Graduates pack 7th GAPP meeting asking for benefits.

Graduate assistants from across campus packed this week’s Graduate Assistants Policies and Procedures (GAPP) meeting, which focused primarily on benefits. In light of the state legislature’s decision to remove domestic partner benefits from state group health plans, nearly 30 graduate students offered testimony on how the change in benefits affects them, and put pressure on the committee to draft language recommending that the university make positive steps to recover those lost benefits.

Because of the number of graduates who showed up to voice their concerns, the administration had to face the personal costs to graduate assistants and their families as a result of benefit reductions. With the combined pressure of graduate comments and the TAA representatives on the committee, the meeting ended with administration representatives willing to discuss the policy language around a university-wide commitment to provide health insurance to its employees and families, including coverage for domestic partners and trans healthcare. Future meetings will reveal their willingness to fully incorporate this policy suggestion.

Recaps of previous meetings are archived online.

There are three more GAPP events scheduled for October, including two public forums, and it is critical that TAA members and graduate student workers from across campus continue to attend and make their voice heard. The university works because we do.

8th GAPP Committee Meeting
Monday, October 23,  10-11:3 am), Bascom 52
(Public comments at 11:20 am)
Agenda forthcoming

Public Forums on GAPP Process
Wednesday, October 25, 6 PM, Union South
Friday, October 27, 11:30 AM, Bascom 260

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