Dear Chancellor Larive and Campus Provost/EVC Kletzer,
Throughout this campaign, graduate students have given testimony of their experiences trying to survive in Santa Cruz on the inadequate wages and funding we receive from this institution.
We want to give voice to these anonymous accounts to illustrate to administration and faculty how dire our situation really is. We also hope that by sharing these unedited stories, graduate students will realize that they are not alone in these experiences:
“I need a COLA because I pay 57% of my income in rent living 20 minutes outside of town. In my previous home I was subject to 5 years of stachybotrys poisoning due a criminally negligent landlord and having no affordable alternatives. I go into debt every month while skipping meals and going to the OPERS food pantry three times a week despite being in the 2nd highest tier of pay among graduate students.”
These stories aren’t novel or surprising to most of us. And they shouldn’t be surprising to administration, who have completed multiple assessments of graduate student wellbeing. Administrators have ignored and dismissed their own findings, which demonstrate that it is impossible to survive on our stipends in Santa Cruz. We will not be ignored. We will not be dismissed. We will not wait. We will not submit.