VOL. 70 NO. 13 | FEBRUARY 9, 2022
CDS plans to stock The Elli with health and beauty items
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THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBLICATION OF THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO, SINCE 1950
UB dentistry school alum becomes acting director of National Institutes of Health
UBSPECTRUM
Maurice Linguist sparks radical change in his first full offseason as UB head coach
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Journey’s End and the refugee struggle in Buffalo When home is no longer safe, Buffalo becomes a sanctuary MATTHEW SZCZEPANIAK A.J. FRANKLIN STAFF WRITERS
Stranded in South Africa, a Congolese mother of three applied to resettle her family in the U.S. But she made a mistake on her paperwork. Her application was denied. She was given an ultimatum. She could reapply, which would take months or even years. If successful, both she and her kids would be able to start a new life in the U.S. But nothing was guaranteed. Her other option? An unthinkable decision. She could go by herself and leave her children behind, or send them on their own. She chose to send her kids to live with her brother in Buffalo while she stayed behind in the Congo. That decision separated her family but gave her children a chance at a safer and more favorable life. One of her children went on to be a valedictorian in high school, another a salutatorian. She never found out. Shortly after their resettlement, she died without her kids by her side. “It’s a sad story,” said Kathy Spillman, who relayed it. “But there’s not much uplifting about being a refugee.” Spillman is director of community outreach at Journey’s End, a Buffalo-based nonprofit organization that assists with the relocation of refugees from around the world in the Buffalo area. Journey’s End also assists with legal services, housing, education, employment and entrepre-
Ra Dragon / Unsplash A person holds up a sign welcoming refugees
neurship, according to the organization’s 2020 annual report. Despite the difficulties posed by the pandemic, Journey’s End still assisted in the relocation of 55 refugees to Buffalo in 2020. Most recently, thousands of Afghan refugees have applied for asylum in the U.S. following the U.S. military’s August withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban takeover. Afghans were even recorded clinging to the outside of
a U.S. military aircraft taking off from Kabul International Airport. At least two fell to their deaths, according to The Guardian. Some of the lucky few have found their way to Buffalo. Approximately 10,000 refugees have been relocated to the Queen City since 2001, according to the City of Buffalo’s 2016 New Americans Study. And that number is only increasing. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last Sep-
tember that 335 Afghan refugees would make Buffalo their new home, according to WGRZ. Many would make the trek with the assistance of local nonprofit organizations like Journey’s End. Spillman expects that number to increase this year. “We do have a fairly established Afghan SEE REFUGEES PAGE 2
Graduate student union petitions President Tripathi for higher minimum stipend, fee elimination Administrators maintain that the union must bargain with the state for their proposed reforms GRANT ASHLEY SENIOR NEWS/FEATURES EDITOR
The eight graduate students, carrying homemade signs emblazoned with slogans like “$22K for all” and “No excellence without equity,” ascended the bent staircase to UB President Satish Tripathi’s Capen office. They sat down in the cream-colored armchairs in front of the receptionist’s desk, propped their signs up against the furniture, pulled stacks of exams from their backpacks and then started grading them. The Graduate Student Employee Union, which represents all graduate students who work for the university as teaching assistants or graduate assistants, staged the Dec. 15 “grade-in” to advocate for a $22,000 minimum stipend and the elimination of broad-based fees — which are paid by most students to finance university services like transportation and athletics — for all graduate employees. The grade-in followed the union’s more heavily attended Dec. 2 demonstration and a petition to Tripathi with over 700 signatures that called for said fee abolition and stipend increase. UB raised the minimum stipend, effectively the annual minimum salary for graduate workers, for all Ph.D. teaching assistants, research assistants and graduate
assistants to $20,000 in 2019 and eliminated fees for them last June. But non-doctoral graduate workers and graduate students working outside of their academic department who aren’t subject to the $20,000 stipend baseline and fee exemption “are getting left out” by that “piecemeal” approach, according to Lawrence Mullen, an English Ph.D. student and business agent for GSEU. “About one-third of our member base actually is still paying fees and making less
than $20,000 because none of these decisions have come from the university president,” they said. But the university has maintained that GSEU is attempting to bargain with them legally, which only the state is authorized to do. “The GSEU’s petition clearly demands that the president do something that pertains to a mandatory subject of bargaining,” McKenna said in an email to The Spectrum. “GSEU has presented a bargaining
Moaz Elazzazi / The Spectrum Students hold up signs outside President Tripathi’s office last semester.
demand, to raise the base compensation (i.e. stipend) for the GSEU membership, a mandatory subject. It is important to understand that neither UB nor President Tripathi are authorized to bargain regarding mandatory subjects… GSEU negotiations occur at the state level.” But Mullen maintains that this isn’t the case. “We are urging the president to do SEE STIPENDS PAGE 7