Vice provost proposes new grad funding plan

Graduate students who receive University fellowship funds -- given to students who are working on their dissertations -- will be guaranteed funding for a full academic year starting next fall, according to a proposed policy issued by Vice Provost for Graduate Education Janice Madden. The proposed policy, issued in this week's Almanac, both reaffirms existing policies that forbid requiring students with fellowships to serve as teaching assistants in order to receive their funds, and explains policies which are new to a few departments. The changes, though, are minor and were written to clarify the administration's policy on fellowship funds. Madden wrote the proposal after collaborating with the Council of Graduate Faculties and the Council of Graduate Deans, who both supported the policy in principle. Madden said the proposal was issued this week to notify all involved parties of the changes before the policy is implemented next year. "[I want to] make sure that nobody's opinion has been missed," she said yesterday. Madden added that she has already received feedback on this proposal and that "most of it is positive." Graduate student activist Elizabeth Hunt said that while the policy shouldn't mark a drastic change, the policy will serve to protect students who receive fellowship funding. "[The policy will] keep departments from splitting fellowships between graduate students," Hunt said Tuesday. "It will prevent abuses in limited or specific areas." "This is the way it should be," she added. The portion of the proposal, which Madden described as "informational," also states that University funds should support only Ph.D. students and that all students receiving funding must be full-time students. The remaining parts of the proposed policy, which will effect only a few departments, include the assurance that students who take a leave of absence for one semester will be supported during the semester of the same year that the student is at the University, and the promise that funds will only be partially awarded when the students are receiving funds from other sources. Madden declined to say which departments would be affected.

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