We were pleased to meet with Professor Peddle and Peter Foy on November 19 regarding our common concerns about the proposed increase in graduate redaction fees for graduate students in redaction, to explain the need for funds and the proposed 3-tiered category of students, resulting in an approximately 400% increase in graduate redaction fees by 2012 for all graduate students registered in September 2009 and later.

During this meeting, we felt that we met common ground regarding our shared interest in the sustainability of the College and the pressing necessity of increasing provincial and other sources of funding and student enrollment to maintain the College's survival.

As graduate students intimately interested and involved in the long-term survival of the College, we raised questions concerning the sources of funding and shared our willingness and our ideas to increase funding through legal and political lobbying, networking with other institutions, and recruitment. We discussed these aspects with Prof. Peddle and Peter Foy and have deliberated on specific implementation strategies in both these areas.

We still have some significant concerns which the College has not yet sufficiently addressed. These generally fall under questions of inequity –

1. in comparison with other students (including the graduate students prior to September 2009);

2. in relation to the real impact which this will have on graduate students' lives – which are different realities with particular pressures that are less typically represented in undergraduate groups

3. in relation to the fees of other universities in Ottawa.

Regarding point 1) concerning the inequality of raising the graduate fees in redaction, Professor Peddle explained at our meeting that it was legally impossible to dramatically increase the fees of undergraduate students (and even of graduate students entering a program prior to September 2009). This situation creates several unusual and divisive tiers of students. While the legal restrictions provide a pragmatic reason to increase the fees of non-protected students by 400% (while increasing other students' fees by only minimal percentages per annum), we feel that this does not ethically justify the enormous burden that is placed with little notice, preparation, and support on the shoulders of students trying to write their thesis, a demanding, energy-draining and time-consuming task in the best of circumstances.

This leads to point 2) concerning the additional burdens which graduate students already bear which make them unable to sustain carrying the majority of the burden of new measures aimed at maintaining the College's solvency. We are already burdened by long-accumulated student loans, pressed by the demands of full-time research; most of us are already working on the side to support tuition and the rising cost of living; some of us are taxed by the need to provide for a family; many or most of us lack basic dental, vision, and drug benefits. These burdens are far more commonly representative of graduate students than undergraduate students, who not only have a different semester structure that enables them to work for pay, free of tuition obligations, during the summer, but who also are typically younger and often included under their family's benefit plans, who often do not carry lengthily accumulated school debts, and who (importantly) have not yet committed themselves to a specialized field of work that is humanly promising but financially unremunerative. Jobs in philosophy and theology are notoriously competitive and underpaid, and students who pursue higher levels of studies frequently sustain heavy material losses and the weight of drawn out and unpayable loans extending decades beyond graduation as a long term conclusion of their dedication in making human and intellectual development a priority in their lives.

Increasing student fees will not contribute to the sustainability of the graduate program, but will instead result in a small, non-diverse and elite (socio-economically, not academically) body of researchers. Graduate researchers are the lifeblood of a university's outreach and reputation, they are frequently its most loyal and active alumni. The College in particular generates a high degree of school spirit and enthusiasm among graduate students. To alienate and tax the graduate students, thus reducing them to resort to transferring to more accommodating universities which offer gradated fee structures as well as complete or significant financial support (along with experience in teaching or other related work and health benefits) is not a sustainable longterm strategy for the College.

This leads to point 3) comparing the proposed change in fees with other universities in Ottawa. During our meeting of November 19, it was expressed by Prof. Peddle and Peter Foy that we need to bring up our fees to the standards of other universities. We feel this to be a reasonable and equitable proposition (despite the fact that our students do not have the complete or almost-complete financial support that other universities do). We are also interested in the sustainability of the College and despite the burdens of increasing fees without increasing ways of meeting them, we are interested in the College's survival and willing to contribute whatever is necessary (and in any way feasible, even with some increased burdens).

Part 2 – Strategies

We have not yet heard any proposals on the part of the College to rectify this enormous inbalance by any internal means (such as a compensating redistribution of scholarships, job opportunities, etc.)  We discuss these elements as part of our proposal below.




We have heard justifications for placing an unequal financial burden on graduate students in terms of the graduate students' taxing professors' resources (to a greater extent than undergraduate students do), and we have also come up with a system of checks and balances to redistribute these burdens without shrinking the number of graduate students drastically (thereby losing another crucial source of funding).
Finally, our proposal challenges the enormous increase in funds - etc.
Other points - idea that we need to be "on par" with other universities.  either put in the analysis below or right in there...
Explain that the funds will result in an unsusatinable shrinking of the program that is at odds with the College's mandate and furthermore works to produce a financially - not necessarily academically - elite student body.
Close with - we need to unite sustainability and equity.