EC Survey Presentation
Graduate Council May-19 Minutes
Support Our Graduate Students
Graduate Students
Deserve Better!
Show your support for the people who make the life of the mind possible by coming out to:
The Rally on the Quads on Wednesday, March 12th at Noon!
Complete with bands, demands, and guest speakers!
RSVP on Facebook here and here.
Learn more at the Graduate Funding Blog.
Background Article:
University of Chicago Receives a Failing Grade in Graduate Student Funding
CHICAGO – University of Chicago graduate students unveiled a “Grad Funding Report Card” on Thursday in the form of a 7-foot banner, which they carried through the University’s main quad. Over the past four days nearly 500 students participated in a survey to voice their opinions on how well recent University actions met student needs. The results were released last Wednesday.
Students were not impressed. Students felt the university continued to fail to resolve key concerns. The administration received an “F’ concerning teaching pay as well as a ‘D-“ for health care. Dissertation grants and stipends both received “C-” grades while summer grants won the highest grade of “C.” Student leaders also gave the university an
‘F’ for participation as Provost Thomas Rosenbaum has yet to meet in an open forum with students.This is only the latest action in the growing demand for improved funding for Humanities, Social Science and Divinity school graduate students at the university. Last week, 150 students marched from the library and up the five flights of stairs to present apples (a symbol of education) to Provost Rosenbaum. Each apple signed by students asked the
Provost to advocate for better funding on their behalf.The poor funding situation was highlighted last February when President Zimmer promised $50 million dollars to fully fund all future students in
the Humanities and Social Sciences. However, this new plan ignored the approx. 2000 current students whose funding falls far below the cost of living.Teaching pay has not been raised for these divisions in the past 10 years. Student teachers at peer universities currently make as much as four to five times what the University of Chicago currently pays. The University also fails to compensate student employees with health care benefits.
Throughout the past year, graduate students have been working with the administration trying to improve current student funding. In response,
the Provost released a plan last Thursday, February 21^st to make some limited improvements in funding for those left out of the $50 million dollar funding initiative. However, these improvements fail to make
systematic changes to teaching pay and health care and only committed 10% of the funds that were needed to provide full funding to the university’s graduate students.Student leaders will continue to press the university for increased funding and plan to hold another larger event– a rally featuring student and faculty speakers– on Thursday March 12^th . Students will
be presenting demands for increase teaching compensation equal to peer institutions, baseline stipends for all current graduate students,
summer research support, health insurance for all students employed by the university, a guarantee of quality teaching opportunities and dissertation-writing grants for all students.
Written by Scott
