[Cwgrad-announcements] TA Update

[cwgrad-announcements at lists.ucr.edu]

Dear First Years, Now Second Years,

      We hope that as the year ends, you are all well and satisfied with
your many accomplishments this year!  We have some good news and some bad news:
We are writing to update you on the TA situation after our meeting
with Dean Martin yesterday.  The meeting was very brief and the Dean
informed us he had met with the CFO who now has to go over the new
budget and catch up after months of delay (not only catch up with our
budget, but every department's in CHASS, so you can imagine...).  He
said he really couldn't assure us of anything now and that he had no
news except that our department's budget is being reviewed and, sadly,
that's pretty much it-- it is week 10 and, after 4 meetings (2 with
Associate Dean Coltrane and 2 with Dean Martin) we know little more
than we did on week 4 when we signed the letter.

      On the other hand, we also wrote a letter to our Graduate Dean, Dallas
Rabenstein, and took it to his office after the meeting
with Dean Martin.  Below we've pasted the reply he e-mailed us almost
immediately after and the committment to central fellowship funds for our cohort.
We would also like to extend a special thanks to Prof. Robin Russin for
contacting him initially and to Prof. Andrew Winer for following up.
Fellow students, let's keep our fingers crossed and we hope that we
will all make it back here in the fall, teaching and writing together!  We wish that we could have written with more promising news and regret that our student advocacy was not as effective as it could have been.

all our best,
Ky-Phong and Gabriela




Dear Ky-Phong and Gabriela,

Thank you for your letter to me and the copy of your letter to Dean
Martin concerning funding for graduate students in the MFA program in
Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts.  I have limited
funds for fellowship support and most of what I have is committed in
the financial supported packages offered to students with the offer
of admission.  However, as I think you know, I have agreed to provide
some additional funding for students who entered the program Fall
2005.  I have no additional funds to support research or Teaching
Fellowships.  I also have no input on the allocation of TA positions
to your Departments.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss this 
further.

Best wishes,
Dallas