Education Committee Reports". It is available here: http://provost.uchicago.edu/news.shtml. We encourage you to consult the Provost's Response and read the administration's decision concerning issues of grave importance to students: unfair AR tuition burdens, teaching eligibility, and (the lack of) increased funding for dissertation writing periods. The Provost's Response is a reply to a number of student-faculty committees that provided reasonable -- though excessively modest -- recommendations for improving the graduate student experience and enabling us to continue to produce top-quality academic research.
Graduate Students United is profoundly disappointed by Provost Rosenbaum’s decision to ignore the Advanced Residency and Time to Degree Committee’s most crucial recommendations, including virtually all the recommendations that were designed to ease the financial burden of AR tuition. Over the past year, students, faculty and administrators have dedicated many hours working on the Advanced Residency and Time to Degree Committee, attended open forums to offer helpful suggestions, and took the time to share their deeply personal stories of financial burden and stress. Just this past week over 180 graduate students personally sent e-mails to Provost Rosenbaum, expressing the need for the administration to go beyond the Committee’s recommendations by removing AR tuition entirely.
With the release of the Provost’s Response on February 25, 2010, it is now clear that this good faith effort and trust in the University’s official procedures was in vain. Rosenbaum has taken the route of least financial flexibility and least administrative effort. The decision to ignore all of the Advanced Residency and Time to Degree Committee’s most substantial recommendations has shocked even the most cynical students amongst us. We are confronted with two questions: Why did we work on this process for over 1.5 years if the administration never had any intention of ratifying the key recommendations of the Committee? And why should we bother ever again to trust that such a process will result in fair treatment?
The Winter Quarter edition of GSU News (pdf) is here! In this issue you will find the following: - A special spread on the topic of affiliation. What does it mean to affiliate with a national union? Should GSU affiliate? With which union? Prepare for the GSU-wide referendum to be held next quarter!
- News on other university labor movements from around the world.
- An editorial by Duff Morton on how to (not) be a good organizer.
- Thoughts on "solidarity" from our members.
- Part two of a folk epic: "Proposal."
I. Summary of recommendations from the Provost’s Committee on AR and Time to Degree:
The following recommendations were the basis for the open forums in October, and will guide the Provost’s decision:
1. AR Tuition (reduce it, but don’t eliminate it): The report maintains that AR out-of-pocket tuition allows graduate students to contribute to and access University services in our advanced residency years, and encourages us to finish faster. The report acknowledges that AR tuition rates have increased to a burdensome amount. They recommend: reducing AR tuition for all graduate students, but not eliminating it (recommendation #1). They suggest an end to AR out-of-pocket tuition waivers to those who teach on campus and a redistribution of the savings to reduce AR tuition for all AR students (recommendation #2).
2. Teaching (more access, but limit amount, take out loans): Centrally and publicly list available teaching jobs on campus. At the same time, create limits on the amount of teaching a student can do in any one year. Students shouldn’t be dependent on teaching to cover their financial responsibilities. We should make up the difference with loans (recommendations 4 and 5).
3. Structural/Admin changes (more advising, support, fellowships, changes to funding and ER): Divisions and departments should help grad students plan their financial resources better and understand their financial responsibilities; increase the number of fellowships and add 50 new summer research fellowships; include health insurance and tuition coverage in all internal funding awards; allow banking of the 5th year of funding; eliminate ER after the 13th year; extend the GAI to all divisions (recommendations 3, 6, 8-12, 13-15).
II. Summary of counter -recommendations by students-at-large, and by GSU members:
These two main areas of concern came out of the open forums and ongoing student discussions. We can continue to push for these!
1. Eliminate out of pocket AR tuition: It is too high, it keeps us from finishing our degrees on time and it creates undue financial stress. The University says we should contribute to our education, but it doesn’t recognize how much we contribute through teaching (at still not-so-high wages), working in other campus jobs (at low wages), and through our intellectual labor for the University. Eliminating AR out-of-pocket tuition would not be a huge burden for the University (it only makes for 0.15% of the University operating budget), yet it would relieve a huge burden on students ($2300 a year, if you can’t teach).
2. Extend tuition waivers: If AR tuition is not going to be eliminated, then reduce it significantly and extend the waiver system. Don’t get rid of the out-of-pocket tuition waiver for those who teach! We don’t make enough as it is. A better plan is to extend tuition waivers to ALL students who work on campus. Don’t limit the amount we can teach if we still have to pay AR tuition (in addition to healthcare and just basic living). Taking out $30,000 in loans at high interest rates is unacceptable.
3. Suspend out-of-pocket tuition immediately, then get rid of it or keep it very low: Grad students in AR are hurting now! While we wait for a decision, we are still paying what everyone agrees is an unreasonably high AR out-of-pocket amount. So, suspend this amount now. Then eliminate it for good, or reduce it significantly and extend the waiver system!
Our Fall 2009 edition of GSU News (pdf) is now available on our site! Its theme is "involvement" and it includes:
- a polemic on "the depoliticization of activism"
- a timeline of seven years of campus politics
- excerpts from recent GSU statements on teaching job availability and advanced residence
- a survey on the political responsibilities of academics
- labor news from across the country
- part one of a folk epic, "the marooned dissertation writers"
Graduate Students United - Statement on Advanced Residence - (Sept. 14, 2009)
More than two years ago, after a series of protests led by Graduate Students United, the University of Chicago administration began deliberating over possible reform of the university's system of advanced residence (AR), whereby tuition is charged to graduate students after their 4th year of doctoral studies. In the meantime, as the reform process drags on, we continue to pay inordinate tuition costs. Although this reform process has been undemocratic from the start, with administrators consulting graduate students but never granting us decision-making or bargaining power, we have taken part in good faith. In spite of this, the administration's discussions have remained almost entirely secret, and unless we speak forcefully we can only assume that our concerns will fall on deaf ears. For this reason Graduate Students United (GSU) releases the following formal statement regarding the process and potential outcome of these efforts at AR reform. The administration may choose to ignore our words, but it should be forewarned—these words will be backed up by action.
Already in the spring of 2007 Provost Rosenbaum convened a "Working Group on Graduate Student Life in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Divinity," whose very modest recommendations included lowering AR tuition and eliminating tuition for the first year of AR (see Appendix A). These recommendations have still not been implemented. Following that committee's report, the provost convened a Committee on Advanced Residence and Time to Degree, which produced a set of recommendations in May 2009. Today, nearly 4 months later, following repeated calls on our part for its release, the committee's report has been finally made public. While GSU has developed its position on AR independently of the Provost's committee, graduate students can now read the committee's report and compare its proposals to our own. They will see that the committee's report makes some positive but moderate recommendations, along with other recommendations that should be sharply criticized. The report's positive recommendations, we hope, will finally convince the administration to take positive steps toward reform. But the weakness, vagueness, and misplaced emphasis of these recommendations, coupled with the administration's continued slowness in acting, bring into relief the need for the following statement from GSU.
We will not dwell on the committee's report, to which we respond here. Our statement simply restates graduate students' long-standing grievances; it calls for immediate action commensurate with the urgency of the situation; and it outlines specific proposals for minimal reforms, pending what will be the only viable long-term solution: a complete abolition of AR tuition.
As graduate students, our work constitutes a fundamental part of this institution's intellectual life. We are fully engaged members of the local, national, and international academic community; we participate in workshops, lectures, and other activities on campus; and, if we can afford it, we travel to engage in debate with members of other scholarly environments: our presence and participation is an essential driving force of intellectual activity at the University of Chicago. Yet instead of receiving just compensation, we are charged for the time we spend here.