Graduate students working in the Science Initiative Building have recently been informed that they will be moved from their current workspaces into what many refer to as “a degradation of workspace.”
To avoid this relocation, Bridger Huhn, a Ph.D. student in the Ecology Program, organized the Office Relocation Petition.
The petition has been signed by 95 postdoctoral researchers and graduate students and has been sent to the Science Initiative Executive Committee, which is in charge of approving decisions concerning workspaces for the students in the SI building.
The committee met on Sept. 19 to arrive at a final decision but the students have yet to receive any form of communication.
On the third floor of the building, graduate students have access to private offices that are spacious with large windows and have desks with drawers in them, all of which have been turned into permanent workspaces.
“We’ve been here since June,” Alex Fox, a Ph.D. student in the SI Building, said. “These are our workspaces.”
However, they are likely to lose those offices and be relocated.
“People in the Microbiology Department have already been moved and their new workspaces are very cramped,” Huhn said.
The areas where graduate students will be relocated to smaller desks spread throughout the first three floors of the SI Building, with less accommodating spaces and little privacy.
“As a lab teacher, I have to grade quizzes and papers for my class, but due to FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), I cannot grade these things in a public place,” Rebecca Collins, a graduate student working in the SI Building, said.
One of the main reasons for having students work in these office spaces originally was to encourage collaboration between them.
“They wanted us to bump into each other more and have more open conversations,” Huhn said. “However, if they’re going to move us into those desk spaces, a lot of grad students will just work from home.”
Many of the students who signed the petition have made it clear that this change in office space shows a significant lack of respect for them on the part of the institution they were hired to do research for.
“It’s a pretty clear message that if we get moved that they don’t respect our work and our work offices,” Huhn said.
Not only is this relocation impactful on the work graduate students do but also on their well-being.
“Our mental health needs to be a priority of the University but potentially having my workspace taken makes me feel as though the University doesn’t care about my well-being as a graduate student,” Collins said.
