http://www.voxmagazine.com/magazine/why-they-walked-out-mu-grad-students-have-had-enough/article_0a98d72a-db34-11e5-a59e-0b4ead52b4b3.html

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Why they walked out: MU grad students have had enoughThe movement of rights and recognitions continues amid university changes

DANIELLE ZOELLNER FEB 25, 2016

The abdominal pains shot through her like nothing she hadexperienced before. Natalie McCabe, an MU doctoral student in theDepartment of Theatre, woke up at 3 a.m. and immediately knewsomething wasn’t right. And then the hemorrhaging began.

MU graduate students gathered on Francis Quadrangle during a protest on Aug. 26. *Correction: A previous version of this caption misidentiAed the group andthe location.

JOHN HAPPEL

McCabe was having a miscarriage. It was Monday, Aug. 17, just three days after MU graduate students received an email from theuniversity informing them they were losing their health insurance.

The child was supposed to be her second, but McCabe’s body had different plans. Eleven weeks into her pregnancy, she knelt on herbathroom’s tile floor in the early morning and attempted yoga poses to relieve the pain. There was a graduate meeting planned thatday at noon to discuss what the students were going to do about their insurance. McCabe planned to attend, but her situation madeit impossible. “I had other very immediate concerns, so I never made it to that meeting,” McCabe says.

She knew she needed to go to the emergency room, but she no longer had insurance to help pay for the visit. McCabe logged on tothe MU website and signed up for the student health insurance plan out of her own pocket with the hope that the insurance wouldstart working right away. For the fall semester, this coverage would cost $1,240. “I delayed going to the ER, so I could have healthinsurance,” McCabe says. “But I didn’t have health insurance through someone else’s fault — not my fault.”

She says she went through a lot of negative emotions that day. She felt sadness for herself and anger toward the administration.The crying didn’t hit her until later, McCabe says, because she was focused on dealing with the immediacy of her situation. She wasultimately able to cancel the out-of-pocket insurance and sign up for MU’s reinstated plan, which went into effect a few days lateron Aug. 21. But the timing of the changes couldn’t be worse. “You do everything right, but then your body fails, and administrationfails with you, too,” she says. McCabe was one of the almost 6,500 graduate and professional students who were blindsided byMU’s decision to end health insurance coverage. None of the governmental bodies for graduate students that work with theadministration were notified prior to Friday, Aug. 14.

Natalie McCabe and her daughter, Niamh Tartiere, take part in the Arst graduate student walkout on Aug. 21. A colleague of McCabe's made her daughter amatching grad student dress out of one of the red shirts used for the walkout.

ELLISE VERHEYEN

Rachel Bauer, vice president of MU’s Graduate Professional Council, was on vacation with her parents in Maryland when shereceived the email. Bauer handed the phone to her mom in shock and asked her to read the email out loud to confirm that it wastrue. “I just didn’t think that the university would do something like that,” Bauer says.

The announcement was especially problematic for international graduate students because MU requires them to have coverage.This costs $1,865 for the annual premium coverage and the administrative fee. Jacqueline Gamboa Varela, a doctoral student in theDepartment of Chemistry, is from Chihuahua, Mexico. “My thought process was that I need to start saving money,” she says. “It’snot like domestic students where they can choose whether they want to be added onto the student health insurance. For us, it isautomatic when we enroll.”

To make matters worse, it’s hard for international students to get jobs outside of their appointments at the university, which makesit even more difficult to save money. Gamboa Varela has a teaching assistant position at MU but says she can’t get another jobunless she goes through the Curricular Practical Training, a temporary employment authorization for foreign students in theUnited States. This authorization allows for off-campus employment, but these jobs have to be related to a work or study program.

The end-of-coverage decision followed the MU Office of Graduate Studies announcement in June 2015 that graduate students whohave quarter-time assistantships would not get a full-tuition waiver after fall 2016. Instead, these students would have to pay 50percent of their tuition. Quarter-time assistantships require 10 hours of work every week with a minimum stipend of $6,000 peracademic year. If students with quarter-time assistantships do not have a tuition waiver, they will pay close to $1,250 as a residentand $3,600 as a nonresident for a full-time course load of nine credit hours per semester. “I don’t think you should be going intomore debt in graduate school,” Bauer says. “I know a lot of students who take out loans just to get by.”

Protesters show support on Aug. 26, after MU announced the removal of graduate students’ health insurance coverage.

JOHN HAPPEL

Bauer receives the minimum stipend for a half-time assistantship at MU. She receives a full tuition waiver and earns a little morethan $12,000 per year for 20 hours of work per week. But Bauer says she normally works more than that. “What we are paid is notreally enough to live 12 months out of the year,” Bauer says. “My money is taken up in just bills every month.”

Once the health care coverage change was announced, graduate students met that Monday, Aug. 17, to decide the proper course ofaction. “It seemed to have taken everybody by surprise,” says Cheryl Black, director of graduate studies and professor in theDepartment of Theatre. “Everybody seemed to be trying to get a handle on it.

Two days later, the Forum of Graduate Rights, which was created in response to the health insurance email, released six demands.These demands included a tuition waiver regardless of the assistantship hours or position, pay above the poverty line for allgraduate students, a fully subsidized student health care plan, on-campus housing at an affordable price, course fee waivers andon-campus childcare.

The Forum allowed the administration six days to come up with a plan to meet these demands. During that week, graduatestudents also sent emails to administrators explaining why losing subsidies had such an impact on their lives. McCabe emailedformer Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, former UM System President Tim Wolfe and the UM System Board of Curators. The firstresponse she received was from Wolfe. She says his assistant sent an email addressing her by the wrong name, then sent her asecond email saying, “President Wolfe would like to retract that email.” Then she got a third email with the exact same text as theoriginal email but with the correct name. The UM System Board of Curators responded later. Loftin never did.

The former MU chancellor reversed the decision to end the year’s health insurance coverage Aug. 21, a week after theannouncement that the subsidies would be taken away. Still, the students did not think that was enough. Crowds of graduatestudents, faculty, children and supporters streamed out of classrooms and buildings across MU during the first graduate studentwalkout of the year on Aug. 26., the second day of the semester. The group stood in solidarity, many decked out in red as a sign ofprotest against the university.

Dol

lars

Stipends for Graduate StudentsMU in Comparison to the SEC

12 000

13 500

9 00010 000

13 000

8 000

6 0006 750

4 5005 000

6 500

4 000

Min. Stipend for .5 Assistantship Min. Stipend for .25 Assistantship

U of Missouri U of Alabama U of Arkansas U of Mississippi U of Florida Texas A&M0k

5k

10k

15k

Highcharts

McCabe; her husband, Jean Tartiere; and their daughter, Niamh, were in the group that marched at noon, starting from FrancisQuadrangle, around Jesse Hall and ending at Traditions Plaza.

A colleague took one of the red shirts and sewed it into a dress that McCabe’s toddler could wear for the protest. McCabe’s familywas one of the many that could be heard across campus screaming chants such as, “M-I-Z shame on you.” One child wore a redshirt and held a sign that said, “Grad student rights affect me too!” The rally continued for the rest of the afternoon as peoplefiltered in to listen and sign petitions in support.

The university created a health insurance task force to present students' recommendations in place of the current insurance plan.*There are four graduate students on the task force: an international student, a student with the lowest stipend, a parent and a first-year graduate student.

“We tried to put together four names that were as broad of a representation of graduate students on the task force,” Bauer says. Sheis one of the four on the force and represents those who receive the lowest stipend. Together, the four individuals were responsiblefor creating a plan that was originally supposed to be given to Loftin by Nov. 30. Instead, the task force presented its plan toInterim Chancellor Hank Foley on Nov. 16.

Foley reviewed the recommendations for health insurance to come up with a course of action. The three recommendations thegroup presented were to provide a financial fellowship to graduate student employees, increase stipends or provide a silver-levelinsurance plan option through the Affordable Care Act.

*Correction: A Previous version of this video incorrectly explained why University Village closed. The apartment complex wasdemolished after a balcony collapse in February 2014.

JOHN HAPPEL

“We just want to be compensated for the work we are doing,” Bauer says. “It’s not that we aren’t willing to work. We are. I don’tknow a single person who is not in it for the long haul to improve this university, and it would be nice for the university toacknowledge that.”

Outside of the health insurance issue, college departmental fees can take up a large chunk of graduate student stipends. For MUstudents, there is usually a per-credit-hour course fee when registering for classes. A graduate student will get tuition waived butwill still have to pay these fees. Kristofferson Culmer, president and CEO of the National Association of Graduate-ProfessionalStudents and a graduate student in the College of Engineering, also makes the lowest stipend. In the College of Engineering, feesare $82.40 per credit hour, according to the MU cashiers office. So if an engineering graduate student takes the maximum of ninecredit hours, the student will have to pay $741.60 per semester in fees. Also, the Engineering Excellence Fee, passed in Spring2014, is $73.50 per credit hour for nonresidents and $31.50 for residents.

Graduate students, specifically teaching assistants, define these fees as “being charged to receive their own paychecks,” accordingto the Forum on Graduate Rights website. “I’m done taking classes; I do mostly research,” Culmer says. “Graduate students aren’tusing the same resources as undergraduates. So charging a student for resources they aren’t using is a bit unfair.”

The graduate students want better housing in addition to the waiving of excess college course fees. McCabe was pregnant withNiamh when the University Village apartments balcony collapsed in February 2014. Although she was living in a different buildingat the complex, she still had to move apartments two weeks before her due date because MU vacated all units. McCabe and Tartieremoved to Tara, another university-owned apartment complex.

Natalie McCabe’s daughter, Niamh, is 21 months old. McCabe was pregnant with her when a University Village building in their complex collapsed, and she andher husband, Jean Tartiere, had to move.

“Housing that gets maintained better is the first goal,” McCabe says. As a precaution, all the balconies in Tara were torn down afterthe University Village collapsed. But McCabe says that the rent stayed the same. “Sometimes it seems that when they come acrossthings that are going to cost money, they ignore them or eliminate them,” McCabe says. “There was a pool in Tara, and now, it iscompletely filled in with concrete.”

On top of more and better housing, there is a need for on-campus early childhood care. McCabe’s 21-month-old daughter iscurrently not enrolled in childcare. Both McCabe and Tartiere work on campus. It’s difficult for them to find affordable childcarenear campus that fits their daughter’s age group, so they alternate watching her throughout the day. This is increasingly difficult asNiamh becomes older and more active.

“There is not a feasible option for us right now, especially one that meets our time and budget,” McCabe says. She and Tartiereshare the same office, and they have a playpen and toys set up so that they can watch their daughter on campus. But not allgraduate students have the option to bring their children to work.

Students and supporters also want to establish a union on campus for graduate student workers. Eric Scott grew up in a unionhousehold with his father in the St. Louis Carpenters union, renamed the St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Council.Scott’s wife is a graduate student at the University of Illinois, where the graduate students have been unionized since 2003. Scotthas wanted a union at MU since he came to campus in August 2013. He just didn’t know if he was the right person to lead thecharge. When the health insurance situation started at the beginning of the fall semester, he decided it was time and was elected asco-chair of the Coalition of Graduate Workers.

"I don't think you should be going into more debt in graduate school." — RachelBauer, Vice president of MU Graduate Professional Council

The support for graduate students to form a union is widespread across the university. Heather Carver, chair and professor of theMU Department of Theatre, sees graduate students as workers, too. “The previous chancellor was not on board with understandingthe importance of graduate students at the university,” Carver says. “(Graduate students) feel the need to have a presence and to beheard.”

Scott formed the group with Connor Lewis on Aug. 18. “The purpose of the coalition is two-fold,” Scott says. “The first is that wewant to get a contract in place that has enumerated provisions for graduate student workers. The second thing is that we want to bea social movement.” This is a large reason why graduate students supported Jonathan Butler and Concerned Student 1950.

On Nov. 2, Butler announced he would partake in a hunger strike until Wolfe resigned from office. The Forum on Graduate Rightsannounced that graduate students would hold another walkout in solidarity with Concerned Student 1950 on both Nov. 9 and Nov.10. “Black graduate students are graduate students as well, and these racist incidents that we have been having affect them,” Scottsays. “It was just important for us to stand with students of color for that reason.”

Classes were canceled across many departments on Nov. 9 as people gathered on Mel Carnahan Quad. At 10:15 a.m., Wolfeannounced his resignation, and Butler ended his eight-day hunger strike. Six hours later, Loftin announced that he would bestepping down from his position as MU’s chancellor. Despite these announcements, graduate students continued to participate inthe two-day walkout to raise awareness of their rights and their desire to create a union.

The first step in forming a union is to get people to sign a card saying they want a union election vote. The graduate students haveto show that there is enough support on campus before an election can occur. In order to move forward, a minimum of 30 percentof the graduate student body needed to sign, and the coalition has since received a majority of more than 50 percent interest in theunion.

The next step is to hold a third-party election, which students must work with the university to arrange, Scott says. This is provingto be more difficult because there is a legal gray area under the Missouri constitution regarding whether graduate students have alegal standing as workers, and there is currently no legal precedent for this, he says. “We have a constitutional right to have anelection, but there is no clear process for that,” Scott says. “We’re continuing to press for our constitutional rights.”

The coalition is currently working with its lawyers to build a case that grad students who work for MU should be consideredemployees. Scott is hoping for the dispute to be resolved within the next couple of months, so they can host a union election. If theyare not approved as employees to have an election, the coalition will still keep fighting for the right to form one, Scott says. Untilthen, the coalition meets weekly to work on its bylaws and to plan further action and organization.

The union would help ensure that the same health insurance issue wouldn’t be able to happen again because of the contract itwould hold with the university. Although the university now promises graduate students health insurance through the next fiscalyear, Scott doesn’t believe this is enough. “I don’t care about their promise; I care about having a union,” Scott says. “If we have aunion, we won’t need a promise because we will have a contract.”

Tartiere and McCabe kiss their daughter, whom they take turns watching on campus in their shared ofAce. There are currently no affordable childcare options forher age group, McCabe says.

Loftin announced Oct. 14 that the university would guarantee health insurance for all graduate students in the future. McCabe isn’tconvinced, though, that losing something so quickly won’t happen again in the future.

“We had something that was in writing (in our job contracts),” McCabe says. “That wasn’t listened to, so why should I listen to thechancellor? Those are words, so until I see that put into action, I won’t believe it.”

The university also released a statement on Nov. 5 stating that a tuition waiver would be guaranteed for graduate students throughfall 2017 and that those accepted into programs are grandfathered in if further changes occur.

The uncertainty and back-and-forth about what graduate students will receive in their contracts throughout the next couple ofyears has made the recruitment process difficult. Carver was as shocked as the students when the health insurance announcementhappened. “No one, even faculty, knew it was going to happen,” Carver says. Not only did her department worry about the currentgraduate students but also the graduate students they had just recruited. “We weren’t going to make promises that we couldn’t keepwith their contracts,” she says

Carver has been working with administrators and on a graduate student task force to help make life better at the university. “Wedepend on (graduate students),” she says. “A healthy person makes for a good person on the job.” The English Department has feltthe uncertainty surrounding the graduate programs. Applications are down 25 percent this year, according to Bill Kerwin, thedirector of graduate studies for the department. He believes this is partially due to the climate of instability on campus.

Graduate students across campus have lost confidence in the administration. McCabe loves her department, but with how betrayedshe has felt by administration, she can’t say that she would choose the university again. “I don’t have any faith in thisadministration, and as an outsider looking in, I would rather go to a university with a better track record,” McCabe says. Healthinsurance is a large reason why Bauer and many other graduate students chose MU. “Ethically, I’m not sure I can recommend thisuniversity to someone unless this is fixed,” Bauer says. “It makes up for the low pay.”

JOHN HAPPEL

This betrayal by administration has haunted McCabe since the day she miscarried. After her husband and doctor persuaded her,she finally went to the ER, about six hours after the miscarriage started. That wasn’t the end of her health problems, though.

By the numbers: SEC graduate studentsHow MU stacks up against conference rivals when it comes to tuition waivers, health insurance and union

Tuition waiver Health insurance Unionized

Univ. of MissouriFull waiver for both quarter-time

and half-time assistantships

University pays for some half-timeassistantships; quarter-time must

pay 50 percentWorking on forming a union

Univ. of Alabama

Full tuition waiver for half-timeassistantships; 50 percent tuition

waiver for quarter-timeassistantships

Free for half-time assistantships;quarter-time depends on program

No

Univ. of ArkansasHalf-time assistantships get full

tuition waiver; quarter-timeassistantships pay in-state tuition

Half-time assistantships get 60percent of plan paid for by

university; quarter-time must payfor plan on their own

No

Univ. of FloridaTuition waived for both quarter-time

and half-time assistantships

University does not pay for plan.The minimum plan is $2,500 peryear, and the maximum plan is

$5,000 per year

Yes

Univ. of Mississippi

Half-time assistantships receive fulltuition waiver; quarter-time

assistantships receive 75 percenttuition waiver

University pays plans for bothquarter-time and half-time

assistantshipsNo

Texas A&MUniversity waives out-of-state

tuition and fees but requires in-state tuition and fees

Half-time assistantships eligible foruniversity to pay; quarter-timeassistantships are not eligible

No

In early October, she learned that she still had placental tissue inside her that was causing problems. McCabe had a dilation andcurettage to clear out the uterine tissue that would cause further complications. Her health insurance was reinstated, so she couldhave the procedure, but she says that she would not have consented to the procedure without insurance, even though it was badlyneeded.

There have been big changes in administration with an interim chancellor and UM system president taking the reins. Foleyreviewed the task force’s recommendations and announced on Jan. 27 that the university will raise graduate student stipends to atleast $18,000 for the 2017-18 school year for half-time assistantships. All other assistantships will see similar raises throughout thenext two academic years. Graduate students showed up to Foley’s speech dressed in red. Although many are happy about theincrease, concern lingers.

It’s a step in the right direction, but this isn’t the end of graduate students working for progess. The Coalition of Graduate Workersis continuing the fight to form a union. No longer will they rely on the university to give them the benefits they believe they deserve.Together, clad in red, the graduate students are moving forward. There’s no stopping them.

RACHEL BAUER

Bauer is vice president of MU’s Graduate Professional Council and, as a teacher and teaching assistant in the theatre department,makes the minimum stipend for this halftime graduate assistantship. She makes a little more than $12,000 for nine months ofwork, at least 20 hours per week. Bauer is one of four on the task force for the Forum on Graduate Rights.

ERIC SCOTT

Rachel Bauer is a graduate student in the theatre department and the Vice President of the MU Graduate Professional Council.

A DV E RT I S E M E NT

TAGS MU GRADUATE STUDENTS MIZZOU GRADUATE STUDENTS NATALIE MCCABE MU MIZZOU COALITION OF GRADUATE WORKERSR. BOWEN LOFTIN AFFORDABLE CARE ACT HANK FOLEY JACQUELINE GAMBOA RACHEL BAUER TIM WOLFE MU THEATRE DEPARTMENTMISCARRIAGE HEALTH INSURANCE ADMINISTRATION STUDENT HEALTH INSURANCE GRADUATE STUDENT RIGHTSGRADUATE PROFESSIONAL COUNCIL PROTESTS JACQUELINE GAMBOA VARELA MU DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRYCURRICULAR PRACTICAL TRAINING INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS MU OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES TUITION WAIVER CHERYL BLACKFORUM ON GRADUATE RIGHTS UM SYSTEM PRESIDENT UM SYSTEM BOARD OF CURATORS MU CHANCELLOR COURSE FEESKRISTOFFERSON CULMER NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GRADUATE-PROFESSIONAL STUDENTS MU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERINGENGINEERING EXCELLENCE FEE UNIVERSITY VILLAGE ON-CAMPUS HOUSING ERIC SCOTT GRADUATE STUDENT WORKERSGRADUATE STUDENT WALKOUT HEATHER CARVER CONNOR LEWIS JONATHAN BUTLER CONCERNED STUDENT 1950 CS 1950HUNGER STRIKE MEL CARNAHAN QUAD MU ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SEC

Scott is co-chair of the Coalition of Graduate Workers, which he formed with Connor Lewis on Aug. 18, 2015. He is working toestablish a union for MU graduate students like himself. His father was in a carpenter’s union in St. Louis, and his wife is agraduate student at the University of Illinois, which has been unionized since 2003.

*Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified the group that created the health insurance task force.

Eric Scott is a graduate student and the Co-chair in Coalition of Graduate Rights and has been in the forefront of the protests Aghting for the rights of all gradstudents.