Comments on: The Privileged and the Impoverished: Now One and the Same? http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/?nucrss=1 The law school blog and podcast from Canada Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Ron Payne http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4285 Ron Payne Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:53:00 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4285 If you really want to know about poverty and the union, pease read and comment about the facts. Remember the union is part of the problem and not the solution. http://welfarelegal.blogspot.com/ Ron Payne If you really want to know about poverty and the union, pease read and comment about the facts.
Remember the union is part of the problem and not the solution.

http://welfarelegal.blogspot.com/

Ron Payne

]]> By: StudentHostage http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4193 StudentHostage Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:02:19 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4193 Emma, First, the picketers are barely staying out until 5. More importantly, with respect to cancelling classes, the Union is doing anything in its power, legal or otherwise, to prevent the resumption of classes. Case in point. Osgoode Hall Law School has recently resumed classes. During the path to getting approval, CUPE members protested in front of a Faculty Council meeting discussing the proposal and fired off emails to profs and students so as to dissuade everyone from making this move. When classes did finally get approval, CUPE members had the audacity to enter a class in progress, flicker on and off the lights and yell chants. Behaviour like that is unconscionable. So don't tell me it is the university wanting to cancel classes. They had no choice because of CUPE and their actions! Emma,

First, the picketers are barely staying out until 5. More importantly, with respect to cancelling classes, the Union is doing anything in its power, legal or otherwise, to prevent the resumption of classes.

Case in point. Osgoode Hall Law School has recently resumed classes. During the path to getting approval, CUPE members protested in front of a Faculty Council meeting discussing the proposal and fired off emails to profs and students so as to dissuade everyone from making this move. When classes did finally get approval, CUPE members had the audacity to enter a class in progress, flicker on and off the lights and yell chants. Behaviour like that is unconscionable. So don’t tell me it is the university wanting to cancel classes. They had no choice because of CUPE and their actions!

]]> By: emma http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4192 emma Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:39:25 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4192 one last thing: the university is interfering with the lives of 50,000 students. they cancelled classes. no one in their right minds would be at steeles and nowhere in the cold, from 7am-7pm in Ontario winter. Consider how dire the situation must be for strikers to agree to live off strike pay in order to settle equitably. The adminsitration would never provide themselves with the working conditions they insist on maintaining for grad students. if they wanted to work in the interests of the students they wouldn't overstuff classrooms and place contract faculty with no access to research leave or job stability (ie stability enough to know what courses they're teaching and thus have time to prepare course outlines in advance) at the head of the classroom. they'd administer themselves differently, fight government cuttbacks, hire more tenure track positions, and be disgusted that any employee working fulltime at the university is required to live under the poverty line in Canada's most expensive city (a city deprived of rent control). one last thing:

the university is interfering with the lives of 50,000 students. they cancelled classes. no one in their right minds would be at steeles and nowhere in the cold, from 7am-7pm in Ontario winter. Consider how dire the situation must be for strikers to agree to live off strike pay in order to settle equitably. The adminsitration would never provide themselves with the working conditions they insist on maintaining for grad students. if they wanted to work in the interests of the students they wouldn’t overstuff classrooms and place contract faculty with no access to research leave or job stability (ie stability enough to know what courses they’re teaching and thus have time to prepare course outlines in advance) at the head of the classroom. they’d administer themselves differently, fight government cuttbacks, hire more tenure track positions, and be disgusted that any employee working fulltime at the university is required to live under the poverty line in Canada’s most expensive city (a city deprived of rent control).

]]> By: StudentHostage http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4189 StudentHostage Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:01:42 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4189 Emma, "Unfortunately, our economy is structured so that many undergrads are denied organized labour, and work for a minimum wage which would almost certainly be $2-3 higher per hour if mike harris hadn’t frozen the minimum wage while inflation went for a joyride in the mid nineties" I have this to say in response. Unfortunately our economy is structured, rightly so, in that it allows the university to set its salaries and pay scales. So because undergrads are not using collective bargaining, for the specific goal of higher wages, graduates are the lucky ones and undergrads are left in the cold? Wow, I didn't know that access to an undergraduate degree rested upon the shoulders of organized labour. To keep consistent with point of this post I will leave with this. The poverty that some graduate students endure is not directly attirbutable to the university and their financial support. Receiving approximately $20,000 as a PhD student is substantial, the academy is not in the business of job creation, it provides higher education so that its students may enter the work force. If you can't live off of its generous level of support then do something else, don't claim that you are now in poverty because of a life choice you made. Especially while interfering with the lives of 50,000 students. Emma,

“Unfortunately, our economy is structured so that many undergrads are denied organized labour, and work for a minimum wage which would almost certainly be $2-3 higher per hour if mike harris hadn’t frozen the minimum wage while inflation went for a joyride in the mid nineties”

I have this to say in response. Unfortunately our economy is structured, rightly so, in that it allows the university to set its salaries and pay scales.

So because undergrads are not using collective bargaining, for the specific goal of higher wages, graduates are the lucky ones and undergrads are left in the cold? Wow, I didn’t know that access to an undergraduate degree rested upon the shoulders of organized labour.

To keep consistent with point of this post I will leave with this. The poverty that some graduate students endure is not directly attirbutable to the university and their financial support. Receiving approximately $20,000 as a PhD student is substantial, the academy is not in the business of job creation, it provides higher education so that its students may enter the work force. If you can’t live off of its generous level of support then do something else, don’t claim that you are now in poverty because of a life choice you made. Especially while interfering with the lives of 50,000 students.

]]> By: emma http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4186 emma Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:48:17 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4186 StudentHostage: why do people point to the undercontested poverty of undergraduate students in order to justify the poverty inflicted upon graduate students? must we always be fighting for the bottom rungs of the ladder? CUPE is absolutely not arrogantly "topping up" their own salaries at the expense of the undergraduate students. Frankly, if the undergraduate student's status as students was tied to one singular labour union, they'd be able to advocate for their standard of living through labour negotiations too. Unfortunately, our economy is structured so that many undergrads are denied organized labour, and work for a minimum wage which would almost certainly be $2-3 higher per hour if mike harris hadn't frozen the minimum wage while inflation went for a joyride in the mid nineties. This issue is enormously bigger than TAs vs undergrads or TAs vs the university. The university is administering irresponsibly dangerous funding cuts to postsecondary education, a trickle down effect that is informed by transfer payments to the provinces, not to mention the neo-liberal agenda of the world bank. When public institutions are forced through cutbacks, to operate like businesses, labour is one of the first places administration sees fit to "save" money. Organized labour is the last venue workers and students have to voice opposition in the trickle down chain of command. And it is depressing, oversimplistic, and simply unethical to justify one group's poverty simply because the bar is low. Speaking of lowered expectations, do you seriously think anyone would "choose" poverty? Are TAs asking for tenure-track salaries here? TAs cannot be TAs unless they pay tuition. Any declared wage increase is a deceptive figure of speech measured against a rise in tuition. When TAs ask to be living on the poverty line rather than below it, they are simply asking for their wages to reflect economic standards recognized by stats canada as enough to pay rent and eat with. I don't care how many people live below the poverty line, no one deserves it, and as poverty becomes a popular trend, it is only less acceptable. Lastly, external funding of graduate degrees is a blessing for those who get it. May I remind you that external funding is under attack in this current economic climate and government, it is not a guaranteed pot of money year to year, and that there is no advocacy group (like a labour union) where people can advocate for an equitable distribution of funds. By suggesting it is a reasonable solution to escaping poverty, you accept a depressingly inadequate approach to funding postgraduate work that transforms a large economic structure that those in power invest in maintaining and you oversimplify it with a rhetoric of choice that is both wrong and outdated. StudentHostage:

why do people point to the undercontested poverty of undergraduate students in order to justify the poverty inflicted upon graduate students? must we always be fighting for the bottom rungs of the ladder?

CUPE is absolutely not arrogantly “topping up” their own salaries at the expense of the undergraduate students. Frankly, if the undergraduate student’s status as students was tied to one singular labour union, they’d be able to advocate for their standard of living through labour negotiations too. Unfortunately, our economy is structured so that many undergrads are denied organized labour, and work for a minimum wage which would almost certainly be $2-3 higher per hour if mike harris hadn’t frozen the minimum wage while inflation went for a joyride in the mid nineties.

This issue is enormously bigger than TAs vs undergrads or TAs vs the university. The university is administering irresponsibly dangerous funding cuts to postsecondary education, a trickle down effect that is informed by transfer payments to the provinces, not to mention the neo-liberal agenda of the world bank. When public institutions are forced through cutbacks, to operate like businesses, labour is one of the first places administration sees fit to “save” money. Organized labour is the last venue workers and students have to voice opposition in the trickle down chain of command. And it is depressing, oversimplistic, and simply unethical to justify one group’s poverty simply because the bar is low.

Speaking of lowered expectations, do you seriously think anyone would “choose” poverty? Are TAs asking for tenure-track salaries here? TAs cannot be TAs unless they pay tuition. Any declared wage increase is a deceptive figure of speech measured against a rise in tuition. When TAs ask to be living on the poverty line rather than below it, they are simply asking for their wages to reflect economic standards recognized by stats canada as enough to pay rent and eat with. I don’t care how many people live below the poverty line, no one deserves it, and as poverty becomes a popular trend, it is only less acceptable.

Lastly, external funding of graduate degrees is a blessing for those who get it. May I remind you that external funding is under attack in this current economic climate and government, it is not a guaranteed pot of money year to year, and that there is no advocacy group (like a labour union) where people can advocate for an equitable distribution of funds. By suggesting it is a reasonable solution to escaping poverty, you accept a depressingly inadequate approach to funding postgraduate work that transforms a large economic structure that those in power invest in maintaining and you oversimplify it with a rhetoric of choice that is both wrong and outdated.

]]> By: May http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4185 May Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:27:16 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4185 StudentHostage: You're right that perhaps we'd best let this go, but I want to just respond quickly to two things: a) I certainly don't think that our union backing down will -improve- funding for undergraduate students. Furthermore, CUPE has always been intensively supportive of the fight to lower (or eliminate) tuition fees. Yes, I -do- think that post-secondary education should be available to everyone, and I see this strike as part of that fight. I'll save you the trouble of telling me that the money isn't there-- I think that, given the amount the university is willing to spend on its own admin, and given the bad governmental decisions made by both provinces and the feds, a radical revisioning of funding for post-secondary education needs to take place, and that the money could be found were this the case. But me accepting the miserable offer made by York in the run up to this strike hardly contributes to that overhaul. 2) I don't accept your numbers, nor do I accept (any more than you do!) that my sample is limited. Likely both of our anecdotal samples are unrepresentative and we should, as you say, agree to disagree. To get back to the nature of the post above, however, let's take your numbers for a moment: two years of MA, five years of Ph.D., $20,000 per year (likely not the case for the MA, but whatever). So: seven years post BA at $20K per year or less. In Toronto. This is seriously not a cause for concern? Who can make this choice? Is the choice equally available to everyone? If not, then the change I make has implications beyond my own life. Anyhow-- thanks for your time. Over and out. StudentHostage:
You’re right that perhaps we’d best let this go, but I want to just respond quickly to two things:
a) I certainly don’t think that our union backing down will -improve- funding for undergraduate students. Furthermore, CUPE has always been intensively supportive of the fight to lower (or eliminate) tuition fees. Yes, I -do- think that post-secondary education should be available to everyone, and I see this strike as part of that fight. I’ll save you the trouble of telling me that the money isn’t there– I think that, given the amount the university is willing to spend on its own admin, and given the bad governmental decisions made by both provinces and the feds, a radical revisioning of funding for post-secondary education needs to take place, and that the money could be found were this the case. But me accepting the miserable offer made by York in the run up to this strike hardly contributes to that overhaul.
2) I don’t accept your numbers, nor do I accept (any more than you do!) that my sample is limited. Likely both of our anecdotal samples are unrepresentative and we should, as you say, agree to disagree. To get back to the nature of the post above, however, let’s take your numbers for a moment: two years of MA, five years of Ph.D., $20,000 per year (likely not the case for the MA, but whatever). So: seven years post BA at $20K per year or less. In Toronto. This is seriously not a cause for concern? Who can make this choice? Is the choice equally available to everyone? If not, then the change I make has implications beyond my own life.
Anyhow– thanks for your time. Over and out.

]]> By: StudentHostage http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4184 StudentHostage Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:02:19 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4184 Hi May, As there is no foreseeable end to this discussion I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I have completed a Masters degree, and have several friends currently completing a PhD or that have very recently done so. I find it very hard to believe that my sample of graduates students at York has such a high completion rate in a timely fashion while you are suggesting that this is not the case. Further, the 4 programs I listed are large or at the minimum, average sized programs that are fully representative of the requirements of a PhD. And as you suggest, some may take time off for whatever personal/financial/academic reason but during that time they are usually employed in full-time work thereby further adding to their finances. So you're either completing the degree in 5 years or taking on paid employment prolonging the completion but increasing your financial status; you can't have it both ways. Finally, undergraduate students are struggling to even complete a bachelors degree and receive no funding whatsoever. And many others make the painstaking decision to enter the work force immediately following high school as they do not have the finances to puruse higher education. In this example should the onus be on the university to finance the student for what is becoming a necessary (for today's work force) undergraduate degree? If you answer in the affirmative then I find it troubling and selfish that CUPE would find it more important to top up their current salaries at the cost of potential funding for undergraduates who can't even consider pursue a first degree. Education is a life choice, just as selecting a profession is and just as buying a house is. You take everything into consideration and base your decision on your current situation including finances. If you don't fit the bill, then don't make that choice. Just to be clear, I stand by my assertion that the majority of PhD programs are completed within 5 years and our offering approximately $20,000 in guranteed funding. In your last response you provided evidence that the situation in your program is unique as it is relatively new and it was also suggestive that it is not representative of typical graduate studies; perhaps (and I say this with caution) your program needs extra funding but not the 4 major programs I listed. In any case, if you want to make change, do so on your own time. Don't do so to the detriment of 50,000 students. Best of luck with your studies. Hi May,

As there is no foreseeable end to this discussion I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.

I have completed a Masters degree, and have several friends currently completing a PhD or that have very recently done so. I find it very hard to believe that my sample of graduates students at York has such a high completion rate in a timely fashion while you are suggesting that this is not the case. Further, the 4 programs I listed are large or at the minimum, average sized programs that are fully representative of the requirements of a PhD. And as you suggest, some may take time off for whatever personal/financial/academic reason but during that time they are usually employed in full-time work thereby further adding to their finances. So you’re either completing the degree in 5 years or taking on paid employment prolonging the completion but increasing your financial status; you can’t have it both ways.

Finally, undergraduate students are struggling to even complete a bachelors degree and receive no funding whatsoever. And many others make the painstaking decision to enter the work force immediately following high school as they do not have the finances to puruse higher education. In this example should the onus be on the university to finance the student for what is becoming a necessary (for today’s work force) undergraduate degree? If you answer in the affirmative then I find it troubling and selfish that CUPE would find it more important to top up their current salaries at the cost of potential funding for undergraduates who can’t even consider pursue a first degree.

Education is a life choice, just as selecting a profession is and just as buying a house is. You take everything into consideration and base your decision on your current situation including finances. If you don’t fit the bill, then don’t make that choice. Just to be clear, I stand by my assertion that the majority of PhD programs are completed within 5 years and our offering approximately $20,000 in guranteed funding. In your last response you provided evidence that the situation in your program is unique as it is relatively new and it was also suggestive that it is not representative of typical graduate studies; perhaps (and I say this with caution) your program needs extra funding but not the 4 major programs I listed. In any case, if you want to make change, do so on your own time. Don’t do so to the detriment of 50,000 students.

Best of luck with your studies.

]]> By: May http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4183 May Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:17:40 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4183 Thanks for the links. Unfortunately, they simply do not reflect the actualities of people's lives within the academy. My program insists that the MA is intended to be completed in one year-- I have yet to hear of ONE PERSON who has been able to accomplish this. My graduate program director is the one who informed me, upon my entrance, of the 50% completion rate, and average of seven years, for my program. Although I don't have the numbers for York at my fingertips, there was a lot of data collected in order to defeat the (totally regressive) times-to-completion provision put forward by the Faculty of Graduate Studies last year. One of the reasons that provision -was- defeated was because the Graduate Student Association was able to show that students (who must work outside the university due to insufficient funding) are -not- completing within six years. I also found the following two links useful on this topic, although I appreciate that they are not York-specific: http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4070.html (full article available through York library) http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/09/phd_complete_rates.php With respect to your second point: I draw directly from the Unit 1 collective agreement on the 3903 website-- look it up. My salary is $16,484.20. I receive $590/term in tuition rebate; my tuition (before rebate) is approximately $5500. My overall salary is therefore $12,754.20. My apologies for overstating my case by $750. In regards to external scholarships, this is a place where elitism is totally reproduced. I am a Women's Studies scholar; this is a discipline that has only granted Ph.Ds for about fifteen years, about ten in Canada. It is also interdisciplinary. The result is that the committees that adjudicate scholarship applications are unfamiliar and, frankly, uninterested in my research. Few people in my field (and in most politically progressive fields) receive government scholarships, despite our superb references, strong grades, impressive publishing resumes and other accomplishments. Students in more historically established fields, and especially students in sciences, receive considerably more government funding. For others, the problem is a bit different-- for many who live by taking on tons of work beyond TAs, it is exceedingly difficult to meet the benchmarks (lots of publications, high marks in courses) set out by government scholarships that begin from the premise of a level playing field. So--thanks for your advice-- but I think that I'll stay in the academy; if my teaching evaluations are anything to go by, my students are happy for that. Despite your comments I am made aware by everyone except my employer that the work I do is significant and makes an important contribution to pedagogy and knowledge. Thanks for the links. Unfortunately, they simply do not reflect the actualities of people’s lives within the academy. My program insists that the MA is intended to be completed in one year– I have yet to hear of ONE PERSON who has been able to accomplish this. My graduate program director is the one who informed me, upon my entrance, of the 50% completion rate, and average of seven years, for my program.
Although I don’t have the numbers for York at my fingertips, there was a lot of data collected in order to defeat the (totally regressive) times-to-completion provision put forward by the Faculty of Graduate Studies last year. One of the reasons that provision -was- defeated was because the Graduate Student Association was able to show that students (who must work outside the university due to insufficient funding) are -not- completing within six years.
I also found the following two links useful on this topic, although I appreciate that they are not York-specific:
http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4070.html (full article available through York library)
http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/09/phd_complete_rates.php
With respect to your second point: I draw directly from the Unit 1 collective agreement on the 3903 website– look it up. My salary is $16,484.20. I receive $590/term in tuition rebate; my tuition (before rebate) is approximately $5500. My overall salary is therefore $12,754.20. My apologies for overstating my case by $750.
In regards to external scholarships, this is a place where elitism is totally reproduced. I am a Women’s Studies scholar; this is a discipline that has only granted Ph.Ds for about fifteen years, about ten in Canada. It is also interdisciplinary. The result is that the committees that adjudicate scholarship applications are unfamiliar and, frankly, uninterested in my research. Few people in my field (and in most politically progressive fields) receive government scholarships, despite our superb references, strong grades, impressive publishing resumes and other accomplishments. Students in more historically established fields, and especially students in sciences, receive considerably more government funding.
For others, the problem is a bit different– for many who live by taking on tons of work beyond TAs, it is exceedingly difficult to meet the benchmarks (lots of publications, high marks in courses) set out by government scholarships that begin from the premise of a level playing field.
So–thanks for your advice– but I think that I’ll stay in the academy; if my teaching evaluations are anything to go by, my students are happy for that. Despite your comments I am made aware by everyone except my employer that the work I do is significant and makes an important contribution to pedagogy and knowledge.

]]> By: StudentHostage http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4131 StudentHostage Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:42:51 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4131 Hi May, I'll have more of a comprehensive response when you can direct me to the webpage of any graduate program or any legitimate source that shows that: 1) the intended time to complete a PhD is 7 years; 2) that $12,000 is what one receives for a full TAship and total funding even after deducting tuition fees(keeping in mind that tuition rebates at York at least are approximately $2,500 for grad students); 3) that shows that it is difficult or that simple semester bursaries are not as you say 'renewable' - I mean the general bursaries that are given to all in financial need and that all grad students may apply to every year. Lastly, I'm sorry, but if you can get at least one OGS, SSHRC, NSERC etc. throughout your whole time as a graduate student then maybe you're not cut out for it and will be doing everyone a favour if you choose a different career path. I do not personally know one, out of the dozens of graduate students that I have spoken to, that has not received some substantial form of external funding at some point. I've kindly compiled links to relevant information in 4 different PhD programs at York University: Biology, Psychology, Political Science and Environmental Studies. The maximum allowed time for completion for all the aforementioned PhD programs is 6 years, and the typical length is between 4 and 5 years. Also, the guaranteed funding for PhD students is approximately $20,000 for all 4 programs. So minus $3,000 for tution (after tuition rebate), this leaves the 'student' with roughly $17,000, without a bursary or any external funding. http://www.yorku.ca/fes/students/current/phd/Timeline.htm http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/graduate/resources/Calendar.pdf http://www.yorku.ca/web/futurestudents/graduate/pdf/brochure/psychology.pdf http://www.yorku.ca/grads/programmes/biology.pdf Hi May,

I’ll have more of a comprehensive response when you can direct me to the webpage of any graduate program or any legitimate source that shows that: 1) the intended time to complete a PhD is 7 years; 2) that $12,000 is what one receives for a full TAship and total funding even after deducting tuition fees(keeping in mind that tuition rebates at York at least are approximately $2,500 for grad students); 3) that shows that it is difficult or that simple semester bursaries are not as you say ‘renewable’ – I mean the general bursaries that are given to all in financial need and that all grad students may apply to every year.

Lastly, I’m sorry, but if you can get at least one OGS, SSHRC, NSERC etc. throughout your whole time as a graduate student then maybe you’re not cut out for it and will be doing everyone a favour if you choose a different career path. I do not personally know one, out of the dozens of graduate students that I have spoken to, that has not received some substantial form of external funding at some point.

I’ve kindly compiled links to relevant information in 4 different PhD programs at York University: Biology, Psychology, Political Science and Environmental Studies. The maximum allowed time for completion for all the aforementioned PhD programs is 6 years, and the typical length is between 4 and 5 years. Also, the guaranteed funding for PhD students is approximately $20,000 for all 4 programs. So minus $3,000 for tution (after tuition rebate), this leaves the ‘student’ with roughly $17,000, without a bursary or any external funding.

http://www.yorku.ca/fes/students/current/phd/Timeline.htm

http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/graduate/resources/Calendar.pdf

http://www.yorku.ca/web/futurestudents/graduate/pdf/brochure/psychology.pdf

http://www.yorku.ca/grads/programmes/biology.pdf

]]> By: May http://lawiscool.com/2008/11/10/the-privileged-and-the-impoverished-now-one-an-the-same/comment-page-1/#comment-4126 May Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:58:12 +0000 http://lawiscool.com/?p=1039#comment-4126 StudentHostage, -I, personally, make $12K per year from York after I pay my tuition. This is pretty much the standard amount for a TA minus tuition. -seven years is the AVERAGE, not the maximum amount of time it takes to get a Ph.D., at least in my program, and this time is increasing as students take on additional waged labour -I go from seven years to a decade because the majority of Ph.D. candidates generally, as I have, do master's work before proceeding to doctoral work, thus the total time is generally close to ten years post B.A., full-time, as I indicated -I know few graduate students who receive bursaries beyond first year-- they are not guaranteed and are often used as a carrot to entice us to York but do not renew beyond first year Ph.D. -External funding is extremely competitive and, frankly, most students do not get external scholarships; in addition, they reproduce the same imbalances of privilege-- in order to get external scholarships you need to publish and progress quickly, something that those of us doing much additional waged work cannot accomplish as easily as our more financially comfortable colleagues -I use the comparison to law school because this is a blog for law students; I don't think it's any more acceptable that law should only be a choice available to those with private wealth than that the same apply to the academy and would advocate for the reduction of tuition fees in both contexts -With respect to the notion of choice, I take your point that I could choose to be less poor than I am-- but I'll ask you consider that the notion that all of us should up and make a different choice would have dramatic implications for the basis of knowledge and teaching nation-wide. I appreciate that this sounds grandiose, but I feel very strongly that if those of us on the cusp of poverty make different choices, our experiences are no longer represented. As a woman of colour and a mother, I find this a very troubling choice to have to make, for political as much as for personal reasons. StudentHostage,
-I, personally, make $12K per year from York after I pay my tuition. This is pretty much the standard amount for a TA minus tuition.
-seven years is the AVERAGE, not the maximum amount of time it takes to get a Ph.D., at least in my program, and this time is increasing as students take on additional waged labour
-I go from seven years to a decade because the majority of Ph.D. candidates generally, as I have, do master’s work before proceeding to doctoral work, thus the total time is generally close to ten years post B.A., full-time, as I indicated
-I know few graduate students who receive bursaries beyond first year– they are not guaranteed and are often used as a carrot to entice us to York but do not renew beyond first year Ph.D.
-External funding is extremely competitive and, frankly, most students do not get external scholarships; in addition, they reproduce the same imbalances of privilege– in order to get external scholarships you need to publish and progress quickly, something that those of us doing much additional waged work cannot accomplish as easily as our more financially comfortable colleagues
-I use the comparison to law school because this is a blog for law students; I don’t think it’s any more acceptable that law should only be a choice available to those with private wealth than that the same apply to the academy and would advocate for the reduction of tuition fees in both contexts
-With respect to the notion of choice, I take your point that I could choose to be less poor than I am– but I’ll ask you consider that the notion that all of us should up and make a different choice would have dramatic implications for the basis of knowledge and teaching nation-wide. I appreciate that this sounds grandiose, but I feel very strongly that if those of us on the cusp of poverty make different choices, our experiences are no longer represented. As a woman of colour and a mother, I find this a very troubling choice to have to make, for political as much as for personal reasons.

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