Hundreds of graduate students and faculty members gathered at Traditions Plaza on Tuesday in support of the Forum on Graduate Rights, or FGR. The organization is dedicated to acting on issues that affect the lives of graduate students at MU.
On August 19th, the FGR communicated a list of demands to MU administration following the announcement that graduate students would no longer receive a health insurance subsidy. For domestic students, the announcement was made 13 hours before their student health insurance expired. For international students, the information came 13 days after their mandatory insurance had started. FGR members said this left students with no time to find a viable insurance alternative.
The FGR’s demands included: “a guarantee that no graduate student employee be paid at a rate below the individual poverty line, a guarantee that all graduate student employees receive full tuition waivers, a fully-subsidized student health care plan for all graduate student employees, immediate action on the part of the university to ease the burden on international students caused by the loss of their health insurance subsidy, an increase in university-sponsored graduate student housing, a return of university-sponsored childcare facilities and an elimination of fees imposed by colleges and departments.” Today, the health insurance question remains despite temporary reinstatement of the subsidy.
Jason Entsminger is a first year PhD candidate and the chair of the organization’s legal committee.
“We still don’t have a secured assurance of health benefits for graduate student workers and most importantly, we also don’t have an assurance of a strong movement and concrete results in terms of creating a welcoming campus that is inclusive of all students, especially students of color,” Entsminger said.
On Tuesday, the organization shared the Mel Carnahan Quadrangle with Concerned Student 1950, a group that made national headlines Monday after UM System President Tim Wolfe announced his resignation following a series of student protests. Later that afternoon, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin also announced his resignation after receiving pressure from MU faculty.
“I think the next questions to really ask are, ‘are the board of curators listening,’ and ‘is the governor listening,’ because this is a public institution and in the end, this institution’s administrators report to those people,” Entsminger said. “I definitely think that they’re paying attention to how they make decisions of who will replace Mr. Wolf and Dr. Loftin, permanently and also in the interim.”
Connor Lewis is a fourth year doctoral candidate in the department of history, as well as a co-chair of the organization committee for the FGR.
“Racism on campus is a graduate student issue, it’s an issue for anyone in our community,” Lewis said. “I think that it’s important that we not get tunnel vision just speaking to graduate student issues or work issues, but that we also speak to social concerns of the broader campus community and I think that’s what we were doing here today.”
Lewis said the organization supported Jonathan Butler’s hunger strike from day one, and that it’s difficult to know how the recent administration changes will affect the FGR movement moving forward.
“I think that what is really kind of important for us is that this allows a space for students to have a greater say in the university administration and how the university is run, and I think that’s potentially the best thing moving forward,” he said.
Etsminger and Lewis said the group will continue to generate dialogue on issues affecting all students.
