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UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

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211–220 of 445 posts

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#211

I see a lot of discussion about the consequences of TAs withholding grades. This situation is a consequence of poor management at UCSC. Every other university I'm familiar with makes faculty responsible for submitting grades. It's inconceivable to me why TAs would be responsible for grades. TAs should be teaching assistants, not adjunct faculty. Edit: I read "assigning grades" to mean assigning the final grades for t…

The operative word here is ‘should be.’ In practice, at the state school where I did my doctorate, more than half of undergrad courses are taught by grad students...academia is a broken system that doesn’t work very well for anyone involved in it Edit: this was the case in my department, a STEM subject required for graduation in multiple unrelated majors

academia is a broken system that doesn’t work very well for anyone involved in it

It works extremely well for administrators and professors with tenure, who are the exact constituencies most in favor of stasis and least in favor of change or experimentation.

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cursory examination of Craigslist shows that you can easily rent a nice 4 bedroom house for $4000/month in Santa Cruz. Get a couple of roommates to split the rent and you're only paying $1000/month. Perhaps Arjona should consider that she could have more money for living expenses if she was more economical with her housing choices. After all, she was the one who chose to sign a lease for $1700/month on a $2200/mont…

Are you seriously telling this graduate student (with a child!) that she should find more roommates when she apparently has some already?

Nobody forced her to make these living arrangements that consume such a large percentage of her monthly salary. While it is regrettable, it's not the responsibility of the university to make sure that its students make good life choices.

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#213
Some think the status quo is the way forward and such a progressive state cannot slide backwards - as California goes, so goes America.

Nixon, Reagan, Jarvis and a lot of very conservative Democrats controlled this state for generations. Democrats have largely left their old base behind to neoliberal economics, deregulation (Carter) and financial market weaponization (Clinton).

The radicals from the left aren’t from CA anymore, and my guess is a future that is a bit more Nixony but wearing Allbirds and sipping a Grapefruit IPA.

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#214
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The administration is not withholding grades It clearly has the resources to provide you with your grades, it's not like the specific grad students are the only ones being able to grade random undergrad work. It appears it's failing to provide the service you pay it for.

You're absolutely right in that they have the resources to get these graded. Another comment I posted down below describes my grade situation and how I've been asked to help grade (for pay). I imagine in six months time I'll have my grades, but the wait is absolutely wrong. Other students are attempting to graduate, but their requirements are not met because of withheld grades by their TAs. Can they afford another qu…

I really hope you pay close attention to the comments by assdf replying to this. The graduate students clearly got desperate because of how crazy the financial situation got. It's sad to see how few people really recognize that. I hope you're lucky in life and never end up trapped the way they were!

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#215
post #2

I lived on 54 cent pancakes covered in free butter and honey, 9 cents per can baked beans (turns out I don't like baked beans, I like good sauce which this was not), and candy bars out of a broken and never fixed candy machine. I don't recommend it. I weighed 110 pounds by the time I left. All of my money went to dorm housing (paid to the school). Later when I was a researcher I found out that the Provost takes 55% o…

There must be some misunderstanding. The provost doesn't take the overhead, the university does, which is a common practice.

I didn't realize that "common" was a synonym for "good" or "desirable"

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#216
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right in that they have the resources to get these graded. Another comment I posted down below describes my grade situation and how I've been asked to help grade (for pay). I imagine in six months time I'll have my grades, but the wait is absolutely wrong. Other students are attempting to graduate, but their requirements are not met because of withheld grades by their TAs. Can they afford another qu…

The university is preventing people from graduating, not the TAs. The university could have professors grade their own exams. The university could hire undergraduates like you to grade exams. The university could also let anyone graduate that they want, the university is the body that enforces these requirements, not the TAs. They could send a memo tomorrow saying they would aggregate your other grades, or let you gr…

And this is exactly what my professor has done in response to the graduate student strikes: she is some grading assignments herself and has dropped ones that she no longer has time for. I will probably receive my grades on time, and if I don’t I’m going to be a lot more annoyed at the university for not working something out than I will be at my TA (who has already submitted grades for assignments due before the strike).

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#217

Some think the status quo is the way forward and such a progressive state cannot slide backwards - as California goes, so goes America. Nixon, Reagan, Jarvis and a lot of very conservative Democrats controlled this state for generations. Democrats have largely left their old base behind to neoliberal economics, deregulation (Carter) and financial market weaponization (Clinton). The radicals from the left aren’t from…

I think the Democrats are not the party of the working class anymore but the party of well paid specialists and middle management upwards. I would call them party of the top 10%. They have no ability to talk to the lowest ranks anymore.

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#218

I'm an undergrad at UCSC right now and have found the entire strike to be more detrimental to their cause. They've lost so much undergrad support after disrupting a STEM midterm and shutting down campus causing us to miss the classes we have paid for. I even lost my grades last quarter as my TA was fired ( of the 54 ) and he has refused to hand them over post firing. What it has done to the undergraduates is a little…

now is not the time to back down. teaching is hard. teaching and doing research is even harder. this whole problem would be solved by everyone grad and undergrads walking out for a few weeks. Throw in a hunger strike in there too. Only a big disruption at this point will get things done. Now is not the time to back down. The School admins will not understand any other language unfortunately.

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#219
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's... more complicated than that. There is an existing union that represents these people which has negotiated an existing collective bargaining agreement. This strike wasn't authorized. Now... maybe the union cut a bad deal, maybe their representatives aren't faithfully honoring their commitment, maybe there is literal corruption involved. But what is not true is that these workers were unrepresented at the salary…

All the TAs at that school voted against the deal the union made.

that little detail, everyone seems to miss...

Re: UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

#220
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, what to the grad students at UCSC do if they weren't represented at the bargaining table by their own union in the first place? The agreement is not one the grad students at UCSC and UCSC, but with the grad students at all UC campuses with the University of California, et al. 83% of UCSC grad students opposed the original UC wide negotiation because the salary minimums did not take into account the…

That's between them and their union - they can stop paying union dues, they can leave the union.

Not at the University of California…
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