Draper, a second-year American studies doctoral student, is one of many graduate students now left wondering how — or if — they will finish their degree at MSU as departments look to cut graduate teaching assistantships, leaving graduate students without the health benefits, tuition waivers and monthly stipends they depend upon to pay for living expenses.

“If they don’t find an answer about supplementary funding, I know most of the first and second year doctoral students are looking at other schools,” the 35-year-old Draper said. “I personally don’t have the choice to do that because I have a family. I have a house. I have three kids.”

Drastic cuts

Most department officials do not want to trim their TA positions, but, in some cases, there is no alternative, Department of English Chairman Stephen Arch said.

In the Department of English, Arch said he expects to lose between 17 and 22 graduate assistantships during the next two years, in addition to cuts he previously made to the department’s staff and budget.

“Depending on the severity of the (university’s) cuts, we’ll be looking, over three years, at cutting between 16 and 20 percent of our budget,” Arch said. “For us, that has meant a reduction in staffing. It has meant a reduction in the operating budget. After that, we’ve only (cut) 7 or 8 percent and everything (else) I can cut comes from graduate assistantships.”

The Department of Chemistry reduced the number of its TA slots from 129 positions to 115 per semester this year, said John McCracken, the department’s chairman.

He said he expects additional reductions to cut the department’s TA positions to about 100 per semester during the next two years.

“We use an army of TAs to manage the lab classes,” McCracken said. “One of the results of losing the TAs is we’re having to make all of the sections of the classes filled.”

Graduate School Dean Karen Klomparens said although she has not seen any specific plans, fewer TA positions might lead to fewer doctoral students in some colleges.

“For other colleges (that) support graduate students on research assistantships from faculty grants, the number may not change or might, in fact, increase,” she said.

Fighting for benefits

Elizabeth Pellerito, the president of the Graduate Employees Union and a former English TA, said not every department is following GEU contract guidelines when slashing its budget.

“Some of what we’re seeing is a TA position is being taken away and, in its place, we’re starting to see someone called something else, like instructors or graders,” Pellerito said. “Once a graduate student is called an instructor, they no longer work under our contract. They don’t have the tuition waiver, no base pay amount and no health care. It’s a pretty serious concern for us.”

A teaching assistant is a graduate student assigned to teach an MSU course under a faculty member’s supervision, while an instructor doesn’t have to be a student and only is contracted for a specific period of time — typically one semester — to teach an MSU course, Klomparens said.

Although representatives from the GEU meet regularly with Employee Relations, the liaison office between all collective bargaining units and the MSU administration, Klomparens said she has not been made aware of any colleges replacing TAs with instructors.

Arch said although the English department in the past has turned summer graduate assistant positions into part-time positions, the move never carried over into the academic year.

“Our understanding is we can’t do that in the academic year because the Graduate Employees Union is here,” Arch said. “Second, we can’t attract good graduate students unless we give them a good package. If we’re not offering health care benefits, then we’re not going to attract the best students.”

Trickle-down effect

As Draper waits for Wilcox to announce the fate of the American Studies Program, he has applied to the Department of History as his backup plan. He hopes to get a TA position within that department, but if he doesn’t, his college costs will drastically increase.

“Then I have to pay whatever is the cost for the credits, which I think is something between $500 and $600 per credit hour,” Draper said. “It’s sad I don’t know what (the cost) is, but that’s how valuable the tuition waiver is. It’s just convenient that I don’t have to think about it, with all the other bills I have to pay.”

Although Arch is worried for the well-being of the English graduate students who will lose their jobs, his bigger concern is how the department will continue to provide undergraduate students with a quality education.

Several department officials said fewer TAs will cause class sizes to increase as the TAs take on more students to cover classes that used to be taught by those whose positions were cut.

“We will look into ways of being more efficient and we will keep in mind that undergraduates are paying a healthy amount for tuition,” Arch said. “We have a responsibility to provide quality education, but we are worried with the increased class size that it will be a more difficult job.”