Erin Bowling
Michigan State University graduate students and professors protest outside President Samuel Stanley’s office.The Graduate Employees Union at Michigan State hosted another demonstration in a series of protests at the Hannah Administration Building Oct. 21 in an attempt to get the university to change its COVID-19 policies.
Ava Hill, a 4th-year doctoral student at and the union’s press contact for the protest, said that the GEU negotiated an agreement with MSU’s administration that was signed at the beginning of September. This agreement states that the university will enact vigorous contact tracing for professors and students, and allow professors to move their classes online if needed, among other things.
“Before the ink could dry, literally the very next day, MSU started sending instructions to departments telling them the complete opposite of the legally binding agreement they signed with us. They told departments that they weren’t allowed to switch classes online and that they were no longer notifying instructors when students in their classes tested positive for covid.” said Hill, “We have also sent them our list of demands several times now. They are quite aware of what we want. Even back at the start, they understood our position and what our goals were, and why we feel that things should be this way. At the time they said they agreed with us, but we’ve seen how that’s gone”
Union officers have been fighting ever since to get the university to follow through on its word. However, since the agreement was signed, they say they have not heard anything from the administration or President Samuel Stanley.
Jocelyn Dana-Lê is a 4th-year doctoral student at MSU and has been a TA in the same class since before the pandemic started. She said learning outcomes in her class online, were similar to those when she taught in person. The people she works with are immunocompromised, she said, but the university is still denying their request to move their class online. She said she believes this is MSU’s effort to get more students enrolled, and increase profits.
“If I didn’t put myself at risk I would be unemployed.”
Jocelyn Dana-Lê
If they (the administration) imagined I was a family member, I would hope they would open their eyes and see they are in a position of power to directly help us by listening to what we need. Recognize that we are real people with our safety, wellbeing, pay and health insurance at stake. There is a purpose behind our actions. Don’t minimize it and say that we are just being dramatic. I moved out here for my education and now it is putting my life at risk. You cannot intellectualize that away by citing profit,” she added.
Dr. Carol Prahinski with the Broad College of Business spoke and said that more than five of her 100 students have tested positive for COVID-19. She was never notified by the university.
“This was before they announced that they were not going to notify us any further. Five percent, and yet we are told that our COVID rate is reasonable. According to The New York Times, it is unreasonable. According to The New York Times, we are at one of the highest thresholds right now.” Prahinski said.
Michigan State University’s COVID-19 protocols were not the only topic of the protest. Micheal Craton, a doctoral student at MSU, spoke regarding a university appeal for volunteer help in culinary services. The university sent out the following email to its faculty and staff, including professors, earlier in the week:
Craton said that a university with a 3.4 billion endowment should be able to properly pay its workers and feed its students.
“This is a display of disrespect to workers at every level on MSU’s campus. It is first and foremost disrespectful to dining hall workers if there are folks within MSU’s campus who believe this work is so easy, that it is somehow reasonable to ask people to do it for free without compensation.” said Craton, “I also consider this message to be disrespectful to the instructors, graduate teaching assistants, non-tenure faculty and tenure faculty alike. I think one of the reasons MSU thought they could send a message like this, without much pushback, is because in my time at MSU I have had the privilege to know some of the most empathetic and caring instructors that I have ever met.”
You can find more information on the union website and @gradempunion on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can also find a live-streamed video of this protest, here.