Graduate students returned to the university this fall only to be met with the effects of the university’s budget cuts. Through modifications to the Grad Student Travel Fund Award, these students faced unexpected changes and overwhelming shock.
In early August, a change was made where students could only apply for a travel fund match of up to $1,500 once in the final year of school. If the funding is denied, the student may not reapply. This differed from the previous setup where students could apply as many times as they wanted to and split the $1,500 among different trips.
In the past, this funding has been used for hotel coverage and food costs, as well as conference fees. However, Remson DeJoseph, an English literature Ph.D. student, expressed that traveling as a graduate student is more than just conferences.
“Traveling can be a good way to find collections or research opportunities that UD maybe isn’t acquiring yet,” DeJoseph said. “It’s also just a great way to network, gain feedback on research and learn. Being able to travel for these reasons can often lead to various connections to our interdisciplinary research fields, which is so important.”
This sentiment was shared by the Dean of the Graduate College and the Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education, Lou Rossi.
“Having a paper accepted at a conference and presenting it is a pretty special experience, and an emotional one as well,” Rossi, who is also a professor of mathematical sciences, said. “To stand in front of people you admire and you’ve been reading their work and then joining that conversation is pretty special.”
With the common understanding of the importance of conferences, the decision to change the travel fund came as a shock to graduate students. Nora Lucas, a geography Ph.D. student, explained that not only were graduate students not expecting this change, they also were not made aware of it.
According to Lucas, the change was not communicated to students or budget groups at all. The change was put on the Graduate Student Travel Award website and was not talked about until students started noticing it themselves.
“There was no announcement from the Graduate College about this,” Lucas said. “They didn’t send out an email. They didn’t even put it in their newsletter. So, there wasn’t even really any explanation or any notification that anything had changed.”
As of early November, the university reinstated travel funding with a temporary reversal to the old policy and a forthcoming policy that will be developed in upcoming months. The main difference in the temporary plan is that students can apply any time after completing one year of graduate study.
Although students are happy with the promise of change, the temporary plan did not come without a struggle.
In response to the original travel fund changes, the Graduate Student Mutual Aid Network (GSMA) came together to express the frustrations of many students. GSMA is a self-organized group of graduate student workers, created so that they have a way of communicating between departments and taking care of one another.
On Sept. 26, a group of GSMA students spoke at a graduate town hall meeting run by Rossi. Lucas, who is part of GSMA, stated that when speaking at town hall, they were met with an explanation of budget cuts and nothing else.
The day after the town hall meeting, GSMA released a statement expressing their viewpoints and sharing their list of demands. The list included reversing the changes made in August, increasing the funding amount to $3,000 and improving the communication with students.
“The narrative from the Graduate College is that they haven’t taken it away completely, and in our eyes, we view it as that,” Lucas said. “They have put so many rules on it and changed the policy to really discourage anyone from applying. A lot of people don’t know what their last year is going to be. So even though there’s things they haven’t gotten completely rid of, they have made it almost impossible.”
Rossi expressed his understanding towards these frustrations, acknowledging the graduate students who were counting on this program throughout their time in graduate school.
“Yes, this sort of cut them off at their knees,” Rossi said. “I get that. We’re working on that. We realize that this causes problems. The only thing I can say is, this is temporary while we work through a new system.”
Rossi went on to explain that the number of requests for travel support over the last three years has tripled, which has put a strain on their budget. While the new temporary plan is in place a committee of four graduate students, three faculty members and a staff member formed to work towards a permanent plan. Rossi said this plan may take time to come up with, as he hopes to hear the perspectives from all voices.
In addition to speaking at the town hall, the list of demands and the posters, GSMA organized a phone, email and tax zap campaign in October. Lucas said this was the push that helped rework the plan.
While many students are happy with the promise of revision, GSMA emphasized that the stress of the whole experience caused more than just missed travel opportunities and frustrations.
Many graduate students are responsible for teaching classes and doing research assistantships. With the added stress of these ongoing changes, these students fear they may not be able to commit the amount of time and focus needed to properly complete these jobs.
“There are decisions being made by this university, and it’s very clear where their priorities are,” Lucas said. “It’s very clear that we are not the priority, even though without grad students, classes would not get taught, grading would not get done, research projects would not move forward. I don’t think they realize how much labor we are contributing to the university.”