A Fiscal and Legal Affairs committee meeting was held to address several agenda items, including updates and several “other issues that they had concerns about that came up over the year,” Manager of Financial Services Ashley Reese said.
When speaking about the internal audit conducted this past year, Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Education Jim Ahern, was invited to speak on an upcoming policy change. Graduate assistants and their funding was a topic of discussion during the committee meeting.
“Graduate assistants [are] working far more than what they’re really being paid for… it’s important to cap for the well-being of our graduate assistants and make sure that they, as students, finish their degrees because that’s why they’re here,” Ahern said.
The introduction of this policy was brought to light in the wake of the internal audit conducted. The audit in question had not included a campus-wide policy on graduate assistants and their pay, which gave cause for concern due to how extensively UW graduate assistants are utilized.
“Regarding what the policy does; it’s pretty basic. It’s defining what a graduate fellowship is, what a graduate assistantship is and then the three types of graduate assistants: graduate research assistants, graduate teaching assistants and graduate administrative assistants,” Ahern said.
To be in accordance with the Fair Labor Standard Act in federal law, graduate assistants are limited to 20 hours on their workweek through the university.
The goal of the policy is to formalize graduate assistantships on campus, no matter where the funding is coming from. State funds, grants or foundation money will each fall under this policy.
Not only does the committee intend for this policy to protect UW from violating federal law, but to protect the graduate students and to clarify how graduate students can and cannot be funded. It will hold academic departments to a standard of ethics to comply within the law.
The committee dealing with the internal audit of this past year has sent the policy through many drafts and reviews as part of a bureaucratic vetting process. It is intended to go into place starting on July 1, 2019.
“We discussed where it [the new policy] is in the process, and there are other things that need to be done to implement all the strategies that were suggested,” Trustee Mel Baldwin of North Lincoln County said.
For now, the committee will see this policy change through until it is cleared by the supervising staff.
