“No more fees, no more fees!” Diana Moreno chanted along with a crowd of graduate assistants Friday on Turlington Plaza.
The chief coordinator of Graduate Assistants United and other graduate students were rallying for the reduction of fees they owe the university every semester.
This semester’s fees were due Friday, and one teaching assistant held a sign that read, “Feeday the 13th.” Another student’s sign read, “What the Fuchs is up with fees?”
The crowd cheered as speakers voiced their opinion on UF’s graduate assistant fees and demanded change.
“We want for our university to understand that graduate assistants’ working conditions are undergraduates’ learning conditions,” Moreno told the crowd. “If you’re an undergraduate and you’re interested in graduate school, then this concerns you.”
Paul Ortiz, UF associate professor of history and a member of the United Faculty of Florida, said he thinks the yearly $1,400 graduate assistant fee is something that detracts from UF’s academic mission.
“It’s one of the things that’s keeping UF from reaching the next level,” said Ortiz.
He said he recalls being a graduate student at Duke University, where he was pinching pennies and stocking his pantry with 10-for-$1 Ramen noodles.
“There’s a reason you wouldn’t associate the term ‘grad student’ with fun,” he said. “They’re the hardest working citizens at the university.”
International graduate student Lia Merivaki from Greece said the stress from fees is unbearable for her and her husband, who is also a graduate assistant. They are both pursuing Ph.D.s, teaching classes and raising their 2-year-old daughter.
“We make, each, $13,000 a year, and there’s students that make $25,000 to $30,000 a year that have to pay the same fees,” she said. “This is the most unfair to me. The impact is disproportionate.”
Moreno said there are now bills in the Florida House and Senate that address the issue of teaching assistant fees. She said the union organizes statewide.
“We know to win, we have to fight at every level,” Moreno said.
She said GAU’s next move will be trying to set up a meeting with President Kent Fuchs.
“We would love to build a relationship with him and talk to him about graduate assistant issues so that we can start working on them and solve them together,” she said.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 3/16/2015 under the headline “Graduate assistants rally on fee day, look to Fuchs for help”]
Diana Moreno, a 27-year-old Latin American studies masters candidate and chief coordinator of Graduate Assistants United, speaks at the GAU "Spring Broke" rally in Turlington Plaza on Friday. "My problems are shared with my colleagues and we have to work together to solve them," she said on reducing graduate assistant fees.
