At the University of Missouri at Columbia, long simmering concerns over poor working conditions for graduate students have boiled over.
On Wednesday, several hundred graduate students, faculty members, and other protesters marched on the campus to push the administration to raise stipend levels, offer better housing and child-care options, and make other improvements. Rallying under the iconic columns at the university’s Traditions Plaza, the crowd chanted “M-I-Z, shame on you,” with many wearing red T-shirts with slogans that supported the graduate students’ cause.
The uproar began earlier this month after university officials told students that because of changes in federal policy they would no longer receive health-insurance subsidies, a message sent out only hours before the benefits were set to expire.
R. Bowen Loftin, the university’s chancellor, last week apologized for the “lack of appropriate notice and prior consultation” and created a task force to propose ways to deal with the health-care issue. He also said the university would hold off on dropping the subsidies, so that students enrolled in the 2015-16 academic year could continue to have their insurance covered by the university.
Despite those steps, the students have continued to press their case, saying that health care was only one of several issues that they want the university to address.
While graduate-student protests aren’t rare, the Missouri one is unusual in part because of the high level of faculty support. About half of the university’s departments wrote letters in support of the students. Many department heads and faculty advisers reassured graduate students they would not be penalized if they walked out of classes they were scheduled to teach in order to participate in Wednesday’s events. Some faculty members even taught their undergraduates about the plight of the low-paid graduate assistants or canceled classes altogether.
“We as a department have for too long sat idly by as key support for graduate students has eroded, from the lack of a student parent center and housing options to stagnant salaries, increasing fees, slashing of tuition waivers, and now a last-minute reneging on health insurance benefits,” said one letter signed as “the Anthropology Faculty.”
One of the most outspoken faculty members is Lois Huneycutt, an associate professor and director of graduate studies in the history department, who spoke at Wednesday’s protest. In an interview with The Chronicle, she discussed why faculty members are so supportive of the graduate students’ cause and why events at Missouri may have implications for other universities. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. Why have faculty been so supportive of the graduate students these last two weeks?
A. It’s the most unanimous I’ve seen this faculty in the 20 years I’ve been here, I think all of us recognize that graduate students have been exploited for some time, and feel guilty about it. Most people have jumped for this chance to actually do something.
Q. Why should Missouri faculty feel guilty?
A. These students have over the last five years had an erosion in their already precarious position. Our faculty recognizes this and yet we’re asking them to take on more and more of the load of undergraduate teaching.
Q. What advice would you have for faculty at other institutions?
A. If you have tenure and you’re not using it, it’s going to waste. They have a responsibility, particularly if they’re out there recruiting graduate students, to really understand the conditions that their graduate students are living in. They also need to be honest with them about their workload and chances of employment at the end of their degree. I’m still amazed to talk to students in the last stages of deciding where to attend graduate school and still not having had anyone at their home institution tell them about their employment outlook, particularly in the humanities and social sciences.
Q. What implications do you see beyond Missouri?
A. Obviously, the fact that graduate students are overworked and underpaid is not unique to us. Our students have reached out to students from other universities that are unionized. I just don’t believe this model of paying them so little can continue. Something’s got to give. I think we’re at a tipping point.
Q. How did Missouri get to this point?
A. I don’t think we have administrators who are malicious, but I also don’t think that graduate education has been a budget priority for a long time. In a situation where everybody is scrambling for every available dollar, graduate students don’t have much of a voice. They really don’t have anyone in administration whose job it is to advocate for graduate-student interests.
Q. Do you put any of the blame on the state legislature?
A. I blame both the university and legislators. We have allowed our infrastructure to crumble. Our graduate-student housing was declared unsafe after a firefighter was killed in a collapse. [The firefighter was evacuating students from the building, where a second-story walkway had collapsed.] It was torn down and not replaced. Our child-care center was condemned. Our library is in really sad shape. The health-care issue was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Vimal Patel covers graduate education. Follow him on Twitter @vimalpatel232, or write to him at vimal.patel@chronicle.com.
