Unite (or something)!
Oh, dear. This is the second time we’ve picked on Aubrey Henretty’s column, which we usually like. But today’s, which opposes GEO, contains a line we couldn’t let go. Grad students, she says, “don’t understand that teaching two or three college courses in exchange for a free graduate education is not, by any stretch of the imagination, like working in a factory or even in a public high school.”
Graduate student instructors teach courses. They are paid and receive a free graduate education. This leads many people to believe, understandably, that they receive a free graduate education simply in exchange for teaching courses. But the point of graduate school is to do research, original research that makes a new discovery. Otherwise, by the same argument, fellowship students receive a free graduate education in exchange for doing nothing.
We’re undecided on how much the University should be responsible for the child care of grad students’ kids, which, along with health care premiums, was the GEO position Henretty opposes. And we wouldn’t argue that grad students are undercompensated for what they do - be it teaching and research or, um, nothing and research.
Thank you for posting that. There are so many misconceptions by the undergrads about what grad students do or why we are at the university (and so many of them, in just a few years, will look back from our perspective now and realize how wrong they were). I just got into a “battle royale” on the Michigan Review website last week over these types of issues. I’d like to say I “won”, but really it just degenerated a bit and then everyone started ignoring me. Sigh. Btw, part of me really wishes I was still in Ann Arbor so I could go to the AAIO meetup. But the other 99% of me thinks the 1% that wishes it was back in Ann Arbor is insane! Maybe I should rephrase that and just say I wish these sorts of things had happened while I was still there.
posted by Joe F. on November 25th, 2003 at 12:24 pmOh, and maybe Audrey can’t bring herself to care about $12 a month because it means a lot less to her than it does to most grad students.
posted by Joe F. on November 25th, 2003 at 12:28 pmYes. That part that wants to be in A2 is insane.
I admit that they pay us well enough that $12/month isn’t unthinkable - you’re supposed to struggle as a grad student - but the real problem is that they’re not implementing the cuts on a sliding scale by salary.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 25th, 2003 at 1:09 pmI’d just like to say that I’m not in grad school for research. I’m learning from my classes, but doubt I’ll be doing any research beyond the papers I’ve been writing. It could be that getting my MUP is less intensive than other studies. Maybe there should be a system based on the degree’s general study…
posted by Paul on November 25th, 2003 at 1:23 pmI guess my comments mainly apply to PhD students, (who, in many departments, are often the only students who get GSI positions if there’s a shortage.) I should have made that clearer. In your department, are GSI positions awarded similarly?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 25th, 2003 at 1:27 pmBeing a recent Rackham graduate (Ph.D.) I want to clarify something: The issue of child care for grad students was not something that actual grad students wanted at the time. Rather, that was pushed through by Nancy Cantor and a couple of influential feminists in order to try and “shame” the university into doing the same for women faculty and staff (the wording is gender-neutral, but the intent is to help women - they really could care less about men). There were a lot of other issues that were *way* more important to us than childcare, but feminist politics trumps sound reasoning and the will of the majority every time, especially at PC places like the U of M.
I just wanted to clear that up.
posted by Rackham Grad on November 25th, 2003 at 1:45 pmWell, that’s why I’m undecided on the childcare thing - I really do think that not having it puts women students at a disadvantage. But it seems like a huge expense that benefits just a specific segment of the grad student population, having children in grad school is a choice, etc.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 25th, 2003 at 1:55 pmPaul, your degree (like my soon-to-be-started MUP) isn’t *really* grad school. It’s a professional degree. It’s like a JD or an MBA. That doesn’t necessarily mean our degree is less rigorous–for example, our MUP requires 48 credits of coursework, while my girlfriend’s master’s degree in psych only required about 12–but that our degrees aren’t meant to prepare us for life in academia.
posted by Murph on November 25th, 2003 at 2:02 pmOn the contrary. In the MUP program the PhD students go through the same courses on their way to their degrees. Also, we have the option of completing a thesis or a project at the end, it just happens that most people opt for the project. And don’t tell me this isn’t grad school. This is a Master’s degree. Definately don’t tell a JD or an MBA such a thing.
posted by Paul on November 25th, 2003 at 11:26 pmI wasn’t going to post, but… Well, I feel pretty jealous, acutally, of you UM grad students, since I go to a fancy private school for my Master’s and I’m paying $816 a semester for the health plan with the least possible coverage. We’re not unionized, and if I want to be a TA it has to be for a class I’ve already taken, and the job pays as a work-study. (I never thought I’d say that I was jealous of you; when I was applying to grad school people asked me why I didn’t want to stay in Ann Arbor and I used to laugh at them.)
posted by Colleen on November 25th, 2003 at 11:40 pmWow, Rackham Grad, with all due respect, you couldn’t be more wrong about child care. I was on the bargaining team and in the bargaining room night after night in 01-02 with grad parents who had never met and couldn’t care less about Nancy Cantor, but who knew plenty of other people who had quit or drastically slowed their graduate studies because (unlike MSU) UM makes virtually no child-care provisions for its students and faculty–in a town where 30 hours a week of child care costs more than a month’s rent. The U has never bothered to collect good numbers (one of the things we were negotiating for), but the best guess of administrators who *did not want to do a single thing about child care* was that 10% of graduate students had kids.
When GEO surveyed more than 400 members (of about 1600) on bargaining priorities, child care was one of the top three items mentioned.
Solidarity,
posted by AP on November 30th, 2003 at 6:40 pmAP
One more thought. While, as “annarborisoverrated” suggests, having children while one is in graduate school may be a choice (and I’m not 100% ceding that one, as there are, for instance, plenty of religiously observant married people for whom it is not really optional), ensuring the availability of child care isn’t primarily about making things easier for those women who choose the “luxury” of having kids during the years traditionally occupied by graduate school (also known as one’s “childbearing years,” as opposed to the post-tenure years, which are characterized by sharply declining fertility). It’s also about making graduate education available to everyone who is otherwise qualified for it. Lots of people–even those who already have kids–might choose graduate education given a fair whack at it. That would be good for the kids, good for the parents, and probably also good for the rest of us (where “good” is measured by having ambitious parents as role models, achieving one’s lifelong dreams, and by research outcomes and/or dollars paid into the US tax system, respectively).
I don’t have (and don’t want) kids, by the way.
AP
posted by AP on November 30th, 2003 at 8:18 pmNever let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what’s right.
posted by Youman Leah on January 26th, 2004 at 10:03 am