Town Hall Meeting - Thursday, October 31, 2013

Town Hall Meeting - Thursday, October 31, 2013

Attendance

Grad Students: Ulices Pina, Rosana Womack, Suzanne Dunai, Stephanie Dyer, Johanna Peterson, Alexis Meza, Megan Strom, Jorge Leal, Teresa Walch, Mary Klann, Kate Flach, Johnathan Abreu, Mychal Odom

Faculty: Luis Alvarez,

Staff: Amber Reider, Susan Bernal

[Minutes taken by Mary Klann - questions please email mklann@ucsd.edu]

1) Travel grants: speed of reimbursements, availability of funds for Fall Quarter

Megan Strom (MS) raised the issue of the fall call for research funding and travel grants; request for transparency in the availability of funds for fall quarter; is the call going out later than usual?

Amber Reider (AR) and Susan Bernal (SB) responded that travel grants are always subject to availability, and that graduate advisors have research funding if students are looking for another option.

Luis Alvarez (LA) responded that transparency in travel grant funding is good, invites students to come to him with any problems. We will have a call for travel grants, which will go out within the next 2 weeks. This is on par with what has been done in the past (the call for fall quarter usually goes out between mid-October and early November). However, the department still does not know exactly how many funds it has to dispense.

SB: Throughout the year the amount of funds available does fluctuate. The money used to recruit prospective students also comes from travel grant funds. This money is also used for contractual obligations to existing students, incoming packages, and any other unforeseen issues in the budget. Campus wide there is a new mission to support graduate students, but the campus is also dealing with issues of equity and how the money will be distributed to different departments.

LA: In the past more money has come to the History department because we are more competitive. We will continue with a call for travel funds in both the fall and spring. The spring call will be a little more formidable than the fall call. The call for fall funding will come out in the next 2 weeks, and we will have the same amount of money as we have had in the past. The graduate committee distributes funds with equity in mind (reasonable requests). Updates to be provided once it is known how much has been requested and how much is available. The department will do everything it can to enhance travel grants with the funds available.

Rosana Womack (RW) posed a question about the equity issue that SB raised. Different than in the past and how?

SB: Up until two years ago the block grant was administered from the Office of the President to the OGS Dean based on analysis of the success of the department and needs from outside the university. Social sciences and sciences were getting less than arts and humanities programs so the structure of the block grant changed. Now more equity is applied across departments based on enrollment (History department enrollment dropped, as a result the amount of one full stipend has been cut from the budget).

LA: Curious to see what graduate students think considering issues of equity, and proposed a new structure for administering travel funding. There is a possibility of having funds for a certain number of trips written into admit offer letters, which guarantees a certain sum allocated to travel. This would address issues of transparency, and streamline the travel grant process from the perspective of staff and faculty. Other universities that UCSD should be out-recruiting are offering more money up front, and this would help us be more competitive. Several questions come up when proposing this new structure: 1) How to manage across field group. It costs more to go to Latin America than it does to go to Los Angeles. The graduate committee are already dealing with this issue as they decide on travel grants now. 2) How to allocate money across year in the program. During years 1-2 students usually travel for research for seminar papers, while during years 3-5 students will be conducting dissertation research. The idea behind this new structure would be to streamline travel grants, potentially repackaging them as an offer in the admit letter. This would equalize the amount that people get (as it stands now, some people apply more often than others). Potentially could continue supplemental calls as we do now, although they wouldn’t be for as much money.

Suzanne Dunai (SD) posed a question of whether or not putting funds in the offer letter would push students into taking just one big trip instead of splitting up the amount. Would the money be available as a bank or as a one-time offer?

RW: Would changing this structure affect the recruitment budget?

SB: OGS provides funds for recruitment in terms of tabling and advertising. Funds for Admit Day used for travel, hotel, food, and activities come out of the same pool as travel funds.

LA: Recruitment will continue as it has in the past. The idea behind frontloading travel grants offers an extra incentive for recruiting students and will already be incorporated into the admit offer.

SB: Under this plan, everyone would be expected to inform the department when they plan to use the money.

Johnathan Abreu (JA): The new plan would provide more time for students to formulate how and when the money would be used and seems like it would be easier for faculty, so that they don’t have to scramble in the days leading up to when travel grant applications are due submitting statements.

LA: Will write up a brief proposal outlining the proposed changes, bringing up the potential issues that need to be addressed. Issues include: tiers of access (what one would need for the first trip as opposed to a dissertation research trip, first years vs. third years, etc.); if the amount would cover multiple trips or be expected to be used all at once; what other options are available once the money is exhausted; whether differing funds will be needed based on field group (taking into account distance, amount of trips involved). Stressed that it is incumbent upon the student to be efficient and frugal with what is available, the proposed plan could help with the “shell game” (unknowns in terms of funding), but efficiency oversight is still needed.

RW recommended starting a file through the Collective to collect recommendations from past students who have traveled to conduct research with suggestions on cheap places to stay, eat, etc.

MS raised the question of possibility for summer funding.

SB: The OGS Dean has expressed that it is a goal to have all the departments have summer funding. The Strategic Plan may address these issues, but we are still waiting.

LA: Faculty have research funds that go to helping students through the summer. This is a huge issue and we wish we could give everyone money for the summer, but it is just not realistic at this time.

           

SB suggested looking outside for fellowships for funding.

LA will bring the discussion of summer money to the committee. One option could possibly be applying for summer money instead of putting money towards a writing fellowship. However, the department is dealing with limited resources. 

Note -- due to time constraints, we did not have a chance to discuss the speed of travel reimbursements. Plans are pending to discuss this issue with Jamie Gonzalez, who may be able to come to the next Collective meeting to address this issue.

2)  TAships - Undergraduate enrollment and capping undergraduate courses - what does this mean for TAs?

LA: The department will not sacrifice TA positions if the change goes through with capping undergraduate courses. This comes from a desire to formulate substantive upper division courses. Making smaller classes (35 students vs. 150 students) creates a better environment for the undergraduate students. Most courses affected will be upper level, and there aren’t usually upper-division TAs anyway, so it is more of a question of availability of readerships. Once there is more information it will be passed along to graduate students.

AR: Lower division courses are staying steady so TAships will stay the same. The positions will be there, but may be outside the department for those of us who don’t fit into the department.

SB emphasized that TAs are supposed to apply through the clearinghouse first for TAships.

LA: TAship distribution in the department: 12-13 positions available for lower division history courses (6 slots for 7 series, 3-4 for 2 series, and 3 for the 10, 11, 12 series). Graduate committee is streamlining the description of how the process of assigning TAs to courses works. Faculty have different stakes in the process. (Example: the 7 series has different needs than the 2 series.) As it is written now, the US and East Asia field groups have a responsibility to convey to the graduate committee and the staff who they would like to be in the mix for TAships. Wants to make sure everyone’s stakes are accounted for and brought in the equation, want to do everything that we can to make sure people know what their place is before the call for the clearinghouse goes out. By the beginning of Winter 2014 the process will be set and concerns should be accounted for, as the graduate committee produces and tweaks the document they will share it.

MS brought up concerns about cross-field appointments, and inquired whether students in other field groups could be appointed to teach in the 7 series.

LA: The department wants to encourage a more horizontal field group model rather than the area studies model. But that said, at the level of individual faculty, there is an expectation that faculty will have a say over who their TAs are. Faculty should have a say in who is TAing their classes.

MS brought up issues with resources. Some graduate students have never had the opportunity to teach in the History department.

LA: The concern is noted, and there are multiple sides to the equation. It would be challenging to change some people’s minds in terms of how those decisions are made. There needs to be a more transparent process, the policy is not currently written down in a way that is accessible.

3)  TAships - MMW program change in structure, how this affects departmental funding

SB: Pamela has talked to MMW program director and provost of Eleanor Roosevelt and they refused to budge on the issue. Other programs will not follow suit and are opposed to the theory of why they are doing this in MMW. Dean Barrett was unaware of the change and will be following up so we think it will be going away. Right now TAs in MMW are being paid the full amount because the difference is being taken out of the block grant fund.

Teresa Walch (TW): At this point the union has not filed a grievance, because 20 hours per week is not being spent in the pedagogy class. The class is a job duty.

4)  Process for a graduate student representative on faculty search committees:

           

The following is the proposal generated at the last Collective meeting (October 17, 2013) for placing a graduate student rep on the faculty search committee:

            To make the opportunity available to all who are interested in the position (as of now this is only an advisory position and not a voting position), at the time of the next faculty search the Collective should solicit an “application” (at this time just a one-page statement and a CV) from all interested students (regardless of field group or year in the program). The Collective will then forward these applications to the faculty search committee, who will then make the final decision.

            The Collective’s role in this process is to act only as a facilitator, and to present the faculty with the options of all interested students. The Collective will not decide who the graduate student representative will be, that role falls to the faculty members on the committee.

LA: The Collective proposal is reasonable. The degree to which grad student reps read files and have voting privileges varies from campus to campus. The position is valuable as it provides an opportunity to gain professionalization experience in job talks, reading applicant’s work, and can report back to the Collective about how the search looks from the other end. The reception of the Collective “funnel” will be different based on who the faculty chair is on each committee (some faculty will be receptive, while others won’t be). Need to be persistent in presenting applications to the committee. Graduate students are not allowed to read files, per UCSD’s policy, but will be entering the process when it gets to a long “short list” (8-10 applicants, reading the work they submit). The Collective should put the proposal on the agenda for a faculty meeting. Current searches (Mexican and Asian American) were chosen differently (the grad student rep on the Mexican search was picked by the committee while applications were invited for the Asian American search and none were submitted, which resulted in the chair picking a rep). One important thing to think about is what the rep will do with the experience they gain in the faculty search, how they can share with the Collective about the dynamics of the room, what is deemed important in applications, which will help in the future with our own job applications.

5)  Departmental website updates

LA briefly acknowledged that the website does need to be updated and that it has been discussed at faculty meetings as well.

AR is interested in updating the website for graduate students, if anyone is interested in helping please come see her.

Suggestions were made about putting up a small bio and photo of current graduate students as was proposed a few years ago.

LA: Things to follow up on include the new travel grant proposal and streamlining the allotting of TAships.

Note: We unfortunately ran out of time to discuss out-of-state graduate students’ tuition money, but will update further at a later date.