Bigger commitment needed from the UC

BY Christine Petit

Two weeks ago, while the University of California Regents were voting on additional increases and bonuses for nearly 40 senior executives, the university’s leadership also heard a discouraging report finding that UC significantly lags behind its competitors in compensation for graduate student assistants.

As the report by Steven Beckwith, vice president for research and graduate studies, makes clear, there is a real danger that UC is losing its ability to compete for top graduate students. The yearly stipend of UC graduate students is $1,000 less than that of graduate students at comparable top institutions.

A recent survey finds that prospective top graduate students have a negative perception of the UC’s financial support. In order to attract top students, the UC needs to improve its funding packages.

What is most troubling is that the total amount of additional executive bonuses the regents have voted on this year, $11.5 million, is roughly the same amount of money it would take to close the funding gap cited by Beckwith when applied to the more than 12,000 academic student employees (teaching assistants, tutors and readers) currently bargaining for our sixth contract with the UC.

If the UC is to maintain excellence in research and teaching, it must improve support for graduate students. If the institution can find $11.5 million to continue increasing executive compensation, it can find at least that much to improve life for the UC’s prized graduate students.

UC administrators’ continued prioritization of executives over quality education has led more than 6,000 members of UAW 2865 ““ the union for academic student employees at the UC ““ to sign on to a report card failing UC at maintaining quality during the budget crisis and calling on the administration to improve its performance.

Many graduate students work as academic student employees during our graduate education. And it’s these employees at the UC who serve as instructors, lead discussion and lab sections, grade student work and tutor.

While pay is an important issue, we should also be extremely concerned about the UC’s level of support for graduate students with children. This is particularly important if we hope to increase recruitment and retention of women in academic research.

While academic student employees won significant gains in family leaves and a small childcare subsidy in our 2007 contract negotiations, there is still much improvement to be made.

The UC administration has an opportunity to make a commitment to teaching and research in the current contract negotiations with our union for academic student employees. The result of these negotiations will be a contract that sets compensation levels for graduate students across the UC system.

Increasing graduate student support is essential to ensuring that the UC retains its role as a nationwide leader.

Petit is the president of UAW Local 2865. She recently graduated from UC Riverside with a doctorate degree in sociology.