In “GTFF contract negotiations with the University a challenge” (ODE, Feb. 4), a number of details about the current contract negotiations were discussed. But there was also a question as to whether graduate students should be treated first as students or employees. The GTFF president Mark Harmon weighed in with his view that, “It’s like any other management-employee situation…” and also that graduate students are “cheap labor.”
I strongly disagree. Graduate students are neither employees nor entirely students first. The best word to describe what they are might be “apprentices.” The value of their pay is small compared with the value of the training they receive, and unlike undergraduates, this training is meant to directly lead to professional opportunities. Anyone who accounts for all of this would hesitate to use the phrase “cheap labor.” In focusing on present compensation, Mr. Harmon and others risk degrading the value of the training. Money must come from somewhere. If higher GTF salaries mean fewer opportunities for graduate student travel, or more teaching or grading duties (so less time to study), or fewer classes offered, or fewer outside lecturers (which are a good opportunity to meet future employers), or less faculty pay, or higher tuition, then at the end of the day a GTF might get paid more but graduate with a Ph.D. worth much less. This is especially so if monetary issues advance to the point where some faculty, usually the best advisors, leave for other campuses.
How to spend money on a graduate program is a difficult question, one taken very seriously by us faculty, who were all graduate students once ourselves (another fundamental difference with “any other management- employee situation”). We want to attract the best graduate students possible and have our students move on to bigger and better things (yet another difference). Thus, we do what we can on limited budgets in areas of pay and other opportunities, but also keep in mind factors such as critical mass of scholarly activity. Unfortunately, as reflected by their rhetoric, the GTFF leadership’s efforts to mandate contracts sometimes get in the way of faculty running our programs to, in our professional estimation, best serve our students’ present and future needs.
Dev Sinha is Director of Graduate Studies in the University’s Department of Mathematics