Will You #StandWithAlex? Read the Newsletter and Sign the Petition Today!

Alex Chen is a Master’s student dually enrolled in the School of Architecture and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She is in her final semester of the (3G) Masters in Architecture program and the Tischman Construction Management program (Masters in Engineering).

Alex was notified on August 17th that she had received a GSI position in the School of Architecture, and she signed and returned the employment contract the next day. Soon after, she started receiving emails saying her job offer had been rescinded; the School of Architecture was claiming she was not qualified to GSI the course, despite her substantial experience with the material, because the majority of courses she was registered for in that semester were in Engineering, and therefore she was not an enrolled Architecture student.

Once she returned to Ann Arbor, Alex was officially denied her GSI position by the School of Architecture. Furthermore, the School refused to compensate her for this loss, denying her the salary and tuition waiver our contract clearly says she deserves. After several attempts at informally negotiating with the department administration, Alex turned to GEO, who initiated the grievance procedure. What should have been, by any account, an open-and-shut case has been denied twice by the School of Architecture, advancing to the third and final grievance step before legal arbitration.

To date, Alex has lost her health care and tuition waiver. The financial hold placed on her account from the unexpected tuition bill ($47 K) prevents her from doing anything from checking out a book at the library to ordering her official transcript and, ultimately, to matriculating from both programs at the end of the semester and receiving her degree.

What is the process for obtaining a GSI position like for you?

“The process for obtaining GSI positions in Architecture is very competitive. In Engineering, appointments go to PhD students exclusively…

“In Architecture, there are something like 30 positions per semester. They go to PhD students first, then Masters students, and there are hundreds of Masters students. So I was really excited to hear I had gotten a position for this semester.”

“From what I’ve heard from other students and from my experiences GSIing in other departments, it’s like night and day…people in Architecture don’t want to rock the boat, ruin their chances for next time.”

“Even though I should have graduated in the Spring, I didn’t […] part of the reason was I wanted to keep my hat in the ring for GSI positions and other funding. So I didn’t graduate with all of my friends last Spring…

“I won an award at the graduation. I didn’t attend…just because it was too sad”.

What happened after your position was revoked? How are you feeling about the situation and the faulty reasoning the School of Architecture is invoking to justify their actions?

“The day after I got back to Ann Arbor I went right into the office to try and handle the situation. At that point I still had hope that things could be smoothed over.”

“Later that day I met with the chair and […] I tried to find middle ground by asking if I could take this class or that class [in Architecture]…but it was clear that no matter what I said, nothing was going to change…it was clear she didn’t really want me in her office.”

“That was particularly egregious, especially after having such a good relationship with them this whole time. I went into that meeting in good faith thinking they had my best interests at heart”

“I try not to think about it that much…it’s hard not to stress or feel bad about it […]”

“I keep thinking they’re gonna see the light…they’re gonna realize the wrong-doing, and then they don’t. And then they write me a letter that phrased more meanly than it really needs to be. “

“I still have this faith that I can still be of utility to the department and that they’ll hire me in some other way. I know that’s highly unlikely at this point, but it also just seems like a waste…

It’s not about money in my case, although that’s part of it; I wanted to teach, I wanted to become more facile with the material, get more experience in the academic setting, on the other side of the podium.”

“It’s just not great to feel that way…just constantly disappointed by the administration that you’ve put your faith in for the past four years.”

How have you managed to make a living this semester without this promised income?

“Over the summer I was working for my thesis professors, and that’s continued […] I was hired by one of the professors who was supposed to be the lead on the Sustainable Systems course I had received the GSI appointment to help teach.”

“I continue to have wonderful relationships with the faculty in the department. I’ve received recommendation letters from them”

What about the grievance process?

“I got in touch with Dominic [GEO Staff]…then got in contact with Nick and Jessica [GEO’s grievance co-chairs]…and they took it up and ran with it, which felt really good because I was feeling so alone. Before it was all happening in a vacuum […]”

“Last week they rescinded my tuition waiver, which I found out via email […] I thought they would hold off until the final decision”

“I just can’t believe they would behave this way, and I keep wanting them to redeem themselves in my eyes…but they keep failing to do so […] “You can’t just play chicken with people’s financial futures”

“Thank you GEO–it’s been really nice knowing there’s this huge organization that’s got my back, and I don’t have to fight this battle”

“[…] which is nice because it’s hard to stand up for yourself in these types of situations. The power structure is so clear, it’s hard to penetrate it in any way on your own.”

Alex’s case directly deals with the section of our contract that ensures that GSIs will still receive their pay, benefits, and tuition waivers in the event the University cancels or withdraws their GSI appointments. This is one of the most important sections of our contract, because without it, departments could easily provide promises of funding for each term to their graduate students, yet face no consequence if they backed out of their commitment. The University has a history of attempting to get us to change this clause because it denies them fiscal flexibility at the expense of worker stability. In 2013, for instance, during the re-opener, GEO members voted to walk away from the bargaining table largely because the University was attempting to get concessions on this section of the contract in exchange for the extension we wanted.

Standing in solidarity with Alex will send a strong message not only of support for our colleague, but for our job security. The closer we get to bargaining, the more important it is to show our collective strength and commitment to protecting our hard-won rights. Inaction can only lead to stronger attempts on the part of Academic HR to ask for concessions and take back our hard-won benefits. They take our propensity toward collective action as a sign of strength just as they use our membership percentage (versus fee-payers). Now is the time to let them know we are paying attention!

The School of Architecture’s actions are not only morally reprehensible, they represent an egregious violation of the legally binding contract negotiated by GEO with the University. If this case were about the facts and their logical conclusions, Alex would not be in her current situation.

Therefore, we need your help to push the administration into doing the right thing. At the very least, we are asking that you click the link at the start of this post and circulate the petition it among all your friends and fellow GSIs. The administration takes physical signatures on paper seriously, and the more the better, so get as many as you can! You can return completed petitions to the GEO Office at 339 E. Liberty St., or email umgeo@geo3550.org, to have a GEO representative pick up your petition.

More than just signatures, we need actual GEO members to show up to Alex’s third step grievance hearing to let it be known that we #StandWithAlex and will not tolerate a negative outcome. It will likely be scheduled on short notice, so mobilize yourself and your friends to be ready to show your support in person and attend the meeting, our last chance to show the administration that this will not stand.