Graduate students have long struggled to secure their share of resources at this university. Movements to allow graduate students who work as teaching and research assistants to organize into unions have faced strong opposition from administrators and have thus far been unsuccessful. What’s more, they often lack representation — they have the fewest number of representatives in the University Senate, the most powerful legislative body at this institution. And for years, graduate student leaders have called for affordable housing and convenient child care.
So perhaps then it should come as little surprise that attempts to create a graduate student writing center have been equally unsuccessful. Despite there being about 10,000 graduate students at this university, they do not have an editing and peer-review service of their own and are forbidden from using the popular undergraduate Writing Center located in Tawes Hall.
But the failure of university officials to secure funds for what should be a standard amenity hasn’t slowed down some graduate students. Using a budget of a mere $2,000, the International Graduate Students Association has created a “peer tutor” pilot program to provide what the university has failed to: a place for graduate students to receive peer feedback on papers and assignments.
The IGSA has taken great initiative, and what it has pulled off with such limited resources should have some administrators bowing their heads in shame. As Graduate Student Government President Anna Bedford said, the success of the IGSA is an incredibly sad reflection on the university’s willingness to extend existing services to graduate students.
Indeed, despite our world-class credentials, when it comes to providing what should be a standard service to its students, this university fails to compare to large public universities such as the University of California, Berkeley, or Pennsylvania State University.
The organizers of the IGSA’s pilot program say it is expected to remain open until final exams, at which point its success will be evaluated and a decision will be made as to whether it should be permanently instated. And regardless of whether the service continues, it should be acknowledged that the IGSA’s program is not a fully functioning editing and peer-review service in the same way the undergraduate Writing Center is. As such, university officials should not consider the problem solved.
The pilot program should further fan the fire under administrators’ feet to find the funds to either create a permanent graduate student writing center or open up the existing Writing Center to all students seeking all levels of academic degrees.
Graduate students face just as many writing challenges as undergraduates. While their writing skills may be more polished after an undergraduate education, that does not mean a trained set of eyes is any less helpful. Moreover, many working towards advanced degrees are international students whose grasp on American-style grammar and formatting is not always as strong. And for a university that prides itself as a leader in international education, with more than 3,600 students from around the globe, it seems inherently contradictory to deny what is a boilerplate service at other institutions.
A graduate student writing center would need funding and trained tutors, including specialists from different departments who are knowledgeable about certain types of writing. After all, a graduate student studying engineering composes very different reports from one studying history. That said, for the university to claim the money just isn’t there, in light of what the IGSA has been able to accomplish by securing funds from multiple resources, is pathetic.
As the IGSA’s pilot program wraps up, administrators should think long and hard about the message they preach versus the services they deliver. The inability to provide graduate students with what should be a staple of a top-tier university is not only an issue of fairness but also reflects the university’s commitment to graduate education.
