Rogers: Graduate Gratitude
Danny Rogers
Issue date: 2/14/08 Section: Opinion
It's not often that I get to comment on some good news from the university regarding the plight of graduate students. In fact, it's been so long that I almost forgot what it feels like to hear good news. Luckily for me, someone passed along a memo from chemical and life sciences Dean Norma Allewell that reminded me how nice it is when graduate students get the recognition they deserve.
The memo announces graduate students in the college will be receiving a 7 to 7.9 percent pay increase in the coming academic year. This is great news, but her justifications for the increase are even more significant. Allewell states the raise will "enable us to recognize more adequately the important contributions that the College's graduate students make to our research and teaching programs..." Kudos, Dean Allewell. As a graduate student, my proverbial hat is off to you for acknowledging our role in the success of this university and your college.
But wait! If you can believe it, there's even more good news. At the latest legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly, Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Montgomery) introduced a bill that would give graduate students the right to collective bargaining. This bill is the cornerstone of an effort by Maryland Teachers and Researchers, the newly formed graduate student union, to negotiate graduate student pay, benefits and workload. Its passage will hopefully mark a new era in which graduate school at this university, though maybe not a path to early retirement, will at least be a sustainable, viable and attractive place for students from around the country to complete their graduate degrees.
Right now, it is not. Being a graduate student at this university implies living in an area with an inflated housing market with a woefully inadequate stipend and few alternatives; crime is rampant, traffic is bad and public transportation is limited. Why would top students come here when they can go somewhere else with higher stipends, subsidized housing and a better neighborhood?
In her memo, Allewell acknowledges the climate of graduate school competitiveness as well. She further justifies the pay increase because it will "make our stipends significantly more competitive nationally. The goal is to continue to increase stipends each year until they are fully competitive nationally." Increase them until they are competitive? Sounds like people are finally realizing they aren't competitive now. At least, not across the board. Some individual departments such as Atmospheric and Ocean Science have been trying to compete, but until this attitude reaches the heights of the administration building, it will not make for dramatic improvements in the overall competitiveness of the graduate school. Dean Allewell, thank you, again, for your foresight and your initiative.
But as the German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote, "He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news." Compare Allewell's admirable actions with the university administrators' response to Raskin's Assembly legislation. University Spokesman Millree Williams said in a prepared statement that, "Our students ... are students and not employees, and we don't view them as employees." She went on to say the university is "not in favor of changing that relationship or creating an employee-employer relationship." Not employees? According to the 2006 Graduate Assistant Survey Report, more than 60 percent of graduate teaching assistants were lead instructors or lecturers for their classes. Nearly 40 percent were graders, while others led discussion sections or lab classes. Does that sound like simply being a student? Are 40 percent of graduate students writing theses on the grade distributions in freshman history classes? True, we are here primarily to learn and study but we also spend more than half of our time on the campus providing services to the university to help it fulfill its core educational mission. Perhaps Raskin said it best: "Graduate students are treated like the migrant laborers of higher education." To pretend graduate students are not, at least in part, employees of the university is to deny their contributions to the campus and to shortchange them in recognition and compensation. If you have any doubts whether this is true, just ask Allewell.
Keep fighting the good fight, Dean Allewell. And you, too, Sen. Raskin.
Danny Rogers is a graduate student in the chemical physics program. He can be reached at drogers2@umd.edu.
The memo announces graduate students in the college will be receiving a 7 to 7.9 percent pay increase in the coming academic year. This is great news, but her justifications for the increase are even more significant. Allewell states the raise will "enable us to recognize more adequately the important contributions that the College's graduate students make to our research and teaching programs..." Kudos, Dean Allewell. As a graduate student, my proverbial hat is off to you for acknowledging our role in the success of this university and your college.
But wait! If you can believe it, there's even more good news. At the latest legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly, Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Montgomery) introduced a bill that would give graduate students the right to collective bargaining. This bill is the cornerstone of an effort by Maryland Teachers and Researchers, the newly formed graduate student union, to negotiate graduate student pay, benefits and workload. Its passage will hopefully mark a new era in which graduate school at this university, though maybe not a path to early retirement, will at least be a sustainable, viable and attractive place for students from around the country to complete their graduate degrees.
Right now, it is not. Being a graduate student at this university implies living in an area with an inflated housing market with a woefully inadequate stipend and few alternatives; crime is rampant, traffic is bad and public transportation is limited. Why would top students come here when they can go somewhere else with higher stipends, subsidized housing and a better neighborhood?
In her memo, Allewell acknowledges the climate of graduate school competitiveness as well. She further justifies the pay increase because it will "make our stipends significantly more competitive nationally. The goal is to continue to increase stipends each year until they are fully competitive nationally." Increase them until they are competitive? Sounds like people are finally realizing they aren't competitive now. At least, not across the board. Some individual departments such as Atmospheric and Ocean Science have been trying to compete, but until this attitude reaches the heights of the administration building, it will not make for dramatic improvements in the overall competitiveness of the graduate school. Dean Allewell, thank you, again, for your foresight and your initiative.
But as the German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote, "He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news." Compare Allewell's admirable actions with the university administrators' response to Raskin's Assembly legislation. University Spokesman Millree Williams said in a prepared statement that, "Our students ... are students and not employees, and we don't view them as employees." She went on to say the university is "not in favor of changing that relationship or creating an employee-employer relationship." Not employees? According to the 2006 Graduate Assistant Survey Report, more than 60 percent of graduate teaching assistants were lead instructors or lecturers for their classes. Nearly 40 percent were graders, while others led discussion sections or lab classes. Does that sound like simply being a student? Are 40 percent of graduate students writing theses on the grade distributions in freshman history classes? True, we are here primarily to learn and study but we also spend more than half of our time on the campus providing services to the university to help it fulfill its core educational mission. Perhaps Raskin said it best: "Graduate students are treated like the migrant laborers of higher education." To pretend graduate students are not, at least in part, employees of the university is to deny their contributions to the campus and to shortchange them in recognition and compensation. If you have any doubts whether this is true, just ask Allewell.
Keep fighting the good fight, Dean Allewell. And you, too, Sen. Raskin.
Danny Rogers is a graduate student in the chemical physics program. He can be reached at drogers2@umd.edu.
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