THE HOWs AND WHYs OF THE PRINCIPLES OF BEST PRACTICE

Graduate Student Employment

Motivated by concerns about future growth and change in our Department resulting from graduate expansion, a small group of students (as part of GGAPSS) began asking questions about our guaranteed funding package, external scholarships and paid work.

These inquires led to a Graduate Funding Information Session¹ with our Graduate Coordinator and Graduate Chair in November 2007 which will become an annual event and initiated the process of drafting the Principles of Best Practice: Graduate Student Employment Equity Statement in December 2007. While the Funding Information Session outlined the current administrative breakdown of graduate funding, the intent behind the Employment Equity Statement was more future oriented. The Employment Equity Statement was intended to address concerns of inequality in employment practices in our Department before they became an issue. Research Assistantships (RA) and Teaching Assistantships (TA), in addition to University of Toronto Fellowship (UTF) funding, are part of the guaranteed funding package for students in the funded cohort². Discussions began to emerge from students over whether there was potential for treating TA and RA positions as equal and comparable work considering that both form part of the funding package. Addressing and minimizing the differences between these two forms of graduate student employment -- wherein Taships are identified as unionized labour complete with a set hourly wage, contract, and Collective Agreement, and RA-ships are non-unionized labour with differential wages and contracts -- became a priority. Ensuring fair and equitable graduate employment is important for both students and faculty and will help maintain a high level of competitiveness in attracting prospective graduate students and faculty.

In January 2008, the student-led, yet collaborative process of drafting an Employment Equity Statement began. Drafts of the Equity Statement were presented at GGAPSS meetings, Graduate Committee Meetings and Department Council meetings with input from students and faculty solicited throughout. This Statement is one of the first steps for ensuring a future of fair and equitable graduate student employment in our Department.

Ensuring fair and equitable graduate employment is important for students and faculty. For students, it guarantees that those in the funding package in all divisions of the department receive comparable remuneration for work, and have comparable access to both professional development and research opportunities. Also, while stipend RA work awarded through grants like SSHRC do not carry hourly allocations as does TA work, equitable practice will mean that certain students do not face unfairly onerous financial requirements in the pursuit of their degrees. For faculty, a practice of fair and equitable graduate employment can ensure that supervisory relationships do not become exploitative, and that there is a clear protocol around which faculty can fashion mutually beneficial employment situations.

It is our hope that the Principles of Best Practice: Graduate Student Employment Equity Statement will help foster communication between faculty and students in relation to RA work and will provide faculty with further guidelines for ensuring employment equity and establish a precedent for other such projects in the future.

Notes
¹ To download the details of Graduate Student Funding in the Department of Geography go to: www.ggapss.wordpress.com.
² The funded cohort includes first-year Geography MA Students and first to fourth year Geography and Planning PhD students. The unfunded cohort consists of first and second year MA in Planning, second year Geography MA/MSC and fifth-year (plus) Geography & Planning PhD students.