Hi everyone,<br><br>I don't know if the news is making its way among the Bio grad students as a whole, but situations of people not getting TA positions, or only getting 25% appointments (half a TAship) are increasing in frequency, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">even for students relatively early in their grad student careers, including international students!</span> It occurs to me that this might be something that BGSA would want to discuss as a group and investigate what they may do to let the department and/or higher-ups know that this is not conducive to grad students completing their degrees. So far I'm not aware of any efforts on our parts to actually make any such a statement (please let me know if there has been some action).<br>
<br>A few examples that I know of.... in December a second-year student in the Rotenberry lab was told at the end of Fall quarter that she would have no appointment for Winter Quarter, then a while later told she would have only a 25% appointment for Winter Quarter. Recently I heard that a student in another lab in Winter was only given at 25% TA position. At the present time, a different student in our lab has been told that she has not been assigned a TA position for fall (all TA offers have been made as far as I understand), and she is an international student. I also have not been given a TA position for fall, although I have seen other students at the end of their stay in the department not being given TA positions, so I shouldn't be surprised.<br>
<br>I thought I'd pass this info along in case people haven't been hearing about this stuff. It potentially affects each continuing student who doesn't have other funding, and it really should be a consideration for prospective students who are considering coming to UCR.<br>
<br>On a totally different note..remember that BGSA list serve is not confidential in the least...the postings are archived and you can find them on the UCR website!<br><br>Sharon<br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>****************************************<br>
Sharon Coe<br>PhD Candidate<br>Department of Biology<br>University of California, Riverside<br>Riverside, CA 92521<br><br><a href="http://www.biology.ucr.edu/people/grad_students/coe.html">http://www.biology.ucr.edu/people/grad_students/coe.html</a><br>
<br><a href="mailto:sharon.coe@ucr.edu">sharon.coe@ucr.edu</a><br>*****************************************