Indiana University’s Provost Rahul Shrivastav sent an email to IU faculty and students Thursday, which said graduate student groups have been invited to speak with leaders of the IU administration next week.
The meetings are part of next steps for the Task Force on Graduate Education. Shrivastav created the taskforce in response to IU graduate student workers asking for union recognition this spring and striking when it was denied.
Katie Shy is a member of the IU Graduate Worker Coalition and said past listening sessions with Shrivastav and university officials have not yielded significant change.
“These are the mechanisms that the university has been offering us; committees, taskforces, and they have not been adequate for producing the kind of change we need to see on campus,” Shy said.
Shrivastav’s email also said the task force and its working groups will make recommendations for swift action this summer on financial support and other issues.
Shy said Student Academic Appointees and others, like the Bloomington Faculty Council, have already given input.
"Eighteen-hundred grad workers have signed union cards, asking to be represented by the union," Shy said. "And our faculty has indicated collectively through the body that they have, Bloomington Faculty Council– through the shared governance system that's set up–that they see a union on campus as the best solution moving forward."
IU administrators who will be at meetings with grad students next week include James Wimbush, Dean of the University Graduate School, and David Daleke, Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Health Sciences and Associate Dean of the University Graduate School.
