Coalition members said these victories were won by the collective action of graduate workers, the spring semester strike and by the strike they plan for the fall.
(Justin Hicks/IPB News)
IU Bloomington is increasing minimum stipend pay and eliminating mandatory fees for graduate workers, following initial recommendations from the Task Force for Graduate Education on Tuesday.
A joint memofrom President Pamela Whitten and Provost Rahul Shrivastav said the university will increase minimum stipends for graduate students who hold part-time teaching or research appointments to $22,000 and will also cover the $1,435 those students pay in mandatory fees along with course-specific fees.
The minimum stipend increase represents a 46% increase over the current minimum of $15,000 offered last fall. The increase also moves the Bloomington campus from the bottom of Big Ten Universities in minimum graduate stipends to the top half.
Shrivastav said this ranking wasn't true for every department but that some have been at the bottom.
“We knew we were falling behind,” Shrivastav said. “We knew it was the right thing to do to remain competitive. It was the right thing to do for the students.”
Katie Shy, a member of the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition, said these actions are a step forward.
“The coalition is fighting to improve our material conditions,” Shy said. “And so it's awesome, just to see that people will be getting that much more dignity in their lives.”
The stipend increase and waiving of mandatory fees, she said, is a clear sign to coalition members of what they will continue to achieve as they take action in the fall.
Shirvastav said a review of SSA stipends every two years and the inclusion of a more detailed offer letter for prospective graduate students also will be implemented. The review, he said, will not occur until two years from now and that this year's offer letters have already gone out.
“So there's no point doing it again,” Shrivastav said. “So it made sense to do the stipend and the fee piece, because it could be done, the rest we’ll implement over the course of the year.”
Whitten and Shrivastav also said they anticipate action on other elements of the task force’s recommendations, including making graduate fellowships and other graduate support high priorities during the next fundraising campaign.
The committee's scope, Shrivastav said, is much larger than pay and compensation. It involves programs, curriculum, housing issues, well-being and mental health challenges.
“It's not just about our academic appointees alone, it's about all of graduate education,” Shrivastav said. “So their recommendations should be fairly wide ranging.”
He said that some recommendations will be ones that need to be changed immediately while some will require the university to collaborate with the city, such as on housing.
“Whatever we can implement soon, we will, and what needs more study and collaboration with other parties, we will do that as well,” Shrivastav said.
Shy said the Coalition's reaction to the task force recommendations is that many of them look familiar.
“We are really pleased to see the taskforce making these recommendations to the provost,” Shy said. “But we totally, we really view these also as a direct response to our impending strike authorization date in September.”
Shy said the recommendations respond to the Coalition’s spring strike and the unresolved crisis that it illuminated on campus.
“This doesn't dampen the energy going into the strike. If anything, it kind of underscores why we need a union and what more we can achieve when we do have a union,” Shy said.
The recommendations do not address other items on the Coalition’s list, including fairness for international students.
“The recommendations do not implement an effective grievance procedure for graduate workers, which would really make a big difference for folks on campus,” Shy said. “And they don't address this other plank of our platform, which is improved health benefits.”
Shy said these victories were won by the collective action of graduate workers, the spring semester strike and by the strike they plan for the fall.
“The changes that the provost has implemented on campus directly come out of that collective action, and show us that collective action is the pathway towards getting collective bargaining on campus in the next year,” Shy said.
Shrivastav credits the Coalition for bringing attention to an issue that has been around for a while but wasn’t addressed by the institution.
“They did not participate in the task force itself, they were invited to it,” Shrivastav said. “Other students did, and their perspective was very helpful from what the chairs and others have told me.”
Shy said the Coalition will not participate in the task force or the working groups.
“We've declined to participate in the task force to really communicate that reality to the administration, that the union is the representative body of graduate workers, the union is ready to participate in your initiatives,” Shy said.
The task force’s financial support working group will continue to consider long-term recommendations for every graduate and professional student; these will be included in the final strategic plan.
Additionally, the Health and Wellness working group will begin meeting this week. The group's initial recommendations are expected by the end of the month.
