[Bgsa] EEOBGSA letter

[Darren Rebar]

Hi,

A final version of the letter was passed on to Daphne on Tuesday (see attached).  Thank you to everyone that provided feedback - as many of the suggestions as possible were incorporated into the letter.  

Daphne's initial response/update regarding funding is below.  Hopefully this will be the start of a very constructive restructuring of the current program that will benefit all of us.  I'll keep you posted as I know more.

Cheers,
Darren 

>From Daphne:

Hello Darren,

Thank you very much for taking the lead in drafting this excellent letter.  I will send a copy to all of the EEOB faculty, as requested, and I assure you that it will frame our discussions for revision of the Graduate Program.  As you know, I share all of the concerns raised and will do my best to see that they are addressed in a timely manner.  

I can already shed some new light on one of your concerns about graduate funding.  At a recent general meeting of the graduate advisors, I asked Dean Childers about the funding listed in the letters of offer that Grad Division sends to prospective students.  He stated that Grad Division regards these funding amounts as legal commitments on the part of the University.  However, on being pressed, he admitted that Grad Division has no means of enforcing this, since they do not provide any funding after the initial fellowship offer.  The TAs or GSRs must come from other sources.  Therefore, it is ultimately up to the student's supervisor, the Program Director or the College Dean to provide the funding.  No one individual or level is responsible, which is why one gets the sense that funding is not guaranteed.  However, there is a clear expectation that no student will be allowed to go without support during the academic quarters of their first five years.  

We are hoping to resolve some of the uncertainly that arises in the chain of responsibility for student funding for CNAS life science students because of the joint TA allocation process.  Dean Childers promised to set up a meeting with the College Dean, Linda Walling and the life science program advisors to discuss this issue.  We also intend to inform the EEOB faculty that they have an obligation to ensure that students obtain support for the academic quarters in which TA/GSR support has been promised.  This means that, if the supervisor cannot offer GSR support from their own funding, they should help the student obtain funding from other sources.  

We will also be able to relieve some of the funding uncertainty once the EEOB has obtained its own budget.  At the moment, the EEOB has no funds and cannot provide GSR support.  The Biology Department has been providing emergency GSRs but these funds cannot be dedicated to EEOB students exclusively and are not always available.  The EEOB executive committee is currently finalizing formal Bylaws for the program and we will be submitting these soon.  Once those are in place, we expect to be given a budget for the program which will include a number of GSRs.  

With these advances, I think that all of our students can be confident that funding of some form will be forthcoming every academic quarter for their first five years.  

Please pass this information on to the other students in the EEOB.  We will keep you informed as progress is made on these and the other issues that you have raised.  

Thank you once again for providing such an articulate, rational and constructive letter.

Sincerely,

Daphne

Daphne Fairbairn,
Professor, Department of Biology, and
Graduate Advisor for Continuing Students, EEOB,
University of California,
Riverside, CA 92521
951 827 4791 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: EEOBGSA letter for DF.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 470016 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/bgsa/attachments/20081204/c3795fe4/attachment-0001.doc