Dear IU Bloomington Faculty, Staff and Student Academic Appointees,
Before we break for the Thanksgiving holiday—and, as promised in my most recent message regarding graduate education—I write here to share initiatives related to graduate education that have either been implemented or are in progress for completion within this academic year.
Nearly all these announced initiatives stemmed from specific recommendations from the Task Force on Graduate Education, which drew on extensive conversations with our colleagues across the university. This collaborative effort has led to substantive and meaningful improvements that will benefit our students and strengthen our academic community. Below is an update on the various initiatives related to graduate education that we have announced over the course of the semester.
- Our commitment to increase minimum SAA stipends to $22,000 (effective retroactively to July 1, 2022) has been implemented.
- Similarly, our commitments to cover mandatory graduate student fees for SAAs ($1,435), course-specific fees for SAAs in programs that charge them, the international student fee, and the G901 fees have been implemented (effective retroactively to July 1, 2022).
- The Bloomington Faculty Council officially approved the reconstituted SAA Affairs Committee and is finalizing the committee’s membership. It is likely that the committee, with its new members, will launch in the spring. The BFC is also implementing its commitment to ensure SAA representation on key faculty council committees.
- Following our commitment to regularly benchmark SAA stipends—to ensure minimum stipends and discipline-specific stipend rates remain in the top half of the BIG Ten—Interim Dean of the IU Bloomington Graduate School David Daleke will collaborate with the SAA Affairs Committee (once it is fully in place) to introduce this benchmarking process as a regular biennial report.
- Invitations to members of the newly formed Graduate Student Advisory Committee will be sent this week, with the committee’s first meeting taking place before the end of the semester.
- Following my charge to Interim Dean Daleke to create an accessible, comprehensive guide to grievance pathways for graduate students, his office has been collaborating diligently with the BFC regarding an employment pathway grievance guide while also building a guide for the academic pathway. Both guides are expected to be completed by the end of the semester and available on the IUB Graduate School website.
- Following recommendations about the need for additional resources to support the recruitment of an increasingly diverse pool of graduate students, we have allocated an additional $100,000 to our diversity recruitment fellowship budget. We have also committed additional funds to further strengthen our Adam W. Herbert Graduate Fellowship, our most prestigious diversity-building graduate fellowship.
- Our commitment to ensure that SAA insurance covers physical and mental health care while SAAs are on approved leave has been implemented and information about this policy change was shared with SAAs last week. Additionally, work continues on the creation of a new central web hub to unite well-being and health resources for graduate students. We expect this one-stop resource to be ready in spring term.
- Regarding our pledge to formalize policy and existing sick leave practices to ensure SAAs can access sick leave in a manner that protects their positions and clearly defines employment expectations, the Graduate School is working with the Office of Faculty and Academic Affairs to build new language into the SAA contract and handbook. We expect this new language to be in place in spring term.
- Following a meeting just this week, we are continuing to explore new dedicated space and additional interdisciplinary programming for graduate students, both in the short-term and for the future. We will have more specifics to share by spring term.
Finally, all the working groups in the Graduate Task Force have been fully integrated into our ongoing IU 2030 strategic planning process to ensure these critical dialogues are central to our future plans for IUB. We are excited by conversations through the Task Force and other IU 2030 working groups on ways to create a more holistic, distinctive graduate student experience, particularly around social, cultural, and community engagement. We pledge to continue updating our community as work continues on these and other important initiatives that advance our graduate students’ education and experience at IU.
I am particularly thankful for the work the members of the Task Force, the collaboration and care shown by the leadership of BFC, advocacy of our students and student leaders, and the unwavering commitment to graduate students and support of President Whitten. Graduate education at IU is stronger because of your work, and I know it will only grow stronger still as we fully implement each of these endeavors through the IUB 2030 plan.
Sincerely,
Rahul Shrivastav
Provost and Executive Vice President
Indiana University Bloomington