Striking UC Santa Cruz students consider larger protest after discipline discussed
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KION)
UPDATE 1/31/20 - A representative with a group of striking UC Santa Cruz graduate students says they are considering strengthening their protest.
Thursday night, they met to discuss future plans after Chancellor Cynthia Larive announced there would be disciplinary action for grad students who don't submit grades.
A strike organizer and graduate student tells KION the group is considering escalating their action to a "full strike" around February 10th. The details haven't been finalized, but it could involve the striking grad students refusing to work until their pay demands are met. Up until this point, the action taken has been a refusal to submit grades.
This is a developing story.
ORIGINAL REPORT 1/27/20 - As the graduate student grade strike continues at UC Santa Cruz, the university has announced two new programs to help graduate students struggling financially.
The university said beginning in fall 2020, it will offer five year support packages to new and continuing doctoral students. MFA students will be offered a two year package. The school said they will have a minimum level of support equal to that of a 50% teaching assistantship.
The other program will provide a need-based annual housing supplement of $2,500 for doctoral and MFA students until more graduate-level student housing is available.
The UCSC Chancellor, Cynthia Larive, said in a statement that the school is aware that the cost of housing in the area is a financial burden for many students and that it does not have the number of housing units needed to support graduate students. The school hopes the new programs will provide financial help.
Graduate students at UCSC have been on strike since Dec. 8 and have refused to submit grades until administration grants them a cost-of-living adjustment.
Larive addressed the strike in her statement, saying that withholding or deleting grades is harmful to undergraduate students who need grades to get financial aid, enroll in classes, apply for graduation or declare a major. She said it could also affect requirements of student athletes, student veterans and those under academic review.
"UC Santa Cruz has a proud history of activism, and the university is committed to ensuring that all people may exercise the constitutionally protected rights of free expression, speech, and assembly. And while I commend our students for drawing attention to a very real problem, I am extremely disappointed that some graduate students chose to do so in a way that was unsanctioned by their union and is harmful to our undergraduate students, many of whom are struggling themselves," Larive said.
The school said that if graduate students do not submit grades by Feb. 2, they will get a written disciplinary warning. Those who said they have deleted grades will receive a student conduct summons.
