UCSC Offers $2,500 Housing Stipend To Grad Students Amid Strike

SANTA CRUZ, CA — The University of California, Santa Cruz announced Monday morning that it will expand a recently proposed graduate student housing stipend program.

UCSC also announced it will check Thursday to see whether striking students have filed missing fall semester grades. Students who cease striking will receive a $2,500 housing stipend for the current academic year.

The news, announced in a letter to grad students and faculty from Interim Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer, comes two weeks after graduate students escalated a months-long strike for higher pay to better afford the high cost of living in the area. The strike has garnered attention from national news outlets such as The New York Times and prompted U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to offer his support for the students.

Last year, striking grad students withheld undergraduate fall semester grades. This month, striking students stopped teaching, performing research and holding office hours.

The striking grad students, currently paid $2,400 per month, are asking for a $1,412 cost of living adjustment. The current contract for student workers includes a 3 percent increase per year to reflect the cost of living, but the students say it's not enough.

UCSC said last week that students who did not stop striking and file fall semester grades by the end of Friday would be dismissed from or not assigned to spring semester appointments. In the Monday morning letter, Kletzer said UCSC would check to see whether fall grades had been submitted on Thursday. Students who submit fall, winter and spring semester grades will see their warning letter rescinded, she said.

Prior to the escalation of the strike this month, UCSC had announced plans to create a $2,500 needs-based housing stipend for full-time graduate students. Kletzer said Monday that she heard concerns that many students might not be eligible, so the university said it will give the stipend to all full-time doctoral students in their first five years and Master of Fine Arts students in their first two years.

The university also announced that the housing stipend will now be retroactively given to non-striking students for the 2019 to 2020 academic year, at the end of the year, Kletzer wrote.

"I am grateful for the honest conversations that I have had with members of our community over the past weeks," she wrote. "The opportunities described here are intended to help bring our campus community back to its teaching, learning, and research mission."

Striking students balked at the letter on Twitter, saying "doomsday" had been delayed.

"How unnecessary," students said, referencing plans to check for grade submissions on Thursday. "(W)e can tell you now that we did not submit!"

The strike was initiated without the authorization of the union that represents UC workers. UCSC has said it can't negotiate with campus grad student workers, per the terms of its current contract with all UC workers.

UCSC alumni have circulated a statement of solidarity, vowing to withhold donations to the university until students received a pay increase. More than 1,600 people had signed the statement as of Wednesday morning.

Striking students said they had plans to meet and organize Monday. Drivers were advised to use caution when coming to the campus, as picketers had gathered near the main and west entrances, UCSC said.

UCSC said it will have a clearer count of how many students are continuing to withhold grades later this week.

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