GSG pres. demands more funding

Graduate Student Government President Laura Moore told university leaders yesterday funding for graduate programs has eroded so substantially that undergraduate classes and the university's rankings are now at risk.

Moore's comments came during an address to the University Senate, the most important policy-making body on the campus, and served as a call to action for newly appointed graduate school dean. Charles Caramello, who officials hope will lead a complete overhaul of weaknesses in a school that has lacked an official head for several years.

"Graduate students cannot afford to live here, and prospective students are going elsewhere," Moore, an entomology graduate student, told the senate. "Peer institutions are offering more attractive financial packages and affordable on-campus housing for graduate students."

Moore said that although the university's policy for teaching assistants' workload is 20 hours each week, many TAs work an average of 29 hours per week grading papers and teaching classes. Part of that workload is created by overloaded undergraduate classes, Moore said.

"Many TAs end up taking incompletes in their own courses, and there are consequences for undergraduate students [enrolled in these classes] as well," Moore said. "All parties are getting shortchanged."

Caramello, who took the position on July 1, acknowledged Moore's concerns but said he has spent the majority of the past three months learning about the graduate school and the specific issues the campus needs to work on to improve graduate students' experiences.

"I am working with the GSG and other campus groups, campus leadership to begin to advance agendas and move initiatives forward," Caramello said in an interview. "I am really learning about graduate education across campus and developing a vision for the future."

Caramello also said the graduate school's first action this semester has been hosting support programs and workshops for graduate students aimed at academic success. He added the school has already hosted one workshop that 175 students attended, and about four more workshops are planned through December.

But one of Moore's primary concerns is with housing costs, which she said far exceed stipends paid to graduate students. She accused the university of failing to take any formal initiative to increase affordability and housing options for graduate students, and told the senate yesterday that even students with minimal spending habits still devote nearly 90 percent of their stipends toward housing.

Currently, the university has two options for subsidized housing, Graduate Hills and Graduate Gardens, but the price for a one-bedroom apartment is $900 per month, and only 475 graduate students can be housed at a time, Moore said.

"This equals 5 percent of graduate students," Moore said. "As a stopgap, stipends need to be increased, and when calculating stipends, the university needs to keep the competition in mind and factor in the area's cost of living."

Faculty senators argued that the problems in the graduate school must be addressed by the campus as a whole. Many schools lack the funding necessary to increase stipends for graduate students or to hire more faculty to replace overworked TAs.

Sen. Claire Moses, a women's studies professor, and Sen. James Harris, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, told the senate that many colleges, particularly Arts and Humanities, do not have enough funding to increase stipends or fellowships and grants for their graduate students.

"This is a campus problem, it is not a college or departmental issue," Harris said.

One problem plaguing the graduate school that does not require increased funding is mentorship for graduate students, Caramello has said. With good mentors, graduate students' time to degree rates improve drastically, he said.

"We are mapping the excellent mentor programs on campus, trying to find out where they are and share their [programs] across the campus," Caramello said.

Even so, Moore still argues that graduate students are largely being ignored, and in an interview, expressed astonishment that such a large body of students could be overlooked.

"There are 10,000 of us, and we do the bulk of the teaching and research [at the university]," Moore said. "How can you ignore 10,000 people?"

Administrators said they recognize the problems in the graduate school, however, and university President Dan Mote addressed five key areas in need of improvement for graduates - mentorship, stipends, workload, quality of experience and increased doctoral completion rate - in his Sept. 14 State of the Campus address to the senate.

"Our new graduate dean is committed to addressing these issues," Mote said in that speech. "I thank him in advance for taking this on, [as] a great graduate program is fundamental to a top research institution."

Contact reporter Kelly Whittaker at whittakerdbk@gmail.com.