
Update on grade strike - babak_ap
https://news.ucsc.edu/2020/02/news-article.html
======
saagarjha
As far as I can tell (I attend UC Santa Barbara, where graduate students
started striking Thursday) this has only strengthened the resolve of the
protesters. There were complaints about the strike "hurting the quality of
education" which may have turned some against the graduate students involved
but with this move (specifically, firing 52 number of graduate students, not
providing appointments to others) I can only see the issue getting more
heated.

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inetsee
I find it ironic that on the same page where the University is detailing how
badly they intend to treat the graduate students, they also have a link to
make a gift to the University.

If I were in a position to make a significant gift, I would be more inclined
to make it to the graduate students (e.g. through a strike fund, or other
means).

~~~
inetsee
A follow up to my previous comment:

I graduated from the University of California at San Diego more than 45 years
ago. I graduated with honors, and I was proud to be a UCSD graduate. After I
started working, I made (modest) contributions to UCSD's scholarship funds. I
stopped doing that after Janet Napolitano was named president of the
University of California.

It makes me sad that the University of California seems to be determined to
join the Ivy League schools in becoming a hedge fund with a minor side
business in education.

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acuster
One of the better ways that occurred to me when we Cal grad students were
protesting a couple of decades ago was, rather than _withhold_ the grades,
simply to give everyone an 'A'. That form of protest most directly targeted
the institution since it simply affected its reputation. The students were not
hurt, the grad students could comply with their obligations and move on. I am
surprised that such an approach never took off.

~~~
davrosthedalek
How are the students not hurt if the reputation of their university is
damaged? Especially if you are a good student. Graduate admissions are aware
of this kind of stuff, and it will screw over real A students royally.

~~~
AlchemistCamp
Harvard awards nearly all A's and their reputation hasn't suffered for it:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-
sheet/wp/2013/12/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-
sheet/wp/2013/12/04/harvard-colleges-median-grade-is-an-a-dean-admits/)

I suspect it would take a lot more than one "A strike" to substantially impact
a school's reputation.

~~~
davrosthedalek
I can tell you with 100% confidence that grade inflation is taken into account
in grad admission. Been there, done that. Same as arbitrary scale changes
(Let's give A+...). But it will be a long time until this impacts Harvard.
OTOH, it seems Princeton steered back.

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pmoriarty
Some background:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxe45b/graduate-
student-s...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxe45b/graduate-student-
strikes-are-spreading-in-california)

~~~
SilasX
Semi-OT, but I did a double take at this:

>Like the UC Santa Cruz strike, the UC Santa Barbara work stoppage is a
“wildcat” strike, meaning that graduate students are acting separately from
the United Auto Worker (UAW) 2865, the union which represents more than 19,000
workers across the UC system.

I thought that was a mistake somehow, but it turns out that, yes, the UC
students are organized as a branch of UAW despite not being auto workers.

~~~
dmd
Union names these days are almost entirely historical.

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praptak
Students pay through the nose, grads can barely make ends meet. Where does the
tuition money go?

~~~
pjc50
Administrators, buildings, and sports usually.

~~~
chongli
Yes. A lot of donations to schools are earmarked for specific things like
libraries and sports complexes bearing the donor’s name. The university is
then forced to hire all kinds of staff to run and maintain these buildings,
lest they ruin their reputation by allowing the fancy buildings to fall into
disrepair.

Donations that are earmarked to help students are in the form of scholarships
and bursaries. To be honest, there aren’t nearly enough of those to go around.

~~~
froindt
>The university is then forced to hire all kinds of staff to run and maintain
these buildings, lest they ruin their reputation by allowing the fancy
buildings to fall into disrepair.

I talked with one of my professors at Iowa State about this topic. He said
back in the day, donors only needed to pay the cost of the building and then
the university would get hit with tons of maintenance and utility expenses.

For some time now, they have to donate the cost of the building and money for
an endowment for expected maintenance costs and operating costs.

~~~
chongli
That's a prudent policy for a state school. I'm not sure private schools work
the same way.

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rubidium
Striking coincidence that I’m reading a biography on Jimmy Hoffa right now.

$2500 a year is a slap in the face to the $1800 / month the students were
demanding.

Something needs to change there. For the Midwest small college town where I
went $20,000-30,000 was plenty (for people without kids at least). I imagine
it’d be a lot harder in CA coastal cities.

------
ellisv
> with the hope that we could resolve this unsanctioned strike and return to
> our shared mission

I didn’t realize most strikes were sanctioned...

~~~
throw_away
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_strike_action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_strike_action)

They mean not sanctioned by the union leadership in this case.

~~~
epistasis
The strikers have been fighting back against the union's attempts to say that
UC should negotiate with the union rather than the strikers, even:

[https://twitter.com/payusmoreucsc/status/1234130912281010176...](https://twitter.com/payusmoreucsc/status/1234130912281010176?s=21)

------
gbronner
When I was represented by a graduate student union, our department actually
tried to raise wages. This was opposed by the union (solidarity!), and the
result was that the department essentially invented fake courses to pad the
hours of the grad students; the union didn't care because we were "working
more" rather than getting "paid more"

This led me to believe that grad student unions were not a particularly useful
way of dealing with issues affecting graduate students.

------
spyckie2
What's the objective argument against raising wages?

It seems like they're willing to pay extra money but not via a wage increase?

~~~
Consultant32452
This article may help you understand the whole grad student racket better.

[https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why-
gove...](https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why-government-
universities-industry-create-domestic-labor-shortages-of-scientists-high-tech-
workers)

~~~
spyckie2
Thanks. Makes things clear what's going on. Does this have a HN discussion
thread?

~~~
Consultant32452
Not that I'm aware of. Most of the time when I talk about this topic it gets
downvoted pretty hard. Part of the program not covered in the article was to
train the population that anyone questioning those policies is the usual
litany of bad words. I was very careful this time not to even hint at the
content of the article. That seems to have helped.

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inventtheday
Why did these people accept their positions (with full up front knowledge of
their salary) if the money is not enough?

~~~
sev0
Not starving or being homeless are great motivators. But yeah, why didn't they
just get $250k FAANG jobs like the other 300 million Americans?

~~~
i_am_nomad
I don’t think those people had a binary choice between starving and a Ph.D.
program.

~~~
claudiawerner
Wanting to have your cake and eat it too is no great sin. In fact, it's what
everyone, everywhere in modern society is trying to do. You want a job you
enjoy, and that pays well. That seems like something worth fighting for. Just
what you're doing eight hours a day is a _very_ large amount of your lifetime.

