An external review performed at the request of Rob Hollister, former Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), this year found that both the quality and reputation of the Graduate School are slipping. So is its advocacy. In place of a dean dedicated exclusively to the needs of the GSAS, Susan Ernst shall become the Dean of Arts and Sciences for both graduates and undergraduates. She will be assisted in her twin tasks by Professor David Walt as chair of a new University Council on Graduate Education, which will use all its wisdom to decide how to strengthen the Graduate School.
But the matter is a simple one: many graduate programs are under-funded, with the preeminent consequence that salaries, stipends, and scholarships are low. It is for this fundamental reason that our research, the University's reputation as a Research I institution, and the prestige of many of Tufts's graduate programs suffer. Many good applicants reject Tufts not merely because they can't afford their education here but because, even more directly, low incomes necessitate either more loans or more work, both of which prove obstacles to solid, speedy, sanguine graduate work.
This essential point will not be addressed by this Council (of perhaps five non-graduate student members). Moreover, this council will not attend to the concerns of students in what are called, "self-sustaining" Master's programs. (Actually, they are "sustained" by students employed as RAs and TAs who are willing to pay considerable sums to study here, often incurring significant debt to do so; nothing "sustains" itself, just like cars don't run without fuel in them).
So that the available funds can be suitably distributed to the GSAS, the Council's biggest responsibility will be identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the University in order (in President Bacow's words) to "create synergy across graduate programs on all three of our campuses."
The problem here is that many of the departments (especially in the Arts) are weak. However, this is not because they aren't comprised of dedicated, hard-working graduate students, but because those students, overworked and underpaid. Students simply don't have the same time and energy for their research and writing as those with incomes enabling a fuller commitment to scholarship.
Even now a better alternative presents itself. Like graduate students on other campuses like Columbia and Brown, grad students here should join the ongoing Tufts campaign to unionize. Alongside the Graduate Student Council and individual departmental graduate organizations, a union would provide the appropriate, legally recognized forum with which to collectively address crucial issues - most obviously salaries, stipends, and health care - that directly influence our daily lives both as students and as people with very real needs.
Our grad students are informed, responsible, open-minded, and committed to social issues, and our union would be strong, democratic, and representative. And there will be absolutely no leaving any graduate students (particularly those in smaller programs, or Master's candidates) behind: a union encompasses all who are employed by Tufts.
Some graduate students here have argued that to make change we should work with faculty to influence administration, department to department. But faculty have their own interests and responsibilities. We are not children, and it would be absolutely inappropriate to involve them officially in matters of the utmost importance to us - regardless of how concerned and willing to help they might be.
After all, when, as both President Bacow and Professor Walt understand, many faculty are apathetic about, if not hostile to the Graduate School, it seems unlikely that we will find the faculty support necessary to represent our wide-ranging needs and interests. The likelihood, indeed, is that some already overextended faculty members would assume a burden on our behalf for which they would not be fairly compensated themselves.
Unionization means knowing our specific community and its specific concerns and working together to address them officially. In doing so showing Tufts that its Graduate School takes itself seriously and believes that it's worth making better. President Bacow says there is money to be allocated to the Graduate School to make it stronger and more competitive; our unionization would allow us to be a legitimate, respected part of whatever decision-making must be done.
Carl Martin is an English Graduate Student Lecturer.
