February 22, 2023 - Spring Grad Guide

The University of Maryland’s Independent Student Newspaper

the diamondback

2023 GRAD STUDENT GUIDE

3 Maryland lawmakers include USM faculty in collective bargaining bill

4 grad student calendar

5 Rechargable power bank introduced to MD sports

6 UMD GSG calls for review of leave of absence policy

7 graduate students testify on collective bargaining bill

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A bus picks up students outside of the Parren J. Mitchell Art Sociology Building. (frances o’connor/the diamondback)

Maryland lawmakers expand USM unionization push to include faculty members

By Marwa Barakat | @marwa_b10 | Staffwriter

Maryland state legislators, backed by labor rights groups at the University of Maryland, are once again pushing for a bill to expand collective bargaining rights at state universities — but this year’s bill also includes granting faculty the right to unionize.

This year’s bill would grant unionization rights to graduate assistants and faculty, including those who are tenure-track, non-tenure track and part-time, at University System of Maryland campuses, Morgan State University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. The workers would also be allowed to negotiate their own contracts.

For two decades, similar bills have come and gone, with workers at this university launching repeated fights to pass similar legislation. Before, the bill was only aimed at granting collective bargaining rights to graduate assistants.

State Del. Linda Foley (D – Montgomery County), a lead sponsor of the bill, was also a sponsor of last year’s version of the bill.

“We have collective bargaining rights for employees at the University of Maryland, and we have these two groups that are not included in them, so we shouldn’t leave them behind,” Foley said. “They should also have a voice at work.”

More than 96 percent of members of this university’s chapter of the Association of American University Professors support collective bargaining rights for faculty, according to an analysis the group conducted last year.

The AAUP and the American Federation of Teach -

ers, a teacher’s labor union, merged last year, which has given the bill a more widespread and organized support, said Daniel Smolyak, the government-affairs chair of Fearless Student Employees. Foley added that the AFT’s efforts on this cause is a positive development and has improved the bill’s chances to include faculty.

Faculty are concerned about the labor condition of graduate workers, as well as the overall decline of tenured faculty at the university paired with a growing use of contingent faculty members, said Karin Rosemblatt, the vice president of this university’s AAUP chapter. Contingent faculty, which are generally only paid for the hours they spend teaching in the classroom, are “very poorly paid and lack job security,” Rosemblatt added.

A recent budget analysis, contracted by the AAUP, FSE and this university’s employee labor union, found that between 2013 and 2022, there was a seven percent decrease in the number of tenure track faculty at the university, while the number of those in contingent faculty positions and graduate teaching assistantships increased by 19 and 11 percent, respectively.

“We support the demands of non-tenure track faculty for labor stability and better wages and if that happens, then I think what has been happening, which is the erosion of tenure, will no longer make as much sense for administrators,” Rosemblatt said.

FSE and AAUP have sponsored a petition to support the legislation that has more than 1,500 signatures, meaning it has surpassed a similar petition from last year, according to FSE President Jan-Mi -

chael Archer.

Another difference between this year’s bill and previous proposals is the addition of provisions for “card check,” which means that workers would only need to gather signatures from at least half of the bargaining unit members to form a union, rather than hold an additional union election.

Archer said the addition of the “card check” process was inspired by the bill passed in 2021 that granted collective bargaining rights to all Maryland community college employees.

This university’s administration, including graduate school dean Steve Fetter, has consistently opposed expanding collective bargaining rights. They claimed graduate assistantships are not employment but rather a part of students’ education and that stipends aren’t meant to be a salary but instead financial assistance to help cover the costs of a graduate degree.

For this year’s bill to become law, the bill must pass through both of the General Assembly’s chambers by mid-April. Afterward, it is sent to the governor.

With a Democratic majority in both chambers and the governor’s mansion, there is more confidence and optimism in passing the bill.

The bill’s first public hearing in the House is on Feb. 14. If it passes, it will go into effect in July.

“I’m optimistic it’s gonna pass. If it doesn’t pass, I’ll be back,” Foley said. “I’m committed to keep bringing this bill until we do what we should do here, which is give these workers at University of Maryland the right to democracy in their workplace.”

(illustration by joe ryan/the diamondback)

Graduate Student

Deadlines and Calendar

Winter 2023

Jan. 6 — Master’s programs/post-baccalaureate certificates

Jan. 19 — Degree appears on record for master’s, doctoral students and post-baccalaureate certificate students

Feb. 7— Graduation application due

Feb. 21— Nomination of dissertation committee form due

March 1 — Thesis committee nomination

Spring 2023

April 18— dissertation forms due

April 25 — Thesis forms due

May 15— Nomination of dissertation committee form due

Advance professional mobility with UMD’s innovative graduate degrees. Learning options include in person or online.

May 30 — Master’s programs/post-baccalaureate certificates

June 2 — Degree appears on record for master’s, doctoral students and post-baccalaureate certificate students

Summer 2023

July 10 — Graduation application due

July 14— Thesis committee nomination due

July 28 — Dissertation forms due

Aug. 11 — Thesis forms due

Aug. 25 — Master’s programs/post-baccalaureate certificates

Fall 2023

Sept. 4 — Degree appears on record for master’s, doctoral students and post-baccalaureate certificate students

UMD alums bring rechargeable power bank business to Maryland sports games

By Nick Elliott | @nickelliott_19 | Staffwriter

Two graduates of the University of Maryland are back at Maryland sports games — but this time, instead of sitting in the stands, they’re offering rechargeable power banks that students can rent to charge their phones.

The power banks are from JUUCE, a company founded by David Greenfield, who graduated in 2020 with a degree in finance and supply chain management, and Pouya Susanabadi, who graduated in 2019 with a dual degree in physiology and neurobiology and psychology.

Greenfield and Susanabadi came up with the idea for rechargeable power banks in December 2021, when they were on a trip where the piercing cold drained the battery from their phones.

“On our drive back from New York City, we kept thinking, ‘How do we solve this issue?’” Susanabadi said. “We started getting ideas and then as soon as we got home, we started working on it.”

In the span of six months, the alumni devised a business plan, created the product and then started reaching out to this University.

Humberto Coronado, a lecturer at this university who specializes in supply chain management, was Greenfield’s first point of contact when he was looking for advice on how to launch a business and make connections across the university.

“[Greenfield] is perhaps the most intellectually curious individual I’ve ever met,” Coronado said. “The depth and breadth of ideas and his critical thinking, it’s way above the average.”

When Greenfield introduced JUUCE to Coronado, the two worked together to formulate business plans. Coronado’s assistance was mainly centered on the big picture of the company, he said.

One connection led to another, and this university’s athletics venues soon caught wind of JUUCE.

“Maryland athletics pointed us over to the multimedia rights holders, Maryland Sports Properties, and they were able to bring us in and say, ‘Hey, you guys have a great product. Let’s work together,’” Greenfield said.

The banks hold roughly 2.5 iPhones’ worth of charge and are packaged in a thin green and black canister. Us -

ers can pay for the power banks through an app, which charges $1 to rent the banks for 10 minutes and $30 to buy them. JUUCE also recently introduced wireless charging.

Augustus Sam, this university’s athletics department’s information technology director, oversees the technology in all the university’s stadiums and is a supporter of JUUCE’s founders.

“I feel like we should always be looking to help young Maryland alum and entrepreneurs in all aspects,” Sam said. “They’re young, they’re hungry, so it’s always good.”

Greenfield and Susanabadi said that they’re excited to partner with the school and implement the feedback they’ve received from students. Greenfield said JUUCE has sold out of banks on many occasions, and so he is excited to create more stations around the campus.

“We’re excited that UMD students and our partners are excited about it,” Greenfield said. “The need, the demand and the interest in this product is definitely there and we’re excited to start scaling it to other places where it’s needed.”

UMD GSG calls for review of leave of absence policy

By Marwa Barakat | @marwa_b10 | Staffwriter

The University of Maryland GSG passed a resolution Friday calling for the graduate school to review its current leave of absence policies for students, which some said they find to be limiting and likely to put students under more stress.

The current policy states that the approved reasons for a leave of absence are childbearing, adoption, serious health conditions, dependent care, financial hardships and military service.

“A couple of my constituents have brought up the issue that when they have gone through the leave of absence process and that it ended up putting them in a worse financial, mental and emotional place than when they had left,” Erin Tinney, the criminology and criminal justice representative who wrote the resolution, said.

Because those who take a leave of absence are not registered students and cannot hold a graduate assistantship, they lose access to university resources.

For international students who may have their visa threatened if they are not enrolled full-time, having a serious illness or medical condition can be one of the only grounds to remain in the United States while on leave.

The resolution suggests possible ways this university could amend the leave of absence policies, such as considering short-term absences in which students wouldn’t lose their registration status or standardizing the policies across all possible reasons for leaving.

“It’s also extremely unclear when a student goes into leave of absence,” Tinney added about the uncertainty of what taking a leave could mean for

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a student’s education and assistantship. “They know the general graduate school policies, but they might not know how their individual department is going to react.”

The resolution also suggests incorporating policies other Big Ten universities have implemented, such as Michigan State University’s policy that departments must hold assistantships for students upon their return from a leave of absence.

At its Friday session, the Graduate Student Government also passed a resolution that calls on the university’s administration and the committee for the review of student fees to establish a multi-year plan that would phase out the athletics fee for graduate students.

According to a recent survey conducted by the GSG, less than nine

percent of the graduate student body has ever attended an athletics game at this university.

“It does not seem ethically correct that for us to have to be paying towards the athletics department for something we don’t even use,” GSG President Joey Haavik said at the Feb. 17 meeting when the resolution was passed.

Each semester, full-time graduate students — those enrolled in nine or more credits — are required to pay an athletics fee of $66.50, while part-time graduate students pay $33.

According to the resolution authored by Haavik, recurrent conversations between the GSG and this university’s athletics department have taken place about the fee, but no progress has been made on the issue.

UMD faculty, graduate students testify on state collective bargaining bill

By Natalie Weger | @NatalieWeger | Staffwriter

Fearless Student Employees President Jan-Michael Archer also testified in favor of this bill.

Archer said he told the house appropriations committee in a similar hearing on Feb. 14 about the poor working conditions he experienced as a graduate research assistant.

Archer said his attempts to navigate the grievance process were met with bullying and retaliation from his advisor.

moving toward open collaboration and communication, according to Wrynn. Under this system, Wrynn said faculty and administrators can work together without a formal collective bargaining agreement.

Graduate assistants are students first, this university’s Provost Jennifer King Rice said. Their stipends are not salaries and not subject to payroll taxes.

“The progress [the university] has made without collective bargaining includes a 58 percent increase in minimum stipends over the past five years and a 32 percent increase alone in the last year,” Rice said.

University of Maryland community members testified on a collective bargaining bill in front of a state Senate committee hearing Thursday.

The bill would grant graduate assistants and faculty the right to unionize and negotiate wage, hours and other conditions of employment at University System of Maryland campuses, Morgan State University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

This bill differs from similar legislation proposed in the past because it extends unionization rights to faculty on the tenure-track, non-tenure track and part-time, rather than only to graduate assistants.

SB0247’s House crossfile, HB0275, had a similar hearing in the appropriations committee Tuesday.

State Sen. Benjamin Kramer (D-Montgomery) introduced the bill. “Colleagues, this is long overdue,”

Kramer said. “Let’s ensure we maintain the finest university system in the country and give these hardworking folks … the opportunity to bargain collectively if they choose.”

Several faculty and students across the university system testified in favor of this bill.

Karin Rosemblatt, a history professor at this university and vice president of this university’s American Association of University Professors, testified in favor of this bill. Rosemblatt said she feels like system administrators are trying to create divisions between graduate assistants and faculty, as well as between tenured and part-time faculty, through their opposition to collective bargaining.

“The [university] takes in about $132 million more than it spends … that’s about $30,000 more for each graduate assistant,” Rosemblatt said.

“I explicitly shared how escalating abuses impacted my mental health, nearly driving me to suicide,” Archer said. “What followed my oral testimony were galling claims from some of the same USM administrators who are here today, including the claim that graduate assistants are students first, as if that justifies our poor treatment.”

Jaden Mikoulinskii, a higher education graduate student at this university, is all too familiar with the failures of the current structure of shared governance, she said.

Mikoulinskii said there is a “harmful narrative” that collective bargaining will be a distraction to universities and their communities.

Several university administrators testified against the bill.

“Shared governance within the USM is dynamic and nimble,” university system Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs Alison Wrynn said.

In a recent survey conducted of campus sets of chairs, faculty described shared governance on their campus as

Steve Fetter, this university’s graduate school dean, also testified against the bill. Fetter has testified against similar bills in past MGA sessions.

It can be impossible to distinguish between the graduate assistant duties and research required for a degree, making the inclusion of research assistants in this bill problematic, Fetter said. Other peer institutions with collective bargaining exclude research assistants for this reason, according to Fetter.

Collective bargaining will interfere with the professional mentorship relationship formed with master’s students, Towson University Dean of Graduate Studies Sidd Kaza said.

Between the stipend level increases, Towson University has increased their investment in graduate assistants by $1.1 million since the spring of 2018, according to Kaza.

The bill must pass through both legislative chambers before the end of session and receive approval from the governor to become a law. If it passes, it will go into effect in July.

THE EXTERIOR of the Maryland State House in Annapolis on Feb. 3, 2023. (taneen momeni/the diamondback)

The bill differs from similar legislation proposed in the past because it extends unionization rights to faculty on the tenure-track, non-tenure track and part-time