Graduate Students go on strike

[Deleted User 15924]

Not sure where to start this thread. Maybe it belongs in Chatterbox.

So just what is a graduate student?
What do they do? Are these folks that intend to work for UofM until they retire?

Here's why I'm asking. Went to breakfast this morning and overheard a conversation I didn't participate in. To paraphrase what I overheard:

Grad students teach some classes and aid full time teachers. They are basically people who graduated with degrees that you can't get a good paying job at.

A Masters Degree in Modern Pottery Trends (I made that up).

They can't find work in the field they mastered so the university uses them as utility labor. Not the sort of job that should expect good wages and benefits and a matching 401-K. You get the idea.

Your thoughts?

[TC Talks]

Graduate students often pull much of the weight for tenured professors. Whether working as the manager of a lab, keeping student counciling hours, my kid's ceramics studio is run entirely by grad students.

Long story short, they can be abused and under paid. They are still seeking advanced degrees, but their education and contribution to the University is quite important to keep the undergraduate programs running.

Many schools have established policy to ensure fair treatment to working grad students. Many schools already have unions for grad students. I suspect some school near you has a problem that could be solved by collective bargaining or by the administration simply creating reasonable standards.

Let's not let your ignorance run wild. The university needs them, they need experience while they finish their advanced degrees, a strike near the end of a school year is just a way to make things right given the recent wage adjustments across the country.

[Deleted User 15924]

Graduate students often pull much of the weight for tenured professors. Whether working as the manager of a lab, keeping student counciling hours, my kid's ceramics studio is run entirely by grad students.

Long story short, they can be abused and under paid. They are still seeking advanced degrees, but their education and contribution to the University is quite important to keep the undergraduate programs running.

Many schools have established policy to ensure fair treatment to working grad students. Many schools already have unions for grad students. I suspect some school near you has a problem that could be solved by collective bargaining or by the administration simply creating reasonable standards.

Thanks for the info. I was needing clarification about something i really don't know anything about.

So they won't be working for the university until they retire? Once they finish their advanced degrees, they move on?
Are they required to finish their schooling in a finite amount of time?
Or can they think to themselves "this isn't a bad gig, why give it up?" and do it for years and years?

[TC Talks]

Many PhD's become professors. Usually they don't start their career at the college where they graduate, but once they have experience and have published worthy work, opportunities happen.

People with Master degrees typically teach in community college or high school, if they become teachers. I adjunct taught communications in a small college in Colorado because I had experience and a graduate degree.

Both my kids entered the real world after college. The university environment is attractive to just a few people in a hundred I would bet.

I don't know how long you have to graduate, but there are limits. Some people continue to work at a University, but they get hired as non students. My good friend ran a microbiology lab at UofM after graduating with a degree in that field. She specialized in lab operations and now runs a FDA fruit lab in Traverse City.

[craig11152]

In my opinion the 60% raise in pay they are asking is way too much.
I understand their importance but its also true I think that a vast majority of the 16,000 plus post graduate students are not getting paid by the University while they finish their graduate degrees.
It appears to be a violation of the current CBO, as well as state law to go on strike. That CBO expires May 1 according to one source I read. its ironic and hypocritical to violate the current CBO they agreed to as a tactic for the next CBO.

[km1125]

Who are they really working for? The University or the professors?

If they're taking the load off the professors, maybe the professors should be paying them out of their own pockets!!

[TC Talks]

Who are they really working for? The University or the professors?

If they're taking the load off the professors, maybe the professors should be paying them out of their own pockets!!

Oh good, tell me, where did you

A) Obtain your degree in labor management
B) Work as a graduate student?
C) Spend your life around this economy?

Craig is spot on that the CBO was timed to benefit the graduate students and I doubt the new rate will be as high as they are asking.

Do you know what professors main job is at a University? Here's a hint: it's not teaching undergraduate students.

[Matt]

https://publicaffairs.vpcomm.umich.edu/ ... on-strike/

[Deleted User 15924]

So if I read Matt's link right, the graduate students currently make $34 per hour. UofM is offering $39 per hour. The union wants $54 per hour. Nice gig. Maybe the Kroger and Meijer workers around Ann Arbor should change unions. Sounds like good representation to me.

[km1125]

Do you know what professors main job is at a University? Here's a hint: it's not teaching undergraduate students.

Whose job is that? What are all those students paying for? (or really, what's our GOVERNMMENT paying all that money FOR the students going for?)

[km1125]

So if I read Matt's link right, the graduate students currently make $34 per hour. UofM is offering $39 per hour. The union wants $54 per hour. Nice gig. Maybe the Kroger and Meijer workers around Ann Arbor should change unions. Sounds like good representation to me.

Yea, nice gig. It would also discourage them from getting a job in the real world if they can make that kind of dough as a part-time student. It would feed the cycle of more professors with no real-world knowledge teaching the next generation of kids going through the university. Ugh.

RE "The current GEO contract — effective until May 1 — includes a tuition waiver on average of $12,947 per semester for in-state students and $26,062 per semester for out-of-state students and comprehensive health insurance with no monthly premiums – a value of $4,092 a year for just the employee and up to $11,292 a year for the employee, an adult dependent and children."

Wonder if they have to claim that as income and pay taxes on the value of that?

[TC Talks]

Do you know what professors main job is at a University? Here's a hint: it's not teaching undergraduate students.

Whose job is that? What are all those students paying for? (or really, what's our GOVERNMMENT paying all that money FOR the students going for?)

There are many people here with only a high school education who are angry with those who make the significant effort to become educated. Currently in the US, a graduate degree produces more than twice the weekly income (about $2000 a week) than a high school or associate degree. (BLS Education Pays 2021)

These type have plenty of opinions, but demonstrate the lack of capacity to be a part of this discussion. To me it seems that, at their core, they resent or are upset at how much more financially valued people with higher education are to the business world. The concept of collective bargaining is so far outside their capacity, is it really worth responding?

Google yourself the answers to your questions, but the realities of a PhD's publishing vs merely standing in front of undergrads has been thoroughly discussed and accepted.

Round six, UofM's press release covers the strike quite well. I hope your questions are answered.

(Rick Fitzgerald graduated from Central Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and later completed a master of science degree in administration, also from CMU.)

[Matt]

Do you know what professors main job is at a University? Here's a hint: it's not teaching undergraduate students.

Whose job is that? What are all those students paying for? (or really, what's our GOVERNMMENT paying all that money FOR the students going for?)

Students/institutions are paying the vast majority of the cost of higher education. The highest federal amount a person can receive is a full Pell grant, which as of next year will be $7,395. Loans are repaid with interest.

[Ben Zonia]

John Irving's character T.S. Garp's son humorously called them "gradual students", which is appropriate, because in Hard Science, it often takes seven or eight years for them after getting a B.S. degree to get a Ph.D. Often this involves getting either a "Terminal Masters", which is an appropriate name, as often it is the death of their career plans, or having to transfer to and finish at another University because of conflicts with their "gradual committee" standing in their way to getting a Ph.D. Often these are personality clashes. I've known several of these incredibly bright people over the years. You're probably better off changing careers at that point, because Department Chairmen keep many at the Assistant Professor level forever, and you could probably make more money in your own licensed building trade business. Some go into Research Science positions in Corporations, and are looked down upon by University peers, but who often make a better living. I guess it's like the "And Leave Show Business?" circus joke punch line, replaced by "And Leave The University?", to those who stay in academia.

Here's a song which describes "Life In A University Town", though not sounding like the Dream Academy song. College towns trap many students who decide to settle there for life. I know some of those people too. Surprisingly to college townies, crime is skyrocketing in many of them now, serial murders, mass murders, homeless, psychos, like the old industrial towns 30-40 years ago, which are still looked down upon by the students trapped for life in college towns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1WMn-AZ0cE

[TC Talks]

There are always opportunities in manual labor and hard work. I've been a proponent of good wages for everyone, but I only enjoy working this way in my hobbies.

Compare the lives of a skilled laborer vs an executive at 50 and see how things go.

Mathew Crawford wrote a tremendous book about how we got away from skilled trades in the late 90's. It's a great read about a life choice available today.