RE: For Graduate Chairs: letter on graduate student funding levels at SFU

I concur with others that a mandate from the university is not a good idea. A mandate from the university will transfer the burden to the investigators and make them responsible for taking care of this issue without considering the differences between the fields. I have good reasons to be concerned that people with a limited understanding of the diversity in our research approaches will make decisions for all.

We can do better at our department levels. To start, we can provide more funding at the expense of having fewer graduate students per project (for existing projects) and ask for reasonable support levels for future projects. I am doing both. At the department level, we have established minimum funding requirements for new graduate students. All departments can do this considering the specifics of their research and the type of students they usually have (e.g., with or without external funding).

I do not think the university will agree to reducing the tuition because it will be a permanent loss of revenue (note that their costs have also increased). However, they can offer scholarships to students for 2-3 years until the researchers/departments stabilize the funding requests for new students. The university receives 25% overhead on all research grants, of which at least half stays with VPRI and the other half goes to the Faculty/Department (very little, if any, trickles down to the faculty or students). SFU is doing great in terms of bringing in research funding, meaning that the university has this extra bit of cash. They can use this to provide a bit of extra funding to students (at least to those hired for those projects). I believe this will be a much more productive use of the overhead money compared to the typical solutions of creating new offices and administrative positions.

Cheers

ps, I think $21k/yr average cannot be skewed by a few high fliers (we probably have a larger number of low-earners). Also, the tuition drops after the 6^th semester, so maybe the focus of the effort should be on thost first two years.

__________________

Behraad Bahreyni, PhD, PEng
Professor, School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering
Associate Member, School of Engineering Science
  SFU  Simon Fraser University

MSE 4176, 250-13450 102^nd Ave

Surrey, BC, CANADA V3T 0A3

Tel: +1 (778) 782-8694 Fax: +1 (778) 782-7514 Web: http://sense.fas.sfu.ca/

From: Nilima Nigam <nigam@math.sfu.ca>
Sent: November 30, 2022 10:53 PM
To: Leanne Ramer <lramer@sfu.ca>
Cc: Nancy Forde <nforde@sfu.ca>; Enda Brophy <enda_brophy@sfu.ca>; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca) <academic-discussion@sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: For Graduate Chairs: letter on graduate student funding levels at SFU

Dear Nancy and Enda

I'd happily sign onto any initiative to reduce graduate tuition at SFU. Students in my own department recently surveyed themselves with regards to costs of living. The numbers tell the tale. Enda's figure of 14K (post tuition) is not anywhere close to enough. A large number of these students are relying on savings or help from family. Independent family wealth should not be a prerequisite for a graduate education.

thank you

Nilima

On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 10:33 PM Leanne Ramer <lramer@sfu.ca> wrote:

Hi Nancy,

I would like to say that I 100 percent agree.

By Increasing graduate student stipends without a concomitant reduction in tuition, SFU is in effect penalizing faculty and limiting research potential.

It is difficult for me to reconcile such an obtuse position: are we supporting research and innovation or not? If the former, we are in the business of reducing turion fees. It’s a simple equation.

Leanne

Leanne Ramer, PhD, Biomedical Physiology & Kinesiology
Simon Fraser University
lramer@sfu.ca
pronouns she, her

At Simon Fraser University, we live and work on unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the Səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.

From: Nancy Forde <nforde@sfu.ca>
Sent: November 30, 2022 10:00:38 PM
To: Enda Brophy; academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca)
Subject: RE: For Graduate Chairs: letter on graduate student funding levels at SFU

Hi Enda,

Thanks for initiating this discussion. As the new graduate chair in Physics (and simply as a supervisor of graduate students), I agree that we should be supporting graduate students more, as they are barely scraping by.

However, rather than asking SFU to mandate an increase to their stipends (which would have to come from our stagnant-sized research grants), I propose that we ask SFU to reduce their graduate tuition. As you point out, students need to pay this tuition and ancillary fees from their stipends, which effectively reduces their take-home pay by ~30% (or more, depending on their stipend). If SFU is serious about helping our graduate students, I would like to see them support students by reducing graduate student tuition, at least for students involved in research-driven graduate programs. In my opinion, this would be a far more meaningful change than declaring the need for increased stipends and foisting the financial responsibility for this onto faculty supervisors, and would result in the desired outcome of increased take-home pay.

I would be happy to support a call for reduced graduate tuition.

Best wishes,

Nancy

--
Nancy Forde [she/her/hers]
Professor | Department of Physics
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Dr.
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
--
nforde@sfu.ca | http://www.sfu.ca/fordelab

From: Enda Brophy <ebrophy@sfu.ca>
Sent: November 30, 2022 4:05 PM
To: academic-discussion (academic-discussion@sfu.ca) <academic-discussion@sfu.ca>
Subject: For Graduate Chairs: letter on graduate student funding levels at SFU

Dear colleagues,

I’m writing to see if those of you serving as Graduate Chairs would participate in the drafting of a letter to the university administration calling for a timely and meaningful increase in graduate student funding levels. Graduate Chairs in FCAT have already approved this initiative in principle, and we would now like to expand this effort to counterparts across the university. We feel this kind of advocacy is warranted at this point for many reasons, but I will share some of the more obvious ones with you here.

The already high cost of living in Metro Vancouver Metro has risen dramatically in recent years and months. Vancouver’s average monthly rental price for an unfurnished, one-bedroom unit rose to $2,317 in November, an increase of more than $300 since just the beginning of this semester. Inflation is running at around 7% and food prices are up 10% year over year. Tuition costs graduate students roughly $7600 per year.

In October, Graduate Chairs were sent information on average funding levels from all sources for graduate students across the university. The data was helpful in that it allowed for comparison across units and faculties, but also deeply troubling in the broader perspective it provides regarding the kind of financial support SFU graduate students must make ends meet with. In a nutshell, the information suggests that SFU graduate students receive an average of $21,594 annually from the university.

Clearly this average is skewed by a small number of “high-flier” graduate students who do much better than most, and one must allow for cases in which students pursuing graduate study also have full-time employment elsewhere (and therefore income which isn’t captured in this data). But one must also allow for the fact that the university claws back the aforementioned $7600 per year in tuition, which brings that average total funding figure down to just under $14,000 per year). And, if $21k or so is an average figure, then many graduate students are making much less than this amount per year from university sources. The situation of international students, who in most cases cannot access competitive funding sources like SSHRC, NSRC, etc, would seem to be even more serious (but we are seemingly unable to access this data).

There are two immediate and very serious causes for concern here. The first and most obvious is that as an institution we simply aren’t guaranteeing graduate students dignified levels of financial support during their studies. The second is that the university will ultimately be the biggest loser if these inadequate funding levels persist, since—and I can attest that this is already happening—we will lose out on the best graduate students since they will opt to study at institutions where they are better supported.

To its credit the university has acknowledged that something needs to be done about this situation. In its recent draft Implementation Plan of the (also draft) Strategic Research Plan, the university commits to “study ways to shift our limited resources to better support research graduate students,” promising a “study of tuition waivers, scholarships and bursaries.” The university also commits to “work with SFU Advancement, provincial and federal funding agencies to grow resources available for graduate student support both for existing graduate students and to grow our research graduate student body” and, last but not least, within a year, to “set a university-wide minimum funding level for PhD students.”

It feels as if some public advocacy from Graduate Chairs might be of assistance in nudging the university toward making the best decision possible for graduate students. So, if you are a Graduate Chair and are interested in participating, please do reply to me off-list. And if you think the Graduate Chair in your unit would be interested in this effort, then please do forward this email to them.

All the best,

Enda

Enda Brophy
Associate Professor and Graduate Chair | School of Communication

Associate | Labour Studies
Simon Fraser University | HC 3559
515 W Hastings St, Vancouver V6B 5K3
E: ebrophy@sfu.ca

Simon Fraser University lies on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and Kwikwetlem (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm) Nations.

Nilima Nigam
Professor
Dept. of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University