We are writing this submission in order to respond briefly to some of the comments Ben Powell offered in his May 12 Daily Bruin column titled “UC TAs should not expect wage increase.” While we believe his recommendations were made with good intentions, we think they show that the author doesn’t know the first thing about being a graduate student.
We don’t mean this to be hyperbolic or confrontational; it’s just a fact. Here’s the first thing any graduate student will tell you, if you take the time to ask: Being a (teaching assistant) is a full-time job.
We care passionately about our students and enjoy contributing to their education. However, our “work” doesn’t end when we leave the classroom. Graduate students toil night and day, during the academic year and during breaks, engaged in research and scholarship in the sciences and humanities.
With all due respect to our professors and advisors, whom we admire and wish to emulate, much of the legwork necessary to conduct research at the University of California (or any other university) is thanks to the tireless work of graduate students. This is the same research that brings in grants and money from other funding sources and enables this university to be the beacon of academic dynamism that it is.
So how can the UC ensure that its graduate students can do this critical work? It’s simple: It can pay them a decent living wage.
We’d now like to step back a moment and make a few general points about the graduate student experience in order to help those unfamiliar with the issue understand why we are calling for a pay raise.
First, graduate students work very hard to get to where they are, dedicating years of life to study, overcoming a battery of standardized tests, meeting the rigorous selection criteria for admissions, and finally forgoing other professional opportunities in order to make important intellectual contributions.
Second, graduate students often hope to pursue careers as professors (if they are successful and lucky enough to get a job). While this isn’t a bad life choice necessarily, it won’t be as lucrative as going into medicine or law. So, it’s harder to ask graduate students to take out more student loans to fund their education (not to mention their time spent doing research that benefits the university).
Finally, many doctoral programs require between four and seven years to complete. Graduate students are often at a point in their lives where other young adults might consider starting a family. It’s hard to do this if you don’t make a living wage.
We’d like to conclude with a few brief thoughts about the broader message of austerity and fiscal belt-tightening that Mr. Powell echoes. We all know that the current economy isn’t as strong as it could be, and everyone is aware of how woefully underfunded public education is.
Yet these realities aren’t just happenstance or “facts of life;” they reflect important societal choices about where to allocate our resources. Even in this “bad” economy, the stock market has reached record heights. It’s not that we don’t have the money for strong public education and research in California or nationally – it’s that the working and the middle classes are being left behind by an economy that prioritizes wealth over principle.
Weeks is a graduate student in anthropology and Murdock is a graduate student in world arts and cultures/dance.
Well written.