A petition outlining the request of the Concerned Graduate Students Association, which formed in the aftermath of the policy decision, to date has been signed by over 551 students which represents over a third of the graduate population.

The CGSA was formed partly out of the limitation placed on the Graduate Council. The Council is funded by the Union and was thus restricted from taking actions aginst the Institute once the policy was approved by the Board of Trustees in Feburary. Before the policy was approved, the Council sent a letter to the Trustees which called enacting proposed changes next year “unwise” and recommended delaying implemetation of the policy for one year.

While the Council was able to win a few key concessions on the transition portion of the plan, the policy presented by President Jackson to the Board of Trustees was approved virtually unchanged.

“Students intially came together because there was so much confusion about how the tuition policy would affect current graduate students. When it became certain that particular groups of current graduate students would be disadvantaged by the new policy it became clear that we needed some form of collective action to have our voices heard by the administration,” said CGSA Representative Jill Fisher.

The petition outlined seven concerns and requests of the adminstration. Those that signed the petition believe that the policy will negatively impact part-time students and decrease diversity at RPI. They also questioned the lack of transparency in the making of the policy and noted that the policy change was are incommensurate to existing students’ terms of acceptance.

“We believe the petition was the best place to start as a means of demonstrating the number and diversity of students who did not support the proposed policy changes,” said Fisher.

Following the release of the graduate tuition and transition policy Provost Bud Peterson and Graduate Dean Tom Apple held a series of town meetings to explain the policy to graduate students on a school by school basis. Peterson believes that the meetings went well and were important in clarifying questions on the policy.

“We’re in a situation where we are selling a $9 product at $5. In the past we thought that charging less would help our competiveness in competing for National Science Foundation grants, but after some research we found that this was untrue,” said Apple. The research Apple referred to was one of the findings reached by a consulting agency that was brought in to evaluate graduate education.

“This is just not a situation of graduate tuition. We are trying to draw a balance between all the initiatives [currently undertaken by the Institute] and the tuition plan is just one part,” said Peterson.

During and after the town meetings petition organizers and other concerned students met to formalize a response the administration with a goal of including graduate students in the development of a better policy that would be more fair to current graduate students. Although many in the loosely affiliated group were divided on whether they would be effective in going through appropriate channels given that the Graduate Council and student government, although vocal, in general were able to gain few concessions from the Institute.

After some debate a consensus was reached which would delay further action until after the negotiating committee made up of Fisher, Alex Ross, and Vishnu Tekumalla were able to present the group’s concerns to President Jackson.

The committee was denied a meeting with Jackson and was referred to Peterson and Apple. On March 27 they presented Student’s Concerns Regarding the Graduate Tuition Policy. The document, endorsed by the Graduate Council, detailed many of the concerns raised in the initial petition and listed the process which lead to the development of the new tuition policy as it primary issue of concern.

“The primary issues of concern are the opacity and the lack of student participation associated with the development and implementation of this policy and the adverse effects this policy will have on currently enrolled graduate students.”

The committee argued that had students been included in the process many of its shortcomings would have been identified and they believe the “imposed changes are severe and threaten to prevent certain students from recovering their intellectual, temporal, and financial investments in Rensselaer.”

The committee also requested graduate students be invited to participate in policy development that will impact graduate students’ status.

On April 3 Peterson responded to the document in memorandum stating, “Our current graduate tuition is substaintially underpriced ... those who choose to continue to enroll as part-time students should be required to pay a competitive price for their education.”

He also stated that the deans of the five schools have been charged with the responsibility of ensuring that all of the returning students with TA or institutionally supported RA positions are supported for ’02- ’03 academic year.

“[Peterson] answered the questions that we posed, which was particularly helpful in clearing up some ambiguity of the new policy. He did not, however, accept any of the suggestions that we made as amendments to the new policy. This has been an extreme disappointment for graduate students,” said Fisher. She went on to say that she had hoped there would have been discussion and compromise from both parties.