The Report by the Committee on Graduate Education, released in early April, formally acknowledged the existence of “irregularities” in graduate student compensation, including “late or incorrect payments.” Provost Diermeier wrote that these irregularities stemmed from “the complexity of our current system.”
“Students receive payments from different sources of funds, distributed through different systems, and governed by different processes,” he said. Diermeier stated that much of this work is “conducted manually and [is] subject to error.”
Graduate Students United (GSU) published a series of anecdotes on their official Twitter Wednesday afternoon about the adverse effects of these irregularities. In Twitter posts, GSU noted multiple cases where graduate students were told they would be paid in a set number of installments over the course of a quarter. On payday, however, those graduate students realized that the number of installments had risen without notice—and the amount paid per paycheck had decreased proportionately.
In another case, a graduate student reported receiving an incorrect sum in their first paycheck of the quarter. Despite writing to the administration to alert them of the mistake, the second paycheck of the quarter reflected the same error.
When asked to clarify the nature and goals of the upcoming audit, University spokesman Jeremy Manier told The Maroon that “the goal of the audit is to identify both additional short-term solutions and general improvements.” In the same message, Manier wrote that the audit “will be a detailed assessment conducted in close collaboration with the University’s academic and administrative units.”
Members of GSU took a less optimistic view of Provost Diermeier’s audit plans. In a written statement to The Maroon, GSU objected to the phrasing of the Provost’s Tuesday e-mail, accusing him of understating the severity of ongoing graduate student pay issues.
“We’re concerned that in the same message where he acknowledges the issue, the Provost pretends that it is largely solved, writing that in the ‘few’ remaining cases, the administration is taking ‘proactive’ steps,” GSU representatives wrote. The GSU also noted that it had been reporting ongoing issues with incorrect or delayed graduate student compensation long before the Committee on Graduate Education’s report.
GSU representatives wrote that contrary to the administration’s plans to address payment irregularities with an audit and its resulting policy, it is graduate students themselves that currently “are doing the proactive (and often prolonged) work of identifying and trying to correct pay errors.” GSU continued, stating that “we believe that recognition of our union and a contract that guarantees us the same pay protections as other workers is a better solution than hollow assurances or a report from a committee of auditors.”
Provost Diermeier noted that any graduate students facing payment irregularities should “continue to reach out to gradhelp@uchicago.edu
