Efforts to improve the quality of life for graduate and professional students are finally beginning to pay off.
Three major initiatives – guidelines for short-term absences and leaves of absence, an increase in health insurance subsidies for graduate students and standard graduate associate appointment documents – will be implemented in the fall quarter, said Barb Pletz, president of the Council of Graduate Students.
These new initiatives will positively affect Graduate Teaching Associates, Graduate Research Associates and Graduate Administrative Associates, she said.
Since the 2001 Graduate Quality of University Experience Report was produced by the Graduate School and the Council of Graduate Students, Ohio State has been working toward addressing the recommendations made in the report, said Lamar Murphy, assistant dean of the Graduate School, in an e-mail to The Lantern.
“The G-QUE study recognized the centrality of graduate education and graduate students to Ohio State’s teaching, research and service missions,” Murphy said.
The Graduate School is leading the initiative in what David Farrell, a spokesman for the Office of Human Resources, called “best practice procedures.”
OSU is now working on a multi-year plan to enhance compensation and benefits for graduate and professional students, Murphy said.
Paid short-term absences of one to three days and leaves of absence lasting up to six weeks are something graduate associates have not received in the past, Pletz said.
She said OSU is one of the few major universities in the country that can offer its graduate students paid leaves.
“(The leaves) are an incredible benefit we have received,” she said.
Of course there is the possibility a graduate student will be denied paid leave, but an appeals process is available, Pletz said.
Murphy said instances of personal and/or family illness, bereavement, childbirth and adoption are all valid reasons for graduate associates to request a paid leave of absence or short-term absence.
In addition to new guidelines for leaves, standard graduate associate appointment applications will be implemented in the fall. In the past, a lot of graduate associates would get individual stipend documents that often varied across the university, Pletz said.
The Graduate School took the initiative and worked with the Office of Human Resources to draw up a standard document that would be used for all graduate associate appointments, Farrell said.
The document would be the same across all units of the Graduate School, with certain aspects varying, such as length of term and stipend amount, Pletz said.
In addition to the improvements made in regards to leave guidelines and appointment documents, subsidy for health insurance for funded graduate students has increased.
For those enrolled in single coverage, the subsidy is increasing to 75 percent of the Student Health Insurance Plan in the 2005-06 academic year from 64 percent this year, Murphy said.
All of the improvements being made to the graduate student experience demonstrate OSU’s commitment to making work and life improvements a priority, Murphy said.
Pletz said she thinks there is always room for improvement, but the changes that have already been made will probably attract more of the top graduate students in the country.
“These initiatives give us an advantage (over other universities),” she said.
Murphy said the Graduate School, the Council of Graduate Students and the Graduate Associate Compensation and Benefits Committee will continue to work together to implement the recommendations of the G-QUE report.
“The enhancements made for this and next year represent the greatest commitment to improving the economic support of funded graduate students within known university history,” she said.
