A massive expansion of graduate schools, spurred by a provincial decision, is leaving some of U of T’s most senior graduate students crowded out. The university greatly expanded its graduate enrolment this year, upping enrolment by about 30 per cent. Budget tightness has forced at least one department to take jobs from their PhD students and give them to a large new cohort of masters students.
U of T guarantees funding to all graduate students during the first year of a master’s program and the first four years of doctoral studies, or for the first five years of a doctoral program. Students who earn their PhD within five years are a rarity, and those outside the five-year guarantee often rely on teaching and teaching assistant jobs to make ends meet.
CUPE 3902, which represent TAs at the U of T, has filed a grievance with the Department of Anthropology on behalf of upper-year PhD students. The grievance claims the department violated at least four sections of the collective agreement between CUPE and U of T regarding TA hiring preference, job advertisement, rehiring, and “equitable and consistent” adherence to the agreement.
“We don’t blame [the Department of Anthropology], they’re only getting what they get handed down from the Dean of Arts and Science and the Provost,” said CUPE staff representative Mikael Swayze, who called the huge grad surge an “adventure,” being unprecedented and therefore hard to judge.
The McGuinty government has called for universities provincewide to expand their graduate schools, and set funding incentives to encourage schools to meet expansion targets. The current graduate expansion follows a period of great undergraduate growth prompted by the double-cohort.
Swayze noted that CUPE would have filed the grievance earlier but a server crash affecting the union’s email records caused a three-week delay.
So far, Anthropology is the only department with students filing grievances through CUPE, but Swayze said he has heard “rumblings” from others. Typically, individual students may take a long time to discuss their situations with other students and realize they share a common, systemic problem, he said.
Classes will not be disrupted during the grievance process, Swayze said.
The Department of Anthropology must respond to the complaint by next Friday. If they do not or cannot address the grievance to CUPE’s satisfaction, the union will go to the Dean of Arts & Science, then the university’s VP human resources, Angela Hildyard. If no satisfactory outcome is reached, the issue could go before an arbitrator for a binding resolution.
At press time, Dr. Janice Boddy, chair of the anthropology department, could not be reached for comment. The graduate program administrator, Natalia Krencil, was away from office due to illness, and graduate program coordinator Dr. Daniel Sellen was traveling and not reachable for comment. Asked to comment by The Varsity, Roger Bulgin, department manager for anthropology, said the issue had just been brought to his attention and he was not prepared to comment.
Swayze added that the grievance, when resolved, will not cost any of the current MA students their TAships, though he said next year the TA hours should be re-allotted to fit the collective bargaining agreement.
“The union is not in the business of getting people out of work,” he assured The Varsity.
