Texas Graduate Student Diversity Addresses College of Liberal Arts Time-to-Degree Policy Changes

Texas Graduate Student Diversity – an organization committed to relieving the “feelings of isolation felt by graduate students from historically marginalized and under-served communities, with a focus on coordinated community building activities, events, and networking opportunities of interest to students across campus, from various departments and schools” – authored the following essay in response to the College of Liberal Art’s new policies regarding Graduate Student funding and time-to-degree.  Originally posted here, we reprint it with their permission.

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The recent policy changes at The University of Texas at Austin announced in June by Dean Raizen regarding the College of Liberal Arts (COLA) doctoral student time to degree requirements has lead to a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty for graduate students across the college and UT campus. Beginning in 2015-2016, Ph.D. students will not be funded past their sixth year. As indicated on the College of Liberal Arts website “Statement on Time to Degree and Graduate Student Funding”, considering the new expectations for degree completion, “the College will not support candidacy extensions for seventh-year doctoral students beyond the third year of candidacy status, or for students who have reached the end of their eighth year in the program.”  We do not contend with the need for a close examination of time to degree requirements.  However,  we do not believe a “one-size-fits-all” solution exists as Dean Raizen and other UT representatives have suggested.  In particular, we hold deep concerns about the potential disparate impact these policy changes would have on historically marginalized groups such as racial minorities, women, disabled, first-generation, and non-traditional students. Without a more thorough analysis of how these changes might disproportionately burden these student communities, we strongly oppose the implementation of the COLA time-to-degree policy as it currently stands.

Between 2003 and 2008 in the United States, the racial disparity of graduate students earning doctorate degrees in non-science and engineering fields remained at a near constant with white graduate students far more represented than graduate students of any other race or ethnicity.  In fact, white graduate students represented more than 75% of all those earning a doctorate in a non-science and engineering field for each of those years. Women, on the other hand, are better represented among those earning doctorate degrees across all non-science and engineering degrees. (Click on the chart below to see a larger image.)  However, it is worth noting that the increased feminization of the social sciences and humanities coincides with political attacks on higher education that contribute to the budgetary issues UT Austin currently faces.  To date, the College of Liberal Arts has yet to produce data pertaining to the effects of time-to-degree policies on graduate students already feeling the brunt of continuing political attacks aimed at the humanities and higher education in general.  Data collected by Texas Graduate Student Diversity regarding the impact of COLA policies on women and people of color in the Department of American Studies shows these concerns are well-founded.

College of Liberal Arts time-to-degree policy changes have the potential to disparately impact a number of historically marginalized groups who have a special history of discrimination in the graduate and professional programs at The University of Texas at Austin.  In the Department of American Studies alone, women account for roughly two-thirds (14/22) of sixth year doctoral students and above.  Additionally, about one in five (4/22) is a woman of color.  Less than 15% of our department is comprised of women of color in total.  Due to the lack of transparency regarding time-to-degree policy decisions, the disparate impact these changes will have on marginalized groups has yet to be discussed or addressed.  Additionally, the impact of these changes on students with family obligations, students with disabilities, and those with serious medical conditions has not been discussed nor addressed by the College.  In fact, it is against federal law, as reported on the UT Austin website, to “Establish rules and policies that have the effect of limiting participation of students with disabilities in educational programs or activities.”  The policy changes, as proposed by COLA, directly interfere with the law protecting people with documented disabilities.

Without data to show how these proposed changes might affect protected classes of individuals, the potential harm that can occur is too great to those already subject to inequities in other areas.  For example, the Gender Equity Task Force released a report in 2008 arguing that UT Austin is 11th out of 12 comparable institutions when it comes to the number of women ranked as full professors.  Graduate level study requires students and faculty to work closely with each other on similar topics and in similar fields.  When there is inadequate faculty presence to support a graduate student’s project –due to hiring, tenure, and other personnel issues– the student’s ability to complete a program in a timely manner is severely inhibited. In recent years this has been especially troublesome for students in the Department of American Studies and across COLA.  For example, in 2013, six professors were denied tenure, all of whom were either faculty of color or women.  Three of the six were women of color, with a total of four women out of the six faculty denied tenure that year.  Because of the university’s poor track record for retaining untenured junior faculty of color and women, this becomes another impediment for students working with these faculty.

COLA administrators state that the changes for time-to-degree expectations provide a way to increase funding for financially strapped graduate students in a moment when the Texas Legislature continues to slash funding for public universities.  Teaching Assistantship and Assistant Instructor stipends barely meet the cost of living year-round in Austin, and any efforts to provide more than adequate financial support to graduate students is welcomed and necessary.  However, the method of achieving increased funding–through a reduction in the number of graduate students in the College of Liberal Arts–threatens to undo the modest gains the university has made to increase diversity across campus.  In meetings with graduate students, Dean Raizen equivocated when asked about the effects of the changes on campus diversity.  The Dean stated that departments would, more-than-likely, become risk-averse when deciding which students to admit into their doctoral programs.  Such decision-making processes threaten to derail university commitments to increased campus diversity.  Through its use of financial and economic-based rhetoric, the College of Liberal Arts is attempting to justify time-to-degree and funding policy changes by following a corporatist model.  However, both the College of Liberal Arts and The University of Texas at Austin are on record in opposition to the corporate university model and have expressed a desire to “steer clear of oversimplified, market-driven ideas.”  The College of Liberal Arts time-to-degree policy, as it currently stands, is another example of market-based ideologies encroaching upon academia, and it directly contradicts previously stated COLA positions.  Social science and humanities programs that become more risk-averse in their admissions and funding policies will be jumping head-first into a neoliberal, market-driven university model that does not promote diversity.  More data needs to be produced to show that the current time-to-degree policy, and its risk averse effects, will not detract from the diversity at The University of Texas at Austin.

Given President Powers’s statement to the nation in June of 2013, which indicated that his administration is “committed to assembling a student body at the University of Texas at Austin that provides the educational benefits of diversity on campus,” the policy changes proposed by the College of Liberal Arts must be halted pending further review  (NYTimes.com June 24, 2013).   Now more than ever, changes to time-to-degree policies in the College of Liberal Arts should be made with the diversity of the graduate student population in mind.  Key questions that should be asked include: 1)  How will access to funding needs for students from under-represented and historically marginalized communities be ensured in the future? 2) What considerations will be made to ensure diversity at all levels of the UT Austin community is maintained and expanded after the departure of President Powers in the Summer of 2015?  3) Will considerations be made for non-traditional graduate students whose personal circumstances may not fit into the narrow definitions asserted by COLA?

As the College of Liberal Arts proceeds with these policy changes, the faces that represent the future of our great university should remain a primary consideration. Will years of work to increase campus diversity be sent to the wayside in favor of more corporatized, risk averse decisions in both graduate student admissions and funding?  The potential damage to the prestige and integrity of the University requires more deliberation and data to maintain the current administration’s stated commitment to providing opportunities to historically marginalized groups.  As the University of Texas System chooses a new chancellor and The University of Texas at Austin chooses a new president, the fate of diversity on UT’s campus lies in the hands of policy makers whose main goal is not an an inclusive graduate student body.  The ramifications of COLA decisions on graduate student diversity should be strongly considered before moving forward with the existing graduate student time-to-degree policy.

Response to the Graduate School

We emailed our petition, unanimously signed by the graduate students of the Department of American Studies, to Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Judith Langlois on June 5 and received the following response on June 10.

Because the Graduate School’s letter did not adequately address the American Studies graduate students’ concerns, we have written an open letter to Senior Vice Provost and Dean Langlois below.

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Dear Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Judith Langlois,

Thank you for reviewing and responding to our petition. Attention to our collective concerns as American Studies graduate students has been absent from other units and offices of The University of Texas at Austin generally and the College of Liberal Arts (COLA) specifically, so we deeply appreciate your response. Our goal is to foster a dialogue between graduate students and administrators, and we are grateful that you and your office have taken the time to consider our concerns. We look forward to further collaboration with you and all those involved in this matter.

However, we find elements of your response lacking. It fails to accord with what we have been led to understand about COLA’s new policies regarding graduate student funding and time-to-degree, national debates about reducing graduate student time-to-degree, and our specific experiences as graduate students in the Department of American Studies. Consequently, we would like to reiterate our call for the policy’s suspension pending a period of further review by all relevant stakeholders.

In the second point of your response, you write, “The College of Liberal Arts’ efforts to reduce time-to-degree are consistent with efforts across the University and across academia nationwide. The proposed limits on candidacy extensions and funding are legitimate approaches to encouraging degree completion in an increasingly efficient fashion.” Time-to-degree is an extremely important issue; reducing the amount of time spent in graduate school while maintaining academic standards of excellence is a project we all endorse. Nevertheless, while COLA’s efforts here may be “consistent” with similar efforts across the university and academic institutions nationwide, it does not mean that the proposed policies illustrate the best course of action, that they are clear-sighted or just. As our June 5 petition argues, they are shortsighted and ultimately untenable. Furthermore, COLA’s policy differs markedly from recent academic discussions about how to best reduce time-to-degree.

Consider the Modern Language Association’s recently released Report of the MLA Taskforce on Doctoral Study in Modern Language and Literature, which holds that any attempt to shorten time-to-degree must first grapple with curricular issues, the very substance of time spent in a graduate student program. The MLA’s report clearly suggests that attempts to shorten time-to-degree must work in concert with faculty-supervised curricular redevelopment that will best serve the evolving needs of graduate students. Additionally, in contrast to COLA’s new policy, the MLA explicitly advises against shrinking graduate student populations, which hinders academic accessibility. COLA took the opposite approach here, implementing the new policies via administrative decree; it did not consult with faculty or graduate students prior to privately or publicly announcing them. The new policies do not focus on curricular changes and instead prioritize the needs of administrators rather than those of individual departments and the fields they represent.

In the third point of your response, you write, “While the College of Liberal Arts proposal includes limits on the number of years that students will be internally funded, there is no limit on the funding that students might receive in outside fellowships and/or employment in other University academic units.” This differs from information our department chair and graduate adviser received from Associate Dean Raizen on June 4. We have been informed that after a COLA graduate student has been enrolled for six years at the University, she will be ineligible for COLA funding, regardless of how many years of COLA funding she will have already received at that point. This reflects both the language of the initial descriptions of the policy that went out to individual departments during the week of April 28, as well as that of the public announcement release on June 4, both of which speak of time spent in graduate programs. As we understand it, the criteria by which COLA funding eligibility will be determined is time spent at UT, not the number of years one has received COLA funding. This is problematic to say the least: the Department of American Studies already struggles to fund its students for more than 4 years, meaning many students will be ineligible for COLA funding prior to their sixth year. We might be ill-informed on this point, but if that is the case, it is the result of inadequate communications on part of COLA administrators, who have failed to clearly define all aspects of this policy in a public forum.

In your fourth point, you write “The College of Liberal Arts and Graduate School have been discussing lowering time-to-degree within individual departments since the mid-2000s.” This is certainly true. Though graduate students were not privy to such discussions, our department chair and graduate adviser have confirmed that they did take place and that they were successful in facilitating faster times-to-degree. COLA’s press release confirms that these discussions were successful for graduate cohorts entering between 2002 and 2007. However, our petition is not aimed at these past discussions, but at the recently proposed policies, which replace these department-focused reforms with a blanket policy that does not consider departmental differences. Neither COLA’s policies nor their implementation were open to comment or discussion by the whole UT Austin graduate community until we were informed that they were non-negotiable. COLA’s “painstaking development” of these policies did not include the stakeholders most affected by them.

Finally, COLA’s descriptions of the “phase-in period” have been ambiguous. COLA has failed to explicitly delineate the criteria by which it will grant current students exceptions to the new policies. While it may consider the circumstances of “each individual student,” the absence of any strict description of how it will consider them is cause for serious concern. This is particularly alarming given that there has been no consideration of a “grandfather policy” for current graduate students, a reasonable proposal given the number of graduate students who have been working in good faith with standing policies since their matriculation. These students are now subject to radically altered rules that threaten to transform the direction of their work and education, unless they qualify for an exception, which is impossible to determine given the vagueness of the policies on this matter. In short, while you write with assurance that current graduate students need not worry about their future at UT Austin, that “no current student in American Studies will find her/his doctoral program abruptly terminated or without support,” we have heard nothing from COLA to assuage those worries. Your “discussions with the Dean’s Office of the College of Liberal Arts” might have left you comfortable making such claims, but we have not been party to such discussions nor included in them.

We do indeed find these new policies “rather draconian.” They directly threaten our livelihoods, our education, and the future careers we have been training for since enrolling at UT Austin. Since we have been excluded from any discussion regarding their implementation, we will continue to consider them “draconian” until they are suspended pending further review by all stakeholders involved. As stated in our original petition, “it is irresponsible for graduate departments and programs to move forward with implementation of these proposed guidelines” in the absence of such a review period.

Again, we thank you for your careful consideration of our petition, and deeply appreciate your response. We hope that this exchange is the first of many about this issue, and that we can work together to address the pressures and changes facing our university, while maintaining the standards of excellence the academic community has come to know and expect from the University of Texas at Austin.

Sincerely,

The Graduate Students of the Department of American Studies

 

Response to COLA’s “Position Paper”

On June 4, the Office of Research and Graduate Studies of the College of Liberal Arts (COLA) released a statement briefly outlining its new policies regarding graduate student time-to-degree and doctoral student funding. It released this statement 36 days after Associate Dean Esther Raizen informed various COLA departments about these new policies via department-specific emails direct at department chairs and graduate advisers. It provides little-to-no new information and fails to clearly address the various problems American Studies graduate students have levied at it. In fact, it introduces several new problems, further evidence of the fact that the proposed policies are shortsighted, poorly considered, and ultimately untenable.

The Policy Publicly Summarized

In the new statement, COLA argues that it hopes to reduce graduate student time-to-degree to an average and median time of 6.5 years, .75 years less than the average time-to-degree between 1989 and 2013 and .5 years less than the median time-to-degree for those same years. Its stated goal of 6.5 years is approximately equal to the average and median time-to-degree between 2002 and 2007: 6.7 and 6.5 years, respectively. It claims to be working with individual departments to reduce time-to-degree. To facilitate this, it has imposed stricter guidelines on time spent in doctoral candidacy. COLA now expects doctoral students to enter candidacy during their third year, and no later than their fourth, declares that doctoral candidates must complete their dissertations within 3 years. It pledges not to support candidacy extensions beyond a student’s third year in candidacy, nor beyond their 8th year in their program, but will grant exceptions to students who obtain external grants. To facilitate these new time-to-degree timelines, COLA has declared that graduate students will not receive funding past their 7th year in their “program” as of 2014-15. As of 2015-16, no graduate student will receive funding past their 6th year. Again, COLA states it will grant exemptions for students who receive external fellowships, but goes further here, stating that exemptions “based on individual student’s academic programs and personal circumstances” remain a possibility.

The Problems Remain

While we are grateful that COLA has finally taken the time to publicly articulate its new policies, its statement does not significantly modify the new policies as we understand them and does not address the criticisms that we have levied against them.

First, current graduate students remain subject to these new policies, despite the fact that they have been working in accordance with the policies they matriculated under in good faith. The public announcement makes reference to exceptions and claims that COLA will “work to minimize the adverse effect that these plans will have on current students,” but such references and claims remain vague and ambiguous. Graduate students, on multiple fronts, have clearly articulated the “adverse effects” of these plans, but COLA has failed to adequately respond. Its announcement makes no effort to define the criteria for exceptions, leaving senior graduate students in precarious positions.

Second, the public announcement again articulates a “one-size-fits all” model of graduate student funding and time-to-degree. It suggests that there will be some leeway for disciplinary differences, but it doesn’t specifically say what, if any, allowances will be made. For instance, it states that COLA will “consider support during the seventh year in a small number of cases, based on individual students’ academic programs and personal circumstances,” but offers no description of what will fall under such categories, a description that is necessary if we are to accept its claims here. COLA continues to make no distinctions between students who entered UT with a B.A. and those who entered with an M.A. The announcement makes repeated reference to “doctoral students,” “doctoral programs,” and “Ph.D. students,” suggesting that COLA will consider the new time-to-degree limits only in relation to time spent enrolled as a Ph.D. student. However, conversations between Raizen and departmental representatives have demonstrated that is not the case. Both of these groups of students will be subject to the same to the same time-to-degree criteria.  If there has been a change here, COLA has not articulated it in this document.

Third, this public announcement is too-little-too-late. COLA published it on its website on June 4. Raizen notified individual departments via email about the new policies on April 28, just before the end of the spring semester, when graduate student and faculty workloads were at their highest and many were preparing to leave for the summer. The public announcement does not open any avenues for debate about the policies themselves: all stakeholders (faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students) are effectively being told that this is the new way and that any conversation on the subject must be based on this premise. It remains an administrative decision made by fiat.

On New Information

COLA’s statement provides little-to-no-new information. New material includes its newly stated expectations of graduate students and its plans to restructure funding packages across COLA. This new information remains problematic and does not resolve any of the problems with the policies as we previously understood them.

COLA writes, “Our general expectation is that graduate students maintain full-time status for the full duration of their study, remain in residence while completing their respective degrees, and include summers in their program.” Such a statement betrays a profound lack of knowledge about graduate student life. It isn’t clear if this statement regarding residency is directed at junior or senior level graduate students, but it doesn’t accord with the experience of either. It seems redundant in the case of the former. Junior graduate students, specifically those in coursework, are unlikely to leave Austin given that they are in coursework which requires in-person attendance. Senior graduate students often have to travel for extended periods of time to do research. Such travel does not impede dissertation progress. In fact, it facilitates it. (http://amstudies.wordpress.com/category/stories-from-summer-vacation/) Furthermore, it is unclear why one has to be in Austin while writing a dissertation. Of course, most students do remain in Austin, but if their research or personal matters bring them elsewhere, that does not mean they will not make progress on their dissertation. The expectation that students take courses during summers is deeply problematic. Graduate students do not receive funding during the summer – we are only paid 9 months out of the year (October through June). That means taking summer courses will likely impose further costs on students, which COLA states it is working against, unless of course it is willing to provide funding sources for students enrolled in summer courses. However, its statement suggests no such thing.

This statement newly provides a future plan for funding students:  it writes, “we will encourage College departments to offer all entering Ph.D. students recruitment packages guaranteeing five years of support starting with the first year in the program, at a level that, at the minimum, covers the cost of attendance, and including at least one year of fellowship funding.” Again, several problems remain. First, it specifically singles out Ph.D. Students, suggesting that time students spend completing their M.A. at UT will not count against them. However, as noted above, Associate Dean Raizen has privately made it clear that such time will count against students’ funding clock. Second, the Department of American Studies already struggles to fund each of its students for five years. This is due to the already scant amount of money we receive from COLA. This plan is only feasible if COLA pledges to increase its financial support to the Department of American Studies, which has not happened. Perhaps it will.

Problems with Their Justification

COLA’s justifications for the new policies remain unchanged, though the public announcement takes a slightly different approach to articulating them. In exchanges with individual department chairs and with individual graduate students, Associate Dean Raizen has claimed that the new policies are designed to increase yearly graduate student stipends. This public announcement foregrounds time-to-degree as the central issue: it is the first issue discussed throughout. The public announcement presents limits to graduate student funding cuts as a means to facilitate that.

Shortening time-to-degree is an important goal. It is an important issue in higher education across the United States and has been an ongoing COLA project. As described in the public announcement, it has successfully reduced the average time-to-degree over the past decade. This raises the question: are current policies not working? Why implement new policies to shorten time-to-degree when current policies appear to be reducing them? Furthermore, according to the recently published “Report of the MLA Taskforce on Doctoral Study in Modern Language and Literature,” the average time-to-degree for humanities Ph.D. students is 9 years, almost 3 years longer than the current COLA average (page 3). While not all departments in COLA are MLA-fields or in the humanities, this suggests that COLA’s older policies were effective. If they were not, COLA needs to clearly explain why.

This document’s references to COLA’s previously stated plans to raise graduate student stipends are vague and problematic. In exchanges with departmental representatives and individual graduate students, Raizen has repeatedly and explicitly claimed that the new policies on time-to-degree were designed such that COLA could raise graduate student stipends, often citing specific financial data, including the dollar amount of stipend raises. Despite COLA’s private insistence on such points, it appears to refuse to explicitly state them this forum. The closest it gets is its description of new “recruitment packages” described above. These new recruitment packages should, according to the announcement, cover cost of attendance at the University, which is necessary given that, as of now,  “the average yearly stipend is currently some $4,500 below that cost.” The announcement rightly acknowledges that we are underpaid laborers and goes on to imply that shortening time-to-degree is a necessary step in alleviating this disparity, though it does not explicitly state how. The announcement does state that COLA hopes to “reduce our graduate student population.” Forcibly reducing the number of graduate student workers will certainly free up funds to increase graduate student funding to an acceptable level. However, it is likely that such a plan would hinder COLA’s attempt to reduce time-to-degree. The new policies would reduce the number of graduate student workers while requiring those remaining to do more work, something that is unlikely to speed up time-to-degree.

Most importantly, the public announcement centers on shortening time-to-degree, but it barely refers to the curricular changes needed to facilitate that. The document focuses primarily on administrative and funding matters. Only one paragraph out of the document’s 15 paragraphs addresses curricular issues. Time-to-degree is a shorthand way of describing student progress through required coursework, qualifying exams, candidacy, and dissertation writing. Any effort to shorten time-to-degree must tackle these issues first. The recently published “Report of the MLA Taskforce on Doctoral Study in Modern Language and Literature” states as much: its recommendations for shortening time-to-degree all focus on restructuring graduate student curricula. COLA, however, has not mandated any curricular changes, nor shown significant interest here in investigating them apart from its vague overtures towards “working with individual departments.” It offers no perspectives on graduate student professional development, nor on the cultivation of other skills necessary for “placement in academic and other training-related jobs.” COLA’s overall lack of attention to these issues suggests that its primary motivation is financial, a belief reinforced by the fact that the only exceptions to the new policies that it is willing to guarantee are for those students who secure external fellowships, which would incur no cost to The University.

Conclusion

As we have written elsewhere, these new policies come at a time when COLA is being systematically reduced. UT, as a whole, has increased faculty-hiring by 25% and administrative- hiring by 60%. COLA faculty, however, has shrunk. There were 567 full-time faculty members in COLA in 2009-2010 and the new budget, according to COLA’s 2012 Research Report, calls for it to be reduced to 491 by 2016-2017 (page 8). It is difficult not to see these new policies as part of this larger trend, especially since the hard deadline for the implementation of the new policies, the point at which “all entering and current students should work with a clear expectation of no more than six years of College funding,” is also 2017. It would appear that COLA faculty and graduate students will be “reduced” at the same time.

As a whole, the public announcement does not change the situation in the slightest: COLA’s policies remain shortsighted and overly vague. They are unlikely to accomplish its stated overarching goal “to matriculate outstanding doctoral students and provide them with the training, experience, and support necessary for successfully completion of their respective degrees and placement in academic and other training-related jobs upon graduation.” Consequently, the criticisms outlined in the Department of American Studies graduate student petition stand.

Department of American Studies Graduate Student Petition to COLA

During the week of April 28th, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Esther Raizen notified various department chairs across the College of Liberal Arts (COLA) via email about a series of new policies regarding graduate time-to-degree and funding. According to these emails, these policies stated:

1) As of Fall 2014, College of Liberal Arts units will not fund students beyond their seventh year in the program. This applies to all types of funding, from TA/AI/GRA positions to fellowships. Exception requests will be considered only under special circumstances, and primarily in the case of students who received competitive external grants.

2) As of Fall 2014, candidacy extensions will not be approved for students beyond their eighth year in the program and/or students for three or more years since candidacy. Exception requests will be considered only in special circumstances.

3) As of Fall 2015, College of Liberal Arts units will not fund students beyond their sixth year in the program. This applies to all types of funding, from TA/AI/GRA positions to fellowships. Exception requests will be considered only under special circumstances, and primarily in the case of students who received competitive external grants.

COLA distributed no formal memo outlining these policies, nor did they publicly announce them until June 4, 36 days after Raizen first notified the Department of American Studies about their immediate implementation. During that 36 day period, American Studies graduate students, rightly worried about the implications of these new policies, wrote and unanimously signed the petition below, outlining what we understand to be the policies’ failings and our specific concerns about them. American Studies graduate students sent this petition to 10 relevant administrators at the University, including College of Liberal Arts Dean Randy Diehl and Raizen. Though COLA has now publicly announced these policies, the situation has not changed:  their public statement does not significantly modify the policies as we understand them and thus does not require us to alter the substance of our critique. In fact, it introduces more problems. We thereby believe our petition remains relevant, and present it as the UT-Austin American Studies graduate student community ratified and distributed it. A response by the American Studies graduate student community to COLA’s public announcement is forthcoming.

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 Department of American Studies Graduate Student Petition Opposing Proposed College of Liberal Arts Time-to-Degree Guidelines

Preamble

We the undersigned, graduate students of the Department of American Studies, unanimously reject the College of Liberal Arts’ recently proposed new policies regarding time-to-degree for graduate students undertaking doctoral work. As Associate Dean Esther Raizen summarized the new policy in an email to our department chair and graduate adviser:

[The College of Liberal Arts’] plan is to request that as of fall 2014 OGS not grant candidacy-status extensions to students beyond their eighth year in the program and/or students enrolled for three or more years since candidacy—this will be our default position, and we will consider exception requests only under special circumstances. We also request that as of the fall of 2014 College of Liberal Arts units not fund students beyond their seventh year in the program (and, as of fall 2015, beyond their sixth year in the program). This applies to all types of funding, from TA/AI/GRA positions to fellowships. Again, we will consider exception requests only under special circumstances, and primarily in the case of students who received a competitive external grant. (email communication, April 28, 2014)

We have significant concerns and questions about this plan’s implementation, its effects upon current and future graduate students, and its impact upon the ability of the College’s departments and programs to define and offer rigorous doctoral programs. Specifically, we are concerned with the policy’s impact on the exercise of academic freedom; apparent conflicts with established Graduate School and Graduate Assembly policies; credible harm done to current and future graduate students in American Studies; credible harm done to College graduate programs; credible harm done to the undergraduate student body, for which graduate students provide significant teaching, advising, and mentoring; and the lack of transparency with regards to the development of the plan, its implementation, and its rationale.

Call for Immediate Suspension Pending Further Review

This plan was developed without input from affected faculty and graduate students. We thereby propose the immediate suspension of all its tenets, pending the release of specific details about the plan (enumerated below) and a University-wide period of conversation and clarification that involves all relevant stakeholders, including, but not limited to, the Graduate School, the Graduate Assembly, the Graduate Student Assembly, the Faculty Senate, the Office of the President, the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, undergraduate students, and each affected graduate program.

Below is an enumeration of significant concerns we feel should be fully addressed before the College of Liberal Arts moves to enforce any part of this proposed policy. The list is not intended to be all-encompassing, but rather speaks to the complexity of each individual’s program and the impossibility of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to the proposed policy.

Enumeration of Concerns

1. The proposed College of Liberal Arts time-to-degree guidelines (hereafter, “proposed CoLA guidelines”) are incongruous with established policies regarding graduate student employment and funding. The standing fourteen-semester rule, legislated by the Graduate Assembly in 2007, allows a graduate student to be employed in the following positions for fourteen semesters: “Assistant Instructor (0045); Teaching Assistant (0063); Teaching Assistant, no student contact (0062); Graduate Research Assistant (0090); Academic Assistant (0065); Assistant (0071); and Tutor (0064).” If graduate students completed work for a master’s degree at The University of Texas at Austin, they can petition to extend employment in these positions for two more semesters. The proposed CoLA guidelines clearly contradict these employment policies, legislated by the Graduate School and Graduate Assembly. Furthermore, the fourteen-semester rule does not apply to a student’s ability to accept a fellowship or scholarship, whereas the proposed CoLA guidelines make clear that students will not be eligible for any kind of funding after the proposed cut-off dates, a second contradiction of standing Graduate School policy. (See The University of Texas at Austin Graduate School web page, “Fourteen-Semester Rule on Student Employment,” www.utexas.edu/ogs/employment/14_semester_rule.html, accessed 15 May 2014.)

2. The proposed CoLA guidelines contradict standing Graduate School time-to-degree policies, as outlined in Graduate Catalogues dating back to 2005. The 2005-2007, 2007-2009, 2009-2011, and 2011-2013 editions of the Graduate Catalogue clearly state under § Time Limits that graduate students have six years to complete all requirements to proceed to doctoral candidacy. Thereafter, doctoral students have three years in candidacy to complete, defend, and submit their dissertation before being subject to review by the Graduate Dean. These policies are guaranteed as binding under § Graduation. Since graduate students are bound to the rules in the catalogs under which they matriculate or may elect to follow any subsequent catalog as long as it is no more than six years old, we are concerned that the proposed CoLA guidelines violate standing Graduate School Policy, and troublingly reassign time-to-degree review procedures normally held by the Graduate Dean to the College of Liberal Arts. (See Graduate Catalog 2005-2007, pp. 39, 46; Graduate Catalog 2007-2009, pp. 22, 27; Graduate Catalog 2009-2011, pp. 21, 27; Graduate Catalog 2011-2013, pp. 21, 27; Graduate Catalog 2013-2015, pp. 22, 25).

3. The proposed College of Liberal Arts time-to-degree guidelines raise significant questions about the ability of the Department of American Studies to define and enforce a reasonable, field-specific timeline for the completion of a sufficiently rigorous doctoral program of work so that graduate students can effectively prepare for their professional careers and adequately compete for jobs at peer institutions. The specific interdisciplinary requirements of American Studies demand significant mastery of multiple fields. Alumni indicate that the current comprehensive exam reading requirements, which typically total more than 300 books across four fields and take between 12 and 18 months to complete, have been indispensable in securing academic jobs in American Studies and additional disciplines, and in adequately preparing them for teaching duties. The degree acceleration encouraged by the new guidelines would strongly discourage this interdisciplinary exam model, which has long distinguished American Studies alumni from The University of Texas at Austin. The proposed guidelines would do irreparable harm to the national reputation of the Department of American Studies, a program currently held in high esteem within the field.

4. The proposed CoLA guidelines pose particular challenges for graduate students whose research programs require lengthy periods of review, data-gathering, and bureaucratic maneuvering. These include, but are not limited to: research with human subjects requiring IRB approval; extensive fieldwork; extensive archival research; and international research requiring language acquisition, visas, and other documented review processes. Given that the proposed CoLA guidelines would, in most cases, bar students from taking the time required to complete such research, write a dissertation, and defend it, these new policies impinge upon the academic freedom of graduate students to design and pursue projects dependent upon substantial periods of review and/or data gathering under the guidance of their advisers. The guidelines thereby disrupt and deter a broad range of accepted scholarly, academic, and professional pursuits. This will discourage future graduate students who intend to undertake such projects from applying to programs in the College of Liberal Arts, given substantial uncertainties about the ability to complete them under the proposed policy.

5. The immediate implementation of the proposed CoLA guidelines, with no period of comment or discussion, bypasses established protocol for altering graduate programs of work, raising pressing and unaddressed questions regarding the authority of doctorate-granting departments to determine what is best for their students. These proposed guidelines will significantly impinge upon students’ ability to complete current curricular requirements, and any curricular change to a graduate program of work requires approval of the Graduate Assembly and must meet the Assembly’s legislated University-wide requirements for graduate programs. The immediate implementation of the proposed CoLA guidelines therefore threatens the ability of doctorate-granting departments and programs in the College to review their curriculums, enter into conversation with the Graduate Assembly, or revise program requirements in a timely manner consistent with established University and Graduate School protocol, and the rigorous requirements of each field.

6. The proposed CoLA guidelines rely upon vague and ambiguous language that demonstrates a lack of attention to the specificities of the various graduate programs that must now adhere to them and fail to acknowledge the fact that there can be considerable methodological and disciplinary differences even within departments. The guidelines state that, beginning in academic year 2014-2015, graduate students will not be able to receive AI, TA, GRA, or fellowship funding past “their seventh year in the program,” and beginning in 2015-2016, past “their sixth year in the program.” However, the term “program” is not clearly defined, and fails to account for differences in required coursework for students who matriculate with a BA versus those who matriculate with an MA to the Department of American Studies, and who may reasonably have different time-to-degree expectations due to these differences in degree requirements. Furthermore, since many graduate students across the College, and in American Studies in particular, pursue innovative interdisciplinary projects with advisers in multiple departments, individual students have considerable and reasonable variances in time-to-degree due to the differing disciplinary methodologies and expectations that inform their work. By failing to interface with departments regarding such differences in time-to-degree plans, the proposed CoLA guidelines inadequately reflect the needs and expectations of graduate students and their advisers.

7. The language of the proposed CoLA guidelines makes no distinctions between sources of student funding when describing new limits placed upon those enrolled in graduate programs. It suggests that whether graduate students have received no funding from the University, have received external grants or fellowships, or are employed in units outside the College of Liberal Arts – such as the Cockrell School of Engineering, the Harry Ransom Center, and UT Athletics – they will still not be able to receive any funding past their seventh year in their program in 2014-2015, and past their sixth year in 2015-2016 and beyond. The standing fourteen-semester rule recognizes that graduate student employment is often discontinuous and that fellowships should not count against a student’s ability to be employed. The proposed CoLA guidelines, however, disproportionately harm graduate students who have been funded through other units of the University and those who have financed their education through student loans. Furthermore, the proposed CoLA guidelines effectively penalize students who compete for and receive grants and fellowships, as the guidelines do not guarantee that students who have secured such funding will not have such grants count against their CoLA funding clock. This policy, and the uncertainty it causes for graduate student funding, will likely discourage students from putting their time and effort into applying for external grants. Forcing students to progress more quickly, rather than encouraging them to craft stronger projects that are recognized by external fellowships and grants, will diminish the standing and ranking of the Department of American Studies specifically, and The University of Texas at Austin generally.

8. The proposed CoLA guidelines disproportionately harm economically disadvantaged graduate students, who have fewer options for funding their graduate degrees and are more vulnerable to funding constraints, and who already receive fewer college degrees than students from more economically secure backgrounds. According to a recent New York Times Magazine story profiling The University of Texas at Austin,

About a quarter of college freshmen born into the bottom half of the income distribution will manage to collect a bachelor’s degree by age 24, while almost 90 percent of freshmen born into families in the top income quartile will go on to finish their degree. (“Who Gets to Graduate?,” May 15, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/who-gets-to-graduate.html?ref=magazine&_r=1)

According to The Pell Institute, these disparities persist at the graduate level. As fewer low-income students attain bachelor’s degrees, fewer are eligible to enter graduate school, but even amongst those who do earn bachelor’s degrees, a pronounced gap remains: only 3% of low-income, first generation students with bachelor’s degrees enter PhD programs, versus 7% of not-low-income, not-first-generation students, and only 1% of low-income, first generation students with bachelor’s earn PhDs, versus 3% of not-low-income, not-first-generation students (see: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ ED504448.pdf, pp. 18-19). Further disadvantaging poorer students at the graduate level will only accentuate this disparity, which is inconsistent with the larger mission of the University.

9. If implemented immediately as a one-size-fits-all policy, the proposed CoLA guidelines disproportionately harm graduate students at an advanced stage of their graduate careers, who have been working under both the fourteen-semester student employment and Graduate Catalog time limits rules. To ask students to drastically revise their plans with no warning is unfair, will potentially prevent late-stage PhD candidates from completing their degrees, and will reduce their competitiveness on the academic job market by foreshortening their time-to-degree. Because faculty advisers typically request three full dissertation chapters before being able to compose job market letters of recommendation, students now facing significantly shortened time-to-degree requirements will be forced to complete these chapters at an accelerated pace, which will almost certainly compromise the quality of what they are able to produce now that they must go on the job market substantially sooner than planned. Furthermore, students who are graduated at an accelerated rate without sufficient time to finish their dissertations and apply for academic jobs will be markedly less competitive on the market without institutional affiliation. The resulting decrease in graduate placement will immeasurably harm the standing of the Department and the College.

10. If implemented, the proposed CoLA guidelines will further harm current and future graduate candidates’ academic competitiveness by effectively reducing the time in which graduate students have to complete external activities necessary for competitive job placement. Chief among these activities is the ability to publish peer-reviewed articles in prominent academic journals. The process to research, write, submit for review, revise, resubmit, and finalize an article for peer-reviewed publication commonly takes between nine and eighteen months, and, even once an article is accepted for publication, lag times to reach print are variable and can extend past one year. Foreshortening the time to complete graduate degrees will harm the ranking and prestige of graduate programs, and CoLA at large, by significantly reducing the amount of time in which students have to complete and publish articles.

11. Graduate student participation in national and international professional conferences likewise increases the presence and prestige of The University of Texas at Austin as a premier research institution, and is vital for graduate student placement in competitive academic jobs. Given the modest number and limited availability of professional development grants from CoLA, it is already difficult for most graduate students to participate in more than one national or international conference per year. Moreover, in interdisciplinary programs like American Studies, graduate students are expected to go on the market having presented and/or or organized panels not only at the national American Studies conference, but also at the other disciplinary conferences that are integral to their work. The proposed CoLA guidelines’ effective reduction in funding and time-to-degree will further reduce University of Texas at Austin graduate students’ presence at national and international conferences, which will, in turn, reduce their competitiveness on the job market.

12. Competitive academic positions at peer institutions typically seek candidates with substantial demonstrated teaching experience. Reducing time-to-degree and the support for those degrees through AI and TA positions reduces the opportunities graduate students have to gain this experience, thereby putting them at a distinct disadvantage on the academic job market. Graduate Students in the Department of American Studies are especially vulnerable to the shortened time-to-degree proposal due to CoLA’s already limited funding support for the Department. Many American Studies graduate students do not have the opportunity to attain field-specific TA or AI experience until their fifth year or beyond; the opportunity to design and teach a course related to their research is an incentive for incoming students and distinguishes The University of Texas at Austin graduates on the job market; the proposed CoLA guidelines will only accentuate the difficulty of obtaining adequate teaching experience.

13. Whereas there has been some verbal communication that the proposed CoLA guidelines will effect changes in the structure of funding for graduate student employees, there have been no written guarantees or timelines for when these changes might take effect. Furthermore, in the absence of open consultation and collaboration with affected departments, it is far from clear that the proposed CoLA guidelines are the best way to achieve these ambiguously-defined changes in funding structures.

14. The development and release of information about the proposed CoLA guidelines raises serious and significant questions about the transparency with which this initiative was developed. The Department of American Studies chair and graduate adviser were not informed of any plans to implement this change in rules until April 28, 2014, and it appears other departments and programs in CoLA were equally unaware of these proposed changes. American Studies faculty have provided anecdotal evidence that some faculty in other departments are still completely unaware of this proposed policy change. Although the College may have the authority to shape policies and directives for its programs, it is readily apparent that the proposed CoLA guidelines will have University-wide effects, and should be open to public comment and debate by all stakeholders affected by potential impacts on the reputation and quality of graduate programs at The University of Texas at Austin, including, but not limited to, the Office of the President, the Graduate School, the Graduate Assembly, the Graduate Student Assembly, the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, the Faculty Senate, the programs and departments immediately affected, and the undergraduate students taught and mentored by graduate student employees. Before any department or program in CoLA may reasonably be expected to comply with the proposed guidelines, the policies should be opened to a period of public, transparent debate, with statements and input solicited from all of the entities and organizations listed above, as well as an open call to any other potential stakeholders.

Concluding Resolution

The College of Liberal Arts administration has yet to make a formal, public announcement of this policy. The brief explanations of the policy provided by the College have relied upon vague and ambiguous language. It has not provided any of the data upon which the proposed changes are based, nor has it provided a detailed justification for implementation. It has failed to provide a timeline of the new policies’ anticipated outcomes, a study of their impact upon different programs within the College, an account of how different programs or departments may be affected specifically by the proposed guidelines, or a summary of those students most vulnerable to this policy and proposals to ensure that their graduate careers are not irreparably damaged or ended. It also has not addressed how the proposed guidelines may or may not conflict with legislated and written policies currently standing and binding for graduate student conduct.

In the absence of specific data, details, and plans, it is irresponsible for graduate departments and programs to move forward with implementation of these proposed guidelines, especially given that the College of Liberal Arts administration has not consulted with its programs and departments to ensure that such guidelines are crafted sensibly and transparently, without harming current and future graduate students, and the standing and reputation of the University, the College, and the departments and programs therein.

We, the graduate students of the Department of American Studies, are strongly committed to higher education, and are proud to have the opportunity to substantively contribute to the excellence of teaching, research, and public service at The University of Texas at Austin. Given the seriousness and number of concerns raised about the proposed College of Liberal Arts’ time-to-degree guidelines, and the damage they will do to the careers of current and future graduate students, the integrity of the Department of American Studies, and the standing and reputation of the College of Liberal Arts and The University of Texas at Austin, we respectfully resolve to suspend implementation of this policy. We request a thorough, responsible collaboration with all units of the College of Liberal Arts, and input from the greater University community, to cogently and successfully develop graduate policies that are consistent with the greater mission of the University.

Unanimously ratified and signed by the American Studies graduate student body:

Anne Gessler, Ph.D. Candidate

Andrew Gansky, Ph.D. Student

Jaime R. Puente, Ph.D. Student

Julie Kantor, Ph.D. Student

Sean Cashbaugh, Ph.D. Candidate

Carrie Andersen, Ph.D. Student

Lily Laux, Ph.D. Candidate

Jacqueline Smith, Ph.D. Candidate

Ashlyn Davis, M.A. Student

Joshua Kopin, M.A. Student

Kerry Knerr, M.A. Student

Susan Quesal, Ph.D. Candidate

Emily Roehl, Ph.D. Student

Marvin Bendele, Ph.D. Candidate

Jeannette Vaught, Ph.D. Candidate

Andrea Gustavson, Ph.D. Candidate

Brendan Gaughen, Ph.D. Candidate

Natalie Zelt, M.A. Student

Philis María Barragán, Ph.D. Candidate

Amanda E. Gray, Ph.D. Student

Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa, Ph.D. Candidate

Lauren Ortega, M.A. Student

Edwin Whitewolf, Ph.D. Student

Jose Centeno-Melendez, M.A. Student

Andrew Hamsher, Ph.D. Candidate

Josh Holland, Ph.D. Candidate

Robert Oxford, Ph.D. Student

Skyler Collins, Ph.D. Student

Caroline Pinkston, Ph.D. Student

Jennifer Kelly, Ph.D. Candidate

Courtney Williams Barron, Ph.D. Candidate

Elissa Underwood, Ph.D. Candidate

B. Duncan Moench, Ph.D. Student

Tynisha Scott, Ph.D. Student

Jennifer Doane, Ph.D. Student

David Juarez, M.A. Student

Kirsten Ronald, Ph.D. Candidate

Dave Croke, Ph.D. Candidate

Irene Garza, Ph.D. Candidate

A Summary of the Current Situation with the University of Texas COLA Administration

During the week of April 28th, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Esther Raizen notified various department chairs across the College of Liberal Arts (COLA) via email about a series of new policies regarding graduate time-to-degree and funding. COLA did not announce these new policies in any official capacity until over a month later, on June 4. Content-wise, this description of the policies perfectly reflects what has been circulating amongst faculty and graduate students. The new policies are to go into effect immediately, and students who matriculated before their implementation will be bound to them.

This proposed policy is enormously problematic. First, as they’re to be implemented immediately, senior graduate students, specifically those in the later stages of doctoral candidacy, will be forced to finish within the following year or could face an unexpected funding cutoff from the administration. These students have been working in good faith in accordance with standing UT policies (outlined in our graduate handbook) that give graduate students up to 6 years to reach doctoral candidacy and 3 years in candidacy, as well as a maximum of 14 semesters of university employment, excluding fellowships, all of which the new policies directly contradict. Although their press release makes vague gestures towards exceptions to the new policies being granted for some students, there is no broad-based allowance in this policy to grandfather advanced students in.

Some faculty believe that exceptions will be easily obtainable, while others think very few will be granted except for those who receive “prestigious external grants.” We would expect some exceptions to be made for students who confront health issues, financial difficulties, or unanticipated research/advising obstacles, but those don’t appear to be explicitly on the table. These new policies will, in many cases, result in hastily written dissertations of lesser quality or that it will result in students not finishing, both of which will harm the reputation of my graduate program, as well as that of UT.

Second, the new policies follow a “one-size-fits-all” model of graduate student funding and time-to-degree, ignoring the differences between different fields and graduate programs, which reasonably display different times-to-degree. It poses particular challenges for students whose work relies upon time-consuming research practices such as fieldwork or archival research, which can lengthen time-to-degree. This issue is compounded in interdisciplinary fields like American Studies, which features considerable variance in time-to-degree given the range of methodologies it relies upon.

Furthermore, the new policies don’t account for the differences in coursework for students who matriculated with a BA and those who matriculated with an MA. Entering with a BA requires two or more years of additional study to procure an MA degree before pursuing doctoral study, but COLA has no interest in taking that discrepancy into account. COLA claims they will only grant students six years of funding before cutting them off regardless of the degrees that students enter their program with. Furthermore, the COLA funding cutoff is a particularly potent problem in American Studies, a program that already operates on a bare bones budget thanks to the administration. Our students by necessity have worked as TAs or instructors in other colleges and often aren’t able to obtain employment as TAs or instructors in the Department of American Studies until their fourth or fifth years – sometimes even later. According to the new policy, such students will still be denied funding after their sixth year in the program.

Third, there’s been a profound lack of transparency surrounding the new policies. It took 36 days from a vague email from COLA for the administration to put together a vague press release announcing the changes. It isn’t even clear that all departments across COLA have been informed about the new policies. There was no public discussion about their implementation, nor were those most affected – faculty and graduate students in COLA – consulted. The decision to forcibly reduce time-to-degree seems to be a purely administrative decision, one made by fiat without consulting the faculty who know their students and can best advise them about their time-to-degree paths. If COLA really wanted to increase time-to-degree, we would expect them to want to work with faculty members who shape the trajectories of individual graduate programs, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. This can only harm the reputations of the various departments within COLA, as well as that of UT generally.

Graduate students are being told that these new policies are designed to raise graduate student instructor and teaching assistant stipends. We’re being told that COLA needs to raise $4.5 million dollars to do so. In order to raise this money, they are trying to reduce time-to-degree via these new limits on graduate student funding. This makes no sense. By paying graduate students more, they hope to speed students through their programs. However, the new policies will likely have the opposite effect. Senior graduate students currently teach a significant number of essential courses (such as required writing courses). Under the new policies, such students will be forced out, leaving less experienced graduate student instructors with heavier workloads, something that will certainly slow down dissertation progress, as well threaten the quality of undergraduate education at UT.

These new policies come at a time when COLA is being systematically reduced. While across UT, faculty hiring has increased by 25% and administrative hiring has increased by 60%, COLA faculty has shrunk. There were 567 full-time faculty members in COLA in 2009-2010 and the new budget, according to COLA’s 2012 Research Report, calls for it to be reduced to 491 by 2016-2017. It’s difficult not to see these new policies as part of this larger trend. The College of Liberal Arts is a major asset to the university, but these sorts of administrative decisions severely threaten the livelihood and work of the people that make it an asset in the first place.