ACADEMICS & FUNDING COMMITTEE
Ellie Louson: ellieatlarge@utgsu.ca
Michelle St-Amour: michelle@utgsu.ca
Greg, Anton, Rose
When: Contact the chair.
Where: GSU Basement lounge, 16 Bancroft Ave.
The elected representatives of the GSU strongly believe that in order for the timely completion of our degrees, the University must provide appropriate conditions and resources, such as effective academic supervision and universal graduate financial support. The work of the Academics and Funding Committee includes academic requirements, supervision, RA working conditions, space, intellectual property and access to information in regard to policy development.
The committee’s mandate includes gathering information on common practices in each department and then acting to improve your life as a graduate student. This is particularly important when looking how to develop policy as one department’s culture may vary widely from another.
The GSU, along with other members of the Canadian Federation of Students, continues to call upon post-secondary institutions and provincial governments to increase the levels of student funding. Most U of T graduate students receive funding packages that follow the principle of establishing minimum funding levels (tuition fees plus $13,000 annually, indexed to the cost-of-living). The funding package is only for doctoral stream students, meaning all students in professional stream programs and many students in terminal Master’s programs are excluded from guaranteed funding.
This year the sub-committee will:
* monitor and audit the package implementation at the department, faculty and division levels, and continue to lobby these bodies to increase guaranteed funding to a minimum of $17,000 per year plus annual cost-of-living adjustments;
* work with the Social Justice Committee to reinvigorate the campaign to have post-residency fees reinstated by lobbying the university administration to commit to investigating this tuition fee model;
* continue to monitor the effect of graduate enrolment expansion on the quality of education, space, and accessibility to financial resources at the U of T.
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The GSU would like to provide all members with this Graduate Student funding spreadsheet. This was created by consolidating information collected from two primary sources: A survey we administered on graduate student funding to Course Union representatives through the head grant forms in September 2004; and, much research through departmental websites and handbooks. This spreadsheet must be regarded as "unofficial" due to the fact that the information has only been confirmed by graduate students or by the information found on a departmental website or in a departmental handbook. The information was not confirmed by any administrator per se, although the information found on the websites should be official. The GSU felt that it was necessary to have this information be public and transparent to all of its members. This way, students are able to look at our website for the funding information we have gathered and compare it their actual funding and to other departments. Please take this information as a starting point and realize that the information may change from year to year. If you have any questions about this information or if you find any errors please contact: vpinternal.gsu@utoronto.ca
The Excel spreadsheet is available for download here.
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