Powered by iPetitions - start your online petition now

 

Signatures | Total: 482

 

# NameWhat is your campus Dept. or Affiliation?Comments
251 D. Joseph JerryVeterinary & Animal SciencesThe high costs for graduate students has several adverse effects. 1) I have already begun to decrease the number of graduate students as they have become too costly. 2) With fewer graduate students, I am unable to accommodate undergraduate research in my lab. Thus, the opportunities for undergraduates is directly compromised. 3) With fewer students training at UMass, it means that fewer individuals to spread the reputation of UMass as an excellent university for training. This will diminish applicants to our graduate programs in the future. Thus, even if the fees are reduced immediately, some damage has already occurred. 4) As graduate students along with post-docs contribute to the process of inquiry, I feel that elimination of graduate training from lab is unacceptable for the long-term survival. Thus, I and other faculty may find it necessary to relocate to a more hospitable environment should the present policies continue. Sincerely, Joseph Jerry
252 Sara JaffeEnglish-MFA
253 Agnès LacreusePsychology
254 Angela DukeNSB
255 Sharlene E. SantanaOEB
256 Zhiyi SunOEB
257 Sean WerleBiology
258 Stephen M. RichPlant, Soil, and Insect Sciences
259 Philip BergmannOrganismic and Evolutionary Biology
260 Elsbeth WalkerAmherstLet me continue to train graduate students instead of switching my program entirely to postdoctoral training! Keep the cost of training graduate students reasonable.
261 Peter Alpert
262 Lynn AdlerPSISThe curriculum fee, combined with the low amount of TA and fellowship support on campus, has made it very difficult for me to support graduate students as part of my research program and to recruit the top students.
263 Jeffrey BlausteinNeuroscience and Behavior Program/Psych Dept.There are two issues. The first is the direct charges to the students, which I know of no other universities charging. Students that we interview quickly hear that they do not receive their full promised stipend. The second is that the charges to grants have become a disincentive to including graduate students on grants. Grad students are the life-blood of the research enterprise and should be seen as part of the University's mission. As a resesarch university, we should be encouraging graduate programs, not discouraging them.
264 Sarah HuberBiology
265 Penny JaquesOEB Program ManagerIn the past 10 years, the curriculum fee has more than tripled. Continued hikes will be the death of graduate education on the UMass campus.
266 Kara BelinskyOEB, U-Mass Amherst
267 Melissa FugieroGraduate Student, Sociology
268 Iris L. PriceNeuroscience & Behavior Program
269 Ann ParadisOEB & entomology
270 Justin HenningsenOEBThe fee increases are placing an undue burden on students that should be focusing on becoming the next generation of scholars.
271 Sandra GillespieOrganismic and Evolutionary Biology
272 Susannah LermanGraduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
273 Fabian Romano ChernacBiochemistry and Molecular Biology
274 Ethan PlunkettFisheries and Wildlife
275 Pablo PomposielloMicrobiologyThe high cost of hiring graduate students on research grants is a deterrant, and contradicts our mandate of training young researchers.
276 Stephanie Moeckel-ColeBiology/MCB
277 Natalia TaftOEBThis has been a real hardship for myself and my husband, who is also a grad student in our department. Please roll back fees! If UMass can afford over $4 million dollars in administrative raises, I'm sure it can find some way to help the 2400 or so GEO eligible grads afford our education.
278 Erika ParkerOrganismic and Evolutionary Biology
279 Jeff PodosBiology
280 Tobias BaskinBiology DeptThe Curriculum fee is simply a way for the university to collect more indirect dollars than they negotate. The money goes into general operating budget, not used for "curriculum".
281 Barry BraunKinesiologyThe cost of the curriculum fee is adds ($6.50 * 20 hrs * 38 weeks = $4940) almost $5000/year to the cost of each graduate student. I have 7 students; so the fee can cost my grants almost $35,000 /year. I just don't have the ability to raise sufficient extramural funding to handle ongoing costs of this magnitude. As a result I am planning to cut back the number of grad students I train.
282 teresa conneelymicrobiology
283 Ana CaicedoBiology
284 Jason CoombsOEB
285 Kathryn LordOrganismic and Evolutionary Biology
286 Marianne Seney
287 Marianne SeneyNeuroscience and Behavior
288 Dennis SearcyBiology Dept.
289 John DonahoePsychology/Behavioral Neuroscience
290 Lynnette Leidy SievertAnthropology
291 Ceren Ozselcuk
292 AnonymousNRCThe very high fees mean that graduate students are no longer the first choice for assistance with research. Post-docs and technicians are a better way to go now.
293 Mari CastanedaUMass Amherst Communication
294 Lynmarie ThompsonChemistry
295 Paul GoodchildSOM - Accounting
296 Henry GeddesCommunication
297 David LensonLLC
298 Deborah CarlinEnglish
299 Gerald FriedmanProfessor of EconomicsEliminate this counter-productive fee! The lost revenues can be recouped by cutting administrative waste and salaries back down to the 2002 level.
300 Margaret SpeasDepartment of Linguistics

 

Signatures | Total: 482