Graduate students who are struggling financially can now take time off from school, after administrators and faculty members made changes to the university’s leave of absence policy Friday.
UCLA’s Graduate Council and the Graduate Division upgraded the policy in hopes of helping students who are having financial problems to stay enrolled at UCLA even if they need to take time off, said Maite Zubiaurre, the chair of the Graduate Council and a professor in Spanish, Portuguese and Germanic languages.
In an effort to make the policy more transparent, the UCLA Graduate Council, a committee in the Academic Senate, also clarified that graduate students can petition for up to six quarters for their leaves of absences Friday.
The duration for a leave of absence is still three quarters, but the change makes it more apparent that students can petition for more time off.
Zubiaurre added that the decision is aimed at improving and clarifying the UCLA policy while still complying with University of California-wide policies.
Despite the changes, some graduate students claim the university’s recent tweaks to the leave of absence policy are not enough.
“It’s still a compromise from what it used to be,” said Chris Rea, a sociology graduate student. “It’s still creating additional hoops for students to jump through.”
The university’s leave of absence policy has been a point of contention between some graduate students and the UCLA Graduate Division ever since administrators implemented changes to the policy more than a year ago.
To comply with UC-wide policies, UCLA cut the maximum amount of time a graduate student could take time off for military, family, medical or emergency reasons, from six to three quarters in fall 2012. The university also barred graduate students from taking leaves of absence to write dissertations.
Last year’s policy changes aimed to increase graduate student interaction with faculty and help graduate students get their degrees in a timely manner. Members of the Graduate Division have also said graduate students tend to accumulate debt while they remain in school, and that the updated policy helps fight this trend.
On a case-by-case basis, Graduate Division members have made exceptions and allowed some graduate students to take more than three quarters of leave since the changes went into effect.
Graduate students could also still take leaves of absence for “outside employment” reasons after last fall’s policy changes, which sometimes allowed financially struggling students to take time off to work. Now, the policy explicitly states students can take time off for “financial hardship” reasons even if they do not relate to outside employment.
Graduate Students Association President Nicole Robinson said she thinks Friday’s changes help clarify UCLA’s policy so graduate students know they have the option to petition for more time off or take a leave of absence if they are in a financial bind. She added that she thinks the recent changes show the importance of having graduate student involvement in university decisions that affect them.
“I think that (Graduate) Council and (Graduate) Division need to make sure that changes in the future are done in a way that feels collaborative, so we don’t have to spend time backtracking what could’ve been done collaboratively in the first place,” she said.
Last school year, graduate students held a town hall meeting, protested outside a Graduate Council meeting and presented concerns to the council to try to get UCLA to reverse the policy changes. But the university has not altered its stance or made concessions until recently.
Despite the recent changes, some graduate students said they think the Graduate Council should still reverse last year’s policy changes and allow graduate students to take time off for dissertation writing.
Matthew McCoy, an anthropology graduate student, said the policy still hinders graduate student research.
He said he thinks the university is weakening anthropology research projects by limiting students’ ability to conduct fieldwork.
Rea said he may have to conduct sociology fieldwork in coming years and Friday’s policy changes do not eliminate his concerns about taking time off for research, which many social science students have to do to obtain doctoral degrees.
He said the policy changes last year have changed the way he views leaves of absence, since his ability to go on leave is now contingent on obtaining the funds for it. He said he does not give the university much credit for the more recent policy updates.
“I don’t feel like giving (UCLA) brownie points for something they should’ve done in the first place,” Rea said.
Cody Trojan, the GSA vice president of academic affairs who has been vocal about his opposition to last year’s policy changes, said he thinks the Graduate Council’s recent decisions are a positive step, but the policy still has flaws that UCLA must address.
Trojan said he wants to see a specific funding resource established for students who want to conduct fieldwork or take time off. He said he thinks some academic departments do not have the funds to back student projects and the Graduate Division could give departments more money to help.
GSA members said they plan to continue working with the Graduate Division and Graduate Council to improve the policies at a local level.
“Just think of all the great things we could do for this university if graduate students put even more pressure to bring positive change,” said Trojan, who serves as a graduate student advocate on the Graduate Council this year. “It’s a great reminder that (graduate) students have power if they choose to use it.”
Zubiaurre said the website detailing the leave of absence policy will be updated soon to reflect the recent changes to the policy.