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.