UC Santa Cruz Reaches Agreement With Striking Grad Students

SANTA CRUZ, CA — The University of California, Santa Cruz said it has reached an agreement with striking graduate students on most of their sticking points.

The agreement follows months of student strikes and protests as teaching assistants and researchers called for higher pay to offset the expenses associated with living in such an expensive area. More than 70 graduate students who refused to file student grades as part of their teaching assistance jobs were dismissed for the spring quarter.

The so-called wildcat strike was not authorized by the students' union, United Auto Workers 2865.

"As the campus continues to prepare for fall quarter, we can close some of the chapters of a turbulent past academic year," wrote Chancellor Cynthia Larive and Campus Provost/Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer in a letter to the campus community Thursday morning.

The agreement will allow for expedited hearings led by a third-party to give fired student employees a chance to find work in the fall quarter. There is a need for graduate students to get on-campus jobs as they pursue their degrees, but there should still be consequences, officials wrote.

The 75 graduate students who deleted student grades during the fall quarter will see student conduct code converted to employee letters of warning, officials said. UC Santa Cruz has also agreed to review its student conduct code.

Any graduate student employee who submitted 99 percent of their grades during the past academic year will see warning letters removed from their personnel file.

In exchange, the union will withdraw unfair practice charges for student conduct and employee discipline that were levied against the school, officials said.

"Fall quarter will bring its own set of new challenges in the face of the ongoing health and humanitarian crisis across the country," Larive and Kletzer wrote. "This settlement is a small yet important step for our community, one we believe sets us up for a stronger future together."

UC Santa Cruz previously announced plans to give a $2,500 housing stipend to all full-time doctoral students in their first five years and Master of Fine Arts students in their first two years.

The union did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Read more:

• 74 UCSC Grad Students Didn't File Grades, Won't Work This Spring
• UC Santa Cruz To Striking Students: Stop Or Be Dismissed
• UCSC Offers $2,500 Housing Stipend To Grad Students Amid Strike