As college students, we all know that the changes being made to the Department of Education (DOE) are having a large impact on the opportunities available to us. It’s had a particularly large impact on grad-level students in the humanities, who are already treated as if they are wasting their education. Now, the DOE has designated what degrees are really worthy of funding, making the resources for all grad students significantly harder to access and creating Teacher Assistant/Graduate Assistant (TA/GA) positions just to keep program attendance existent.
Oftentimes, finding a position as a TA/GA is the most helpful form of financial aid to grad students because both a “paycheck” and tuition reimbursement are offered—particularly if you’re full time—and these positions often give the student transferable workplace experience. However, especially in smaller programs where funding gets cut first (like the English MA that I’m currently enrolled in), this highly sought-after option is stolen from the student. I was promised a TA position instructing first-year composition when I applied, but by the time the semester started, our funding had been slashed and almost my entire cohort was left with no support to finish our degrees.
Although I can’t speak to my classmates’ experience with this dilemma, I can say with full confidence that I was panicking. Luckily, I had connections that resulted in landing a job as the grad school’s communications GA. I have been incredibly grateful for this position as I wouldn’t have been able to finish my MA without it, but being a GA has taught me that if nothing else, university demands sacrifice; you have to decide what you’re willing to give up or endure to actually get to the workplace.
Stereotype
I found out the hard way that there’s a very strong stigma surrounding GAs. Simply because they’re still students, they’re stereotyped as dumber, slower, and less responsible than their full-time counterparts. This is obviously not an opinion shared by all university staff and faculty, but it’s common enough that I’ve been asked to not touch a project because I wouldn’t do a good enough job.Â
Ironically, not only do I have the exact same job as the Communications Director, but I also run the Instagram account entirely alone, and all for less than half of the pay. In fact, when my boss isn’t in the office, I fully take over his role and run the department. I also have a higher level of education than the current communications director, a more relevant degree focus and similar levels of experience. However, I regularly find myself trying to do my job from the outside looking in, never actually integrated as a part of the faculty’s community. Â
Respect
Plain and simple: the lack of mutual respect found between adult and student staff is astounding, regardless of intention. There was a week-long period where my boss was out of the country, and I was working on a few projects for a professor who works as the connection point between school faculty and the graduate office. Not only have I been told by this woman that she ignored my messages because she refuses to use Microsoft Teams (the main communication app of our entire university’s workforce), but every boundary I set gets completely ignored as well.
For two weeks, I fought with this professor over submitting a formal request so that I wouldn’t get in trouble for not having a written record of the task. Another two weeks were spent stressing that we’re not an emergency service and need 48-hour notice for any project. There have also been several instances of this professor replying to my emails and completely misspelling my name — and for anyone who has used Outlook before, you’ll know that they spell out the full name of the sender at the top of the message — but just earlier this week I got in trouble for not referring to her as “Dr.” or “professor” in an email. Regardless of the circumstance, any solution or correction that has occurred has been due to an email cc’ing the Associate Dean.
My experiences with different staff members do not always show this level of disrespect, but there’s still a clear discrepancy between what’s expected of GA’s vs. how we’re treated, making even basic tasks an uphill battle.
Authority
Perhaps the stereotype and lack of respect towards GA’s can be attributed towards the lack of authority and agency we are allowed. There’s no authoritative claim I can make for myself or others that can’t be usurped by a full-time staff member, meaning it becomes impossible to maintain the level of professionalism that you want when working towards your degree. Your time, values, expectations and even job role are constantly dictated by people who either can’t or won’t understand the weight of what you do and have no interest in including you in their circle if it means any sort of effort on their part.Â
Assistantships are essential to the function of our grad program and a student’s educational career, but they need to be reexamined and reconceptualized to better support the students that we claim are so vital to the school’s engagement and attendance. I would never get rid of my GA position, and there are several moments where I really enjoy improving my workforce skills, but I have to stop and ask…
Would I still want to be here if I felt like I had a choice?