“Going up? So are we.”
As I get into the elevator, I see this slogan on a preeminence campaign sticker placed above the panel of buttons. Yet, as I ride up to the fourth floor of Turlington, I do not feel as though I’m “rising” the way the sticker means.
I am not “rising” because, every semester, the university ransoms my livelihood and education in the name of “fees.”
Let me explain. I am a graduate assistant. GAs teach courses at the university, and, in return, the university waives their tuition and pays them a small stipend. As part of this exchange, every graduate assistant must pay, on average, $700 in semesterly “student fees,” a cost not covered by the tuition waiver. In my case, fees require me to give 10 percent of what UF pays me back to the university. This system poses a problem for an institution looking to rise in the ranks: Tuition waivers are a crucial part of attracting the most qualified and promising graduate applicants, and for those drawn to UF by the promise of free tuition, fees come as a nasty surprise.
The university claims that GAs must pay fees because, like undergraduates, they are students, not just employees.
However, there is a crucial difference between undergraduate and graduate students’ relationships to fees and the university. Our employment by the university is fundamentally tied to our role as students: In order to work for the university, GAs must be enrolled in a certain number of credit hours; however, any time a GA takes credits, he or she must pay fees. This means that in order to work for the university, GAs must take credits and, thus, must pay fees.
In short, GAs must pay to work.
The administration does not provide graduate assistants with a detailed breakdown of what exactly fees fund. When pressed, administration representatives have said that fees go to things like the gym, RTS bus fare and “keeping the lights on,” though I suspect UF has little problem paying its GRU bill with or without graduate assistants paying fees. Imagine if UF demanded faculty and staff return part of their salaries to fund the university’s daily operations — no one would stand for it.
The fact that UF demands this of graduate assistants is, likewise, unacceptable.
After years of talks between the administration and Graduate Assistants United, the administration remains hostile to the idea of significantly reducing or abolishing fees for graduate assistants. The efforts of dedicated GAU members, it seems, will not be enough to end fees.
Instead, GAs, undergraduates, faculty and staff must use the voice of their numbers to pressure the administration into ending the exploitation of graduate assistants. President Fuchs can also show his support for graduate assistants by meeting with GAU to discuss the issue face-to-face. If UF is indeed planning to rise, it must raise up all working people to make the university thrive.
This May, I will graduate and no longer be a GA. After graduation, I am most looking forward to never again paying to work, not the end to classes or term papers.
Sam Grenrock
graduate assistant
grenrosa@ufl.edu
[A version of this story ran on page 7 on 4/8/2015]
