A funding change that will expand graduate students’ pocketbooks is attracting criticism from those who were left out of the financial boost.
The Graduate School changed its funding policy this year, giving all first-year and incoming graduate students a summer fellowship in addition to the usual nine months of funding.
Administrators, faculty and students all laud the full-year funding because it allows more time to conduct research, which could attract top-notch graduate students and bolster Northwestern’s reputation.
But older students are upset about the two-tiered system because the benefits aren’t applied across the board. Instead they will have to work alongside younger students who are not as far into research but are still receiving more financial support.
“They’re holding the reputation of the university at a higher value than the people who actually teach there,” said Josh Andresen, a fourth-year philosophy graduate student. “The (new funding) pays less-experienced teachers and TAs more, and they get better benefits than teachers with more experience.”
Students asked for an extension of the funding during a May 1 meeting with Graduate School Dean Richard Morimoto and Weinberg Dean Eric Sundquist.
But before a final answer can be made, Morimoto said administrators have to determine how many students don’t qualify for the funding and what outside sources of funding individual departments have.
“We’re in the midst of discussions,” Morimoto said. “There’s a sincere interest to certainly work with the advanced grad students — they’re very important to the university.”
Students said they weren’t satisfied with administrators’ answer that funding might vary between departments.
Becky Givan, a third-year political science graduate student, said they are waiting for the outcome of a May 26 meeting with administrators before deciding whether to take action.
“We hope the university will accord us with some amount of respect and come through with this without us having to unionize,” Givan said. “We’re not hoping for antagonistic relations, we’re hoping we can come to a solution that will keep a good relationship with graduate students, faculty and the administration.”
John Martin, a fourth-year English graduate student, said the funding is so important because students are increasingly pressured to graduate more quickly. And the only way to give them that chance is to free them from summer jobs to work on dissertations.
Martin transferred from another graduate school because NU students previously didn’t have to compete for funding.
“This is not just a case of graduate students grubbing for money,” Martin said. “One of the ironies is that it’s usually the advanced students who are asked to recruit students to meet with them during orientation weeks and to encourage them to come here. That’s going to be more and more difficult for advanced students to accept if they know these students are receiving a better deal.”
Several departments said they are looking for other ways to give the students funding.
Prof. Barbara Newman, director of graduate studies for the English department, said most graduate students in her department should receive summer funding if unused fellowships that were intended for incoming students are converted.
Ed Muir, chairman of the history department, also said he will explore other ways of finding the funds.
But political science Chairman Michael Wallerstein said his department won’t have enough discretionary funds to support the advanced students during the summer.
“We are not doing anything. I feel like I can’t,” Wallerstein said. “We don’t have the funds to do so. It is a good policy, but I wish it could have been extended to all students.”
As a fourth-year student, Andresen said it’s too late for him to see the effects of the funding, but he still wants to fight for the second-year students who have several years to go.
“In four years’ time, all graduate students will be under full-year funding,” Andresen said. “We’re just asking for that now.”
