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The day all the undergraduates go away and the library is quiet again

OK, despite rather liking/admiring Kelsky myself (she's been invited to speak at my institution twice), I laughed at that.
 
This is good to know. I did not admit in my post that I revert to backpack on days I bike to campus (something I started doing only recently). But for conferences/job talks, I really make the effort to pare down to a messenger bag. I often pay for coat/bag check, too. I don't know WHERE all the stuff creeps in, but I'm really prone to the bag-lady look if I'm not vigilant at conferences.

Although a lot of attendees at the conferences I go to tend to wear full-field gear attire, including expensive outdoor brands and zip-off pants...like they are about to go stride up the mountain. May I could get my own alpinist backpack and embrace the look. 

Also, we need to stop talking about having children as an individual choice or sacrifice. Sure, it is, but the wellbeing of children is also a collective community concern. We pay for subsidized preschool, public education, and Pell Grants through our taxes, even if we don't have kids, because of the belief that our society will be better off if our next generation is an educated one. We also pay for free meals at school and health care for children through taxes because of the belief that society will be better off if our next generation has been fed and cared for. The children today become the voters, doctors, teachers, social workers, and politicians of tomorrow, so yes, we should all care about the wellbeing of children. And sometimes that means supporting parents. Like I said before, no one is actually arguing for an increased stipend for parents. But I would love to see heavily subsidized childcare and better paid family leave. And that family leave should be for everyone, because it's disgusting that a grad student can get diagnosed with cancer and not continue to receive her stipend or her benefits. Or that a grad student caring for a sick parent can't take time off without hurting his time-to-degree. But most importantly, we grad students should be supporting each other, fighting for each other's needs and concerns because administrations sure won't.

I didn't apply based on stipends, but the fact that one of my two choices was offering about $10k more was a significant factor in my final decision. Money is an incredibly important factor in success, and we shouldn't pretend it isn't.
 
As to how schools can afford larger stipends? Take on fewer graduate students; the market is bad enough as is.

I don't think judging other people's reproductive choices is a good life decision.

To answer each question individually:
 
1. Yes, the stipend amount was an important factor in my decision in places to apply. However, I consider it a "cut-off" factor. Most schools in my field do publish stipend amounts and with use of GradCafe + PhysicsGRE.com results databases, I was able to know the funding amount for most places I applied. There was one school where I didn't apply to in part because of the stipend vs. cost of living (tons of people report going into debt even with $30,000/year in Hawaii).
 
Our requirement was stipend was that it supported a comfortable lifestyle. When considering whether or not to go for a PhD, we (my spouse and I) decided that we didn't want to live as a "starving student" for 5+ years without a guarantee of a good job in the end. (Similarly, we had geographical restrictions on where we were willing to live as well). So, my minimum stipend level was something that would pay for half of**: rent for a 1 bedroom place, have internet/netflix/cell phones, own a (used) car, eat out about once/week (takeout, not fancy places), take one or two trips per year (road trips or combined with conferences to save money) and save about $3000/year. 
 
(** I say "half of" because my spouse would be working and earning at least the same, if not more, than me. It took about a year to fully sort through the work authorization, for her to get a permanent job, and to recoup losses due to non-employment at first, so it was not until a year later that we got luxuries like netflix, cars, eating out, taking trips, and saving money).
 
In my opinion, one would likely be disappointed if one sought graduate school to live a very nice lifestyle and I think there are a lot of things one has to give up to attend grad school. A lot of these things are long-term things that I think could be hurting us in the long run, for example: saving up for a home down payment, saving/investing for retirement, paying down past debts, etc. Overall, I think grad school does require a modest lifestyle (e.g. I don't expect to be able to afford to shop at Whole Foods, or take vacations at exotic places, or eat at fancy places often, or buy fancy toys etc.) but I think it's reasonable for a graduate student to expect to be able to live comfortably, instead of being able to just barely afford basic necessities.
 
2. Yes, I would definitely be in favour of a movement to support an increase in pay at my University. In fact, I am actually part of such a movement right now, being part of my school's graduate student government. Currently, the policies require the minimum stipend be $28,000/year and the maximum stipend is $38,000/year. There are two main "peaks" in the stipend distribution--one around the minimum and one around $30,000/year. For reference though, the maximum stipend to qualify for Section 8 (i.e. government assisted housing cost) for a single student in my University's city is $29,500. Given the rent market in our city, a graduate student needs to earn around $32,000 per year in order to make housing "affordable" (i.e. 1/3 of income on rent+utilities). Our efforts are currently focussed on increasing the minimum stipend though, rather than increasing the average/median.
 
Note: The U Houston student earning $33k/year in Houston would be, according to a COL calculator, earning the equivalent of $42k/year where I live now. We live in a very high cost of living area. My current stipend is $30,000/year and our annual household expenses total around $55,000/year for the lifestyle I wrote about above.
 
Bonus Q: This is a topic I'm passionate about, so there's another aspect to this topic, which the article does hint at too. Arguments for paying a "fair wage" to graduate students aside (there's plenty of threads here discussing what is fair, what "market value" do we have etc.), there's another good argument for paying graduate students more. And that is to increase socioeconomic diversity in academia. At my school and in my field, this is something we're working on. If we pay graduate students minimal income, we are 1) discouraging potential students that can't afford to live like this (e.g. have high health costs, or need to support children, or need to support parents) and 2) placing students who have higher costs at a disadvantage (more stress, might have to work side jobs, less able to focus on studies). My school currently has some programs that supplement your income based on need (e.g. graduate students with dependents effectively get a $1200/year per dependent supplement for dependent health insurance costs), but we are working on increasing this.
 
I guess this is related to question #2 above. We are approaching the "increase stipends" issue in two ways. We use arguments for paying a "fair wage" for our "market value" to raise the overall/mean/median stipend on campus. This is a hard argument to make, because the University generally counters with "your degree has market value to you", which is true--the students and the administration just do not agree on where the balance is. We use arguments for diversity and equity to argue for raising the stipend of those who need it the most: the students earning the minimum stipend on campus and the students with extra costs (whether it's health or dependents or something else). This is generally an easier argument to make. The University will counter with arguments like "it's the student's choice to do X" and sometimes they are right, but a lot of the times, these are sexist or otherwise discriminatory so we have a way to attack these counterarguments. In addition, the thing they care about most is attracting the most talented people, so here, we can make the argument that without certain income supplement programs, excellent applicants who have higher expenses because of X are choosing other schools instead of our school (and we have testimonial data to back this up!). This seems to be the line of reasoning that gets the most attention.

For anyone who has read my adventures with applications over the last couple of years: I got in! I sent a late application to OSU and was accepted! So relieved and excited to take the next step in my career .

I'd say it's a worthwhile experience, broadly speaking. If you do continue in the academy as a professor, it's good experience to round out your CV. In addition, you have the experience to be savvy about what service to focus on as a young faculty member.
 
I've been fortunate to have fellowships that released me from teaching duties more than once during my PhD. I often tried to "give back" those years and served for my dept. or broader grad organization. I did get roped into an additional, unplanned year after that for an ad hoc committee within my dept. I largely regret THAT particular experience as a time-sink, and largely felt like I was nothing more than the committee's female "diversity add." In the end I guess it did make me resilient, and I learned (many unpleasant) things about certain personalities/current leadership. I know I will be more choosy in the future and protective of my time and not get suckered into more than I can handle at a new institution.  
 
As a more senior grad, I am now looking less to serve in my dept (esp. after the above experience) except for short-term/one-time stuff, and more towards professional societies or other things in my discipline. I just finished a stint on a planning committee for a specialized conference...it was pretty cool to see the decision-making behind venue, choice of keynote speakers, conference events, budget, etc. and have a say in the planning. My teaching load is light again this summer and next academic year, so I'm volunteering at a local museum for the collections/curatorial experience. 
 
I see service as an inherent part of being an academic. My view has changed over the years -- I wanted nothing to do with it as a high school teacher. Sadly I found out the hard way that when you are not invested in the future of the institution, the direction of your field, or even just keeping tabs on, say, what your union is up to...you are all the more vulnerable to unjust procedures or nasty "surprises" in your benefits, pay, teaching load, etc. Fellow teachers and I were blindsided by a pay freeze one year because the communication between admin and faculty was so broken. But, be choosy and ready to defend your time if a service commitment does not work with your goals, even in some small way. I've seen peers roped into service on five committees in their early years of a new position...that is a serious burden, and should not be the priority at that career stage. I often recommend this post to others as an excellent break-down of useful vs. useless service for young faculty. 

Thanks y'all! Just an update - I passed

I'm late to this thread by a couple weeks, but messenger bags are something I deeply researched before settling on one, so feel a compelling need to pass on that knowledge.  
 
Backpacks are of course the best for my back, but I found that they caused some of my nicer clothes I'd wear for teaching to pill in the small of the back and at the shoulders. Plus for other followers of "The Professor Is In," the advice "don't wear a backpack!" is a mainstay of Karen Kelsky's spiel re. how to comport yourself as a professional, instead of a sloppy/hapless grad student. I tend to agree with that. I went through a few terrible messenger/computer bags from Target or the like that squeaked or started to tear at seams very quickly.
 
I really looked into Timbuk2, Fossil, etc. based on some of the earlier threads here. I was very close to pulling the trigger on a Timbuk2 bag twice I'd already customized online, but for that amount of money, I wanted near-perfection. The webbing strap really put me off -- I've had others where that part was much too slippery. The Fossil bags looked a bit too much like fieldwork bags, and very bulgy with lots of side pockets.
 
I finally found this seller on Etsy and couldn't be happier with my bag. $55 (+ int'l shipping) for a robust canvas bag with neat pockets, and you can request some customization (I asked for non-leather pulls on the zippers, and for a different color combination). They tend to be a bit wider than portrayed in the pics, but I find that minor -- and that it's on me to limit how much I actually carry so that I save my back, and keep the bag looking sleeker.

That thread is here: https://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,183545.0.html
 
My favorite quote so far:
 
"They are going to throw him under the bus? There's no need. He might as well be lying prone in the bus lane of the transit authority lot holding a giant "Here I am! Please come and run over me!" sign that he wrote in his finest caligraphic hand using blood red fountain pen ink that he had custom-mixed for the purpose.
  Heck, at the rate he's going In trying to clean up after himself he's all but chasing down any bus that misses so he can throw himself on the ground in front of it again."

If he likes coffee and has a sense of humor, I'd suggest this mug from PhD Comics. I gave one to my advisor, who got a kick out of it.

If he likes coffee and has a sense of humor, I'd suggest this mug from PhD Comics. I gave one to my advisor, who got a kick out of it.

If he likes coffee and has a sense of humor, I'd suggest this mug from PhD Comics. I gave one to my advisor, who got a kick out of it.

Sometimes cohort makeup is just unlucky and random -- there is a broad spectrum of possible hostility / collegiality, as WhatAmIDoingNow nicely described. I experienced this during my M.S., and now, four years into my PhD, have seen some new cohorts come through, with varying dynamics. Unfortunately since "misery loves company," the bad eggs can really compound and feed off each other, and ruin the dynamic for all. The cohort after mine was largely young, cliquey, very close yet super competitive with each other. Lots of drama. 
 
So your "lateral" peers sound like they suck, but hopefully moving on from coursework means you'll be in contact with them less and you can perhaps focus efforts on making connections more "vertically" -- i.e. those already in the program, meeting next year's cohort, or perhaps in other departments.
 
It sounds like this toxic element of your cohort is still in the undergrad mindset of "do well in classes," which is a rather immature approach to grad school. Research, grant-writing, publishing, and professionalization are the things that really matter. I bet they know this deep down and have no idea how to navigate outside the "known" world of syllabi, midterms, term papers, and course structure...you getting an external fellowship probably was a reminder of that. If they don't grow/move on from this...well, avoid the TA office in future years, because likely they'll be in there, complaining bitterly about their students.

I think you've already gotten great advice about demeanor and approaches to the times you do have to engage with these people...I'd only add "divide and conquer;" don't approach them in a group, but let some time pass and you'll may find common ground with some of them individually. During my M.S., a crop of PhD students joined our lab that I found very negative, lazy and toxic (I described it once ). I found this harder to bear than just a term's worth of coursework, since you really can't avoid the same lab users and fellow advisees. They actually motivated me to wrap up earlier than I probably would have, and move on from that institution.

I've since run into two at conferences and had surprisingly positive, collegial interactions. Both were quite forthcoming about the negative place they were in, emotionally/mentally, while living in that city, and how it took them years to grow personally and settle into jobs that better suited them.