Graduate Students: University Assets, Underpaid Labor

by Robyn Byrd

On a recent Wikipedia journey, I ended up on the page defining graduate assistants. They got some of it right. But the page doesn't mention that many grad students are not exactly "assistants." We teach classes as the instructor of record, developing our own syllabus and lesson plans. We run labs by ourselves. We hold office jobs that keep the doors open. We are mandatory reporters, freshman advisors, and perform hundreds of other roles that carry the burden of a "real" job. Sure some of us spend a semester here and there "assisting," but many of us have regular duties that would fall under a full-time job description. 

The fact that people outside of academia continue to think of us as "little helpers" rather than workers and laborers, allows our low pay and lack of representation to persist.  

The real clincher on the Wiki definition? People also don't understand how little we're paid: "The stipend allows for the graduate student to focus on their studies instead of a full-time job, but pays a significant portion of the income of a full-time job." I laughed out loud at this. Perhaps if you go to Yale and are a member of Local 33. But such a tier of income is not accessible for most American graduate assistants, forcing us to work outside the university to make ends meet, compromising the studies the assistantship is supposed to fully support. At NIU, almost everyone I know who has a master's degree works as an adjunct (which is a whole other can of worms and exploited labor). This makes life extremely stressful, and puts studying extremely on the back burner.

What can we do to alleviate the suffering of grad students? It may be somewhat voluntary suffering, but for no other laborious job do we fault the workers for asking for more money, especially when they work for an enormous entity. What's different about our work? What's different about a university system with millions versus a corporation with millions?  Non-academics and administrators seem to perpetuate the myth that we don't do much but "assist" and that our lifestyle is easy. A chosen path of intellectual pursuit and austerity. But it doesn't have to be this way. We are academics. But we are also laborers.

There are ways to solve this imbalance!

A graduate nursing student conducts a patient exam

• Increase awareness and transparency about grad student labor, and improve the language we use to talk about it: First and foremost, any of the below suggestions will require a change in how administrators and tenured faculty talk about GAs, their work, and their pay, both to the public and to new recruits. For instance, perhaps "assitsantship" is an outdated word that does not accurately reflect the professional and valuable work that grad students contribute. Even "stipend" could use an update since we pay taxes on that as income!

UW's GA union marches

• Unionization: While some GAs at U.S. universities have managed to organize unions, faculty, admins, and former students I've talked to say it is quite difficult and discouraging. Yet grad students do not have the representation that many other university employees do, so how do we ask for what we need? How do we protest pay decreases, terrible work schedules, or a refusal to give us medical leave? We have to do this as individuals, each governed by a different handbook per the year we began our current program. It's quite a mess, and even if one of us can follow through with some kind of complaint or demand, we are all alone. No other university employee has to deal with this lack of security for such a long-term position. (But they make it not so long by giving out 9-month contracts, and not so important by not even lumping us in with employees.) Unionization would definitely benefit all GAs. Nearby universities with GA unions include UW Madison (which claims the first ever!) and UI-UC.

• University Reorganization: I fear the only way grad student unionization could become an accepted norm would be for universities to reorganize and reprioritize. If knowledge is the product of the university, then the teachers, including the rookies, must be treated well. The plights of the adjunct and the grad student (while university administration swells and football fields get built and re-built) show just how backward university priorities have become. I don't know what it would take for this to happen. Do you?

• Fewer GAs: Finally, one way to reduce the pressure on the university to provide a living wage to grad students, is to reduce the number of grad students. Since assistantships are usually awarded to only the most talented grad students, many others are paying full tuition and not receiving a stipend. If GAs were based more on enrollment than on growing a program, that would ensure that there is plenty of work to go round, and plenty of budget to cover it. While those doing the hiring would tell you they consider enrollment, I have seen cohorts come in with nothing to do, or having to snag jobs from more experienced GAs. Don't hire so many!

When it comes down to it, I don't have one good answer to our problems. But I know we are workers, not just assistants, and I know that we don't have to suffer the way we do just because people don't understand what it is we even do, or how little we actually get paid.

These views are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Thesis and Dissertation Office.

Committee Coordination...Together or Apart

While working on your thesis or dissertation, you may occasionally find yourself out of regular communication with your director and/or committee members.  Several factors can lead to such a situation.  Examples: a committee member goes away on a sabbatical, someone receives a distant research fellowship, or you or others need to conduct field work away from campus for a while.  

But even during phases of separation, you still work on a team.  To borrow thoughts and phrasing from Robert Frost, you and your committee work together, whether together or apart.  (Read the original thoughts and lines in Frost’s “The Tuft of Flowers” here.)  

In previous posts, we’ve covered various aspects of forming and working with committees.  For general thoughts on committee relations, see this post from September 2017.  For details on different types of project directors and their working styles, see this one from April 2016.  And to read about approaches to choosing a director, check out this entry from March 2016.  In today’s post, we offer ideas on coordinating with committee members—whether nearby or far apart—during the middle and final stages of your project.  We also add a few thoughts for those of you who may need to reconnect with one or more members after an extended period of separation. 

In Progress: Staying in Touch

In the Thesis Office, we strongly recommend that thesis or dissertation writers regularly update committee members on their progress.  In-person updates are nice, but, as noted above, not always possible.  Consider how you might be able to adopt or adapt the following approaches to updating:

Office Visits:  If you and a committee member haven’t seen each other in a while, such a meeting can be especially rewarding.  Even a brief face-to-face chat can be meaningful and uplifting.  If possible, arrange to stop by a day or so before or after you’ve completed an important chapter draft or other project milestone.  

Classroom and/or Lab Visits:  Similarly, catching up with a committee member while that person is engaged in teaching or research can be constructive.  If possible, arrange to audit a class session or to observe lab activities that touch on interests or concerns you’re currently working on.

Group Email:  A commonsense way to integrate progress reports into your email practices, but one worth reviewing here, is to include each committee member as a recipient when you send out a “major” email message.  Examples include (1) any message with a revised chapter attached for review, (2) any message in which you respond to feedback on a chapter or chapters that all members have seen, and (3) any message in which you review or confirm procedures or scheduling matters that your director has asked you to follow.  

Nearing Completion: Bringing Everyone Up to Speed

As your document grows and its parts come together, consider the following ways to communicate its holistic development to all members your committee.  

Share a Folder Online:  Uploading files to a cloud service is not just a matter of safe computing.  Doing so can also make your large document easier to access and evaluate.  Share a folder on OneDrive or Dropbox with your committee members.  When the time comes, you can upload your combined file to this shared folder.  (The combined file may be rather large for email, especially if it contains images and/or other graphics.)  Your committee members can then conveniently open and experience your whole document in one piece.  

Share a List of Author’s Notes:  If you’re like me, as you make progress, you compile notes of various kinds concerning the text you’re making.  Some notes emerge from additional reflections on past feedback from committee members.  Others develop as the overall document starts to take shape.  When you approach your project’s end, share a list of author's notes with all committee members, via group email or the online shared folder.

Final Thoughts

About that Near-Final Document:  Over the past few weeks, a few student writers have contacted us to ask if their thesis or dissertation needs to have all front matter—including abstract, acknowledgments, and dedication—complete and properly formatted before their oral defense.  In short: the Grad School has no rule on this.  (Note: if your director wants these parts included, then of course you need them.)  But, at minimum, your defense document should feature coherent page numbering throughout so that committee members can easily refer to parts of the text during the defense examination.  Note that, as shown on the Results of Oral Defense form, your examination can result in one of two kinds of “Pass”: (1) a pass requiring no further revisions or corrections or (2) a pass requiring such changes.  Regardless of the kind of pass received, the document will need to contain all needed parts and meet all Graduate School formatting requirements before it can receive final approval for graduation.

As always, if you have questions about formatting or submitting your final document, be sure to contact us here at the Thesis Office.  Good luck...and happy committee coordinating!

Images

Working Together Teamwork Puzzle Concept by Lumaxart: Flickr.

Robert Frost Stamp: Wikimedia Commons.

Why Write a Thesis?: Alternatives to the traditional route

The thesis as the gateway to a degree is a time honored tradition, dating back to the middle ages. First, it demonstrates the breadth and scope of master's student's knowledge. Second, the long-suffering, mostly independent work put into it indicates that they are ready to work in their fields. Or.. does it?

They want more time in the lab than behind the screen.

This still-new millennium has so far been a time to rethink academic traditions. Collaborative projects are becoming more en vogue, and in fact, more practical.  And if we're being practical, what does writing really have to do with showing one's knowledge in fields like engineering and chemistry? The long-form monograph is having to work hard to argue for its value, especially when even academic readers today have shortened attention spans and prefer to consume data and ideas in more digestible nuggets. Tables upon tables with pages upon pages of analysis? Please no! How about an interactive infographic?

Universities are notoriously slow to change anything but their logos, but alternative theses are nevertheless beginning to gain a foothold at graduate programs around the world, and in the US. So, before you dive into a master's degree, perhaps consider whether you really want to write a thesis? And where can you go to school that will allow you to forgo that long journey?

Some thesis alternatives:

Juried Lecture

A juried lecture is a bit like the oral defense of the thesis... but without a thesis. Granted, since the written component is not as substantial (you may have powerpoint slides, handouts, anything that makes sense for attendees at a lecture), you will be graded harder on the oral and presentational components of your work. Your advisors attend this as they would a thesis defense. This option seems excellent for a student who wants to continue to teach rather than focus on research. Or for someone who is flipping their degree into a more communication oriented role.

Should they write a paper about it? Or show us how it works?

Project and Presentation and/or Report

This option is available at some schools (including NIU) in departments such as Engineering. Rather than spending months working on a written document, the student is able to focus on project management, down to the nuts and bolts and blueprints. The project must be reported on or presented, in order to have something to submit for the degree requirement. Do you want to study something that lends itself better to a project than a "paper"?

Multiple Article Publications (or 3-Part Thesis)

Some departments, especially in the sciences where frequent publication is important and somewhat easier to do than in the humanities, offer a publication option. Often this will consist of  publishing multiple short articles, or writing multiple short article length pieces and submitting those as a thesis. The article size stays manageable, unlike the onerous task of producing a monograph. Some departments at NIU offer this option. Check with graduate directors in the departments you are interested in to find out the details.

Collaborative Thesis

Collaboration is key! It's key to avoiding reproducing work in the sciences, it's key to understanding one another in the social sciences, and it's key to getting something off the ground in engineering, where not everyone can know everything! Collaboration across disciplines is something embraced more and more by universities too. At NIU, we see geologists working with geographers (seems likely) but we also see computer scientists working with geographers and dietitians. Hmm. All of these crossovers, likely and not so likely, lead to better research. We have always known that two heads are better than one. So it is a shame that universities are moving very slowly when it comes to "allowing" a collaborative thesis. While collaboartive work is often encouraged, scholars are producing separate theses and dissertations. Perhaps we could simplify this, and even make the impact of each scholar's work farther reaching.

In the future:

Maybe you could perform your thesis?

Perhaps none of the above thesis alternatives are really alternative enough for you? Consider that in the arts, a show or a recital is often the student's "thesis." Maybe thinking completely outside the box of "school project" or "graduate thesis paper" could lead to even more options for the master's candidate.

Some suggestions we've gotten are a documentary, an interactive website, a database, or a new translation with an introduction. All of these sound as if they would take immense knowledge of a subject, and would easily demonstrate proficiency in researching in that subject.

Who knows how long it will take the slow mechanisms of the university system (and culture) to allow for such potentially amazing collaboration and creativity in research. But I hope we don't have to wait another millennium.