in my ongoing effort to keep labor issues in the academy on the table for discussion over here at adjunct whore's place, i encourage you to read this, yet another sleuth-like edition from mr. bousquet. this piece in particular struck me because the conditions of graduate students--while housed under the oxymoronic "right to work" structure--are not at all unlike my own.
i give you a short list:
while a graduate student, i had a family ( i came to grad school with one)--i would not have survived without my partner's income;
in addition, i took out several loans, without which i also would not have survived;
in addition, i taught extra courses (my "tuition waiver" required that i teach a 1:1; i always taught a 2:2 and one year a 3:3);
it took me nine years to finish, mostly because of financial constraints which required me to work over and beyond (by a lot) my research/dissertation/degree.
of course, the complaints of graduate students are well known--i found the comment of one such student ("as long as i'm not lied to" very amusing)--and in comparison, at least i could boast excellent health care benefits.
what will it take for those who have any power to provide a living wage to those teachers who carry the bulk of undergraduate general education courses at public institutions?
Monday, July 7, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
AW,
I have read your blog for some time but never commented until now. Your post today, and Bousquet's column, describe conditions I can really relate to. I am a doctoral student with an assistantship and a family - without my husband's steady income there would be no way I could do what I'm doing. I also teach extra courses and take out extra loans to cover our financial needs. The financial stress is just a constant in our lives, and something I don't think anyone has mentioned yet is the strain all of this puts on a marriage and a family. I don't know the stats, but I wouldn't be surprised if I found out that the strain of graduate school breaks up many marriages - we work constantly to make sure that we don't let it come between us. Don't get me wrong - I love researching and teaching, but I really wish that I and my family didn't have to sacrifice so much to make it happen.
hi Michelle--welcome, glad you commented. of course, you shouldn't have to be choose between loving the work that you do, especially since you work basically for free, and your family.
i too do not know what the stats are (and i don't at all mean to send bad karma your way) but my marriage did break up in graduate school--mr. whore is a relationship post-ABD. my own circumstances had more to do with strains that existed before i went to graduate school and even more, how much graduate school was transformative for me. that said, financial strain was and remains to this day endemic to being a Humanities student and professor.
good luck with your studies and congratulations on keeping it together. it really is no fun.
Post a Comment