About 20 members of the Northwestern University Graduate Workers union rallied outside Weinberg Dean Adrian Randolph’s office on Friday, demanding the University restore a Ph.D. student’s funding.
Brian Key, a sixth-year political science Ph.D. candidate, worked at the Center for Leadership last Winter and Spring Quarters. According to Key, the University told him his time there was bankable, qualifying him for funding this academic year.
But after the assurances, the University told Key on Aug. 6 that his quarters were not bankable, he said.
Key said NU seemed to be backtracking on promises of fair pay after NUGW ratified a contract agreement with the University in March.
“If a situation like mine isn’t able to be resolved in a fair way, then who’s to say that other students in similar situations in the future will not be taken advantage of?” he added.
In a petition that received 215 signatures as of Monday morning, NUGW demanded the University publish procedures for counting and tracking banked quarters. The union also asked NU to commit to notifying workers of policy changes and ensuring they are not “unreasonably denied funding due to unforeseen absences or shortages of banked quarters.”
Second-year political science Ph.D. candidate Jake Goodman-Palmer said these changes are necessary to build trust between students and the University.
“When there’s bad faith and miscommunication and willful negligence on the part of the administrators, you need to turn out,” he said.
NUGW President Emma Kennedy, a seventh-year art history Ph.D. candidate, said Key’s case is part of a larger conversation about Advanced Student Quarters funding offered by Weinberg departments, which provides stipends to graduate students past their fifth year.
In an undated open letter to NU administrators, NUGW accused the University of cutting these funds. The union says these cuts disadvantage unemployed graduate students and especially international students, who must demonstrate proof of funding to maintain their visa status.
“The University does not value us, it does not respect us, it doesn’t respect the work that we do,” Kennedy said. “I think it’s really important that we fight back against that disrespect, because we’re valuable and essential to the running of this university.”
Fourth-year political science Ph.D. candidate Jack McGovern said the University did not negotiate these funding changes with NUGW.
Since union members are contractually prohibited from striking, third-year physics and astronomy Ph.D. candidate Tom McKenzie-Smith said they advocate for themselves through formal grievances and other forms of protest.
“The administration wants us to just be isolated off in little rooms with them, meeting with them for grievance procedures,” he said. “But I think where the real power comes is on the ground, organizing and making the administration care about our issues.”
An assistant for Randolph declined to comment on Key’s case, as did a spokesperson for the University.
According to NUGW, a decision on Key’s case is due Monday.
Correction: A previous version of this story misattributed information about union workers advocating for themselves through formal grievances and other protest to Jack McGovern. The Daily regrets this error.
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