Grad Students Call For Higher Stipends

At Wednesday's task force meeting, James Alstrum-Acevedo, a graduate student who is a member of the tuition committee, presented information that he said indicates the need to increase graduate student stipends -- payments graduate students receive based on their teaching commitments.

After Alstrum-Acevedo spoke, the task force agreed to use part of a tuition increase to improve graduate stipends.

The committee was formed in November after Chancellor James Moeser suggested that officials examine the need for a campus-based tuition increase.

The data presented at the meeting compares graduate student stipends with stipends given at UNC's peer institutions. It also shows how much time graduate students spend teaching undergraduate students compared with faculty.

The information came from a fall 2000 survey conducted by the N.C. Public Service Workers Union, the employee and graduate student union.

In most departments, UNC offers lower regular stipend amounts than a majority of its peer institutions.

The data also shows that graduate students teach 51 percent of UNC classes.

"Looking at the data, it's obvious that graduate students do have a great impact," Alstrum-Acevedo said Thursday, adding that most graduate students pay tuition out of their own pockets and thus might choose a peer school that has higher stipends over UNC.

Stephen Weiss, chairman of the Department of Computer Science and a member of the tuition task force, also said the stipends that a university offers can affect the quality of its graduate students.

But Weiss said the breakdown of the number of classes taught by graduate students and faculty can be misleading. He said the data presented by Alstrum-Acevedo counts each section of a course as a separate class.

As a result, Alstrum-Acevedo's data exaggerates the number of classes graduate students are teaching compared to the number faculty teach, Weiss said.

Alstrum-Acevedo, however, contends that the data he presented paints an accurate picture because the study took into account the fact that faculty members also teach multiple sections of a course.

Despite being critical of the accuracy of the data's presentation, Weiss said it is important that graduate students teach because it is how UNC trains new faculty. "If we're going to have faculty in the next generation, we've got to do this," he said.

Alstrum-Acevedo said higher stipends -- which could be created with the money from a tuition increase -- would recruit more and better graduate students. He said he is stressing the importance of linking increases in tuition to stipends because he thinks a tuition increase is inevitable.

The next tuition task force meeting is scheduled for Jan. 15. Administrators want to complete a proposal on the amount of a tuition increase by Jan. 17.

The deadline has been designed so that the information can be presented at the Jan. 24 UNC Board of Trustees meeting, where it plans to act on tuition.

But Alstrum-Acevedo said he is not confident all of the issues can be resolved by Jan. 17, and he hopes for an extension.

Graduate School Dean Linda Dykstra said she is pleased the task force recognized the need for increasing graduate student stipends.

She said it is clear that UNC's graduate school must keep up with its peer institutions. "As much as we can, we need to have stipends that allow us to compete for the best students."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.