As our members said in a recent Maroon interview, COVID-19 could not have come at a worse time for the university and its workers. The University’s unilateral overhaul of the funding structures of the Divinity School, Humanities Division, Social Sciences Division, and School of Social Services Administration, announced suddenly and without any faculty input last October, has brought discussion of enrollment caps and reduced teaching experience to departments in these divisions. These enrollment caps mean that advanced-year graduate students, particularly those who began before 2016 and can’t depend on funding next year, are under threat of being forced out by defending early or are now being encouraged to drop out by their departments as “attrition targets.” In some affected departments, the enrollment caps being discussed might mean cutting the graduate student numbers by a third. This austerity will mean a radical and deeply harmful restructuring of research work at the university away from deep, methodologically varied, and challenging research projects, to only those kinds of graduate students and research projects that are “safe bets.” Given the racial and class hierarchies structuring higher education and graduate admissions, we know well who this will exclude.
Faculty have spoken out against the funding overhaul and how its rollout demonstrates a deep threat to faculty governance at the University. Last week we asked you to sign our petition concerning COVID-19 relief measures from the University. Today, we are following up with an electronic version of our funding overhaul petition demanding clarification and democratic accountability from the governing bodies of the University. We will be contacting the Provost’s office around these issues late this week so be sure to sign as soon as possible. And if you already signed the original paper version of the petition during Winter Quarter, don’t worry—your name has been added to the electronic copy already!
We want to work with the incoming Provost Ka Yee Lee to understand exactly what this funding overhaul entails, especially in this moment of crisis. We want to have input in the decisions that define our conditions of work and research, and we want to protect our most vulnerable members. Please sign and circulate this petition, and reach out to your Department Organizer or reply to this email to get involved!
UChicago Graduate Students United - United Electrical Workers 