Assistantship not renewed

[bioarch_fan]

I need some help here. I learned today that my assistantship will not be renewed next year. When I initially accepted my program's offer, I accepted it with the understanding that this will come with a 2-year fully funded assistantship, obviously based upon satisfactory job performance. My acceptance letter only stated that it was 1-year, but my POI and another grad student that I was replacing said that it was a 2-year assistantship because my POI doesn't accept students that they couldn't fund for 2 years. So, I accepted my program with the idea that I would be funded for these 2 years.

Is there anything that I can do to appeal this? I have a meeting with the grad director, department head, and the two professors I work under next week to discuss why I wasn't renewed. I have students who said that they really enjoyed the lab last semester, learned a lot, and was sad that the semester was ending already. I've thought about soliciting letters of support from my past students, but was told by a friend (also a first year) in my department that it might not be a good idea. So I wanted everyone else's opinions on what else I should do.

[fuzzylogician]

Is there any written documentation of the two-year promise? Or any evidence to show that not renewing you would be an exception to an unwritten rule that is accepted wisdom in your program?

[bioarch_fan]

Our conversation about the funding was over the phone when we talked the first time because she told me that she didn't like to accept students who she couldn't fund for the two years. I do have an email from the grad student that I replaced that says it is for two years though. And yes, every other student in my subfield who has been a TA has been renewed for their second year. I haven't talked to the senior TA about this yet since I just found out. But I talked to her last week and she said that every TA as far back as she knows has been renewed for 2 years.

[bioarch_fan]

Oh, also the department head told one of his students (my friend who told me that I should double think soliciting emails of support from students) that hers would be a 2-year assistantship also. And she actually was renewed for her 2nd year, as was another of my friends.

[fuzzylogician]

Well then it really sounds like you need to go to that meeting and hear what they have to say about why you're not being renewed. It's not a normal development, so you need to find out what went wrong. Once you have more information, then you can decide what to do next. 

[TakeruK]

I agree with fuzzylogician that you need to find out more information at this meeting. Typically, the only reason to not renew someone's assistantship is unsatisfactory performance (as almost every grad assistantship is only renewable subject to satisfactory performance). In my opinion, "satisfactory performance" should mean "minimum required to advance to the next year of graduate school" because I think it's not ethical to keep students on without funding. So, you should be prepared for to consider that they might also ask you to leave at this upcoming meeting. Alternatively, they might say that you are on "probation" so they will give you another chance but without funding. 

I'm not saying that this will happen at the meeting, but since it sucks to have the news broken to you by the profs completely out of the blue, it might help to be prepared for this scenario. 

You ask whether you could appeal and that will depend on the reason they give for non-renewal at this meeting. If it's something like "sorry, we're out of money" or "sorry we changed our mind" then you need to find as much written proof of the 2-year promise as you can and appeal through that channel. If it's because of performance, then you should ask about an appeals process for that evaluation. You should collect as much evidence for performance, both from your students but also in your own graduate coursework. Look up the degree requirements and show that you have met the ones that needed to be met by this year and that you are on track for finishing all requirements before the end of your program.

Finally, my advice would be that you might want to look up all of these things for these two potential cases, but it might be better to not argue/appeal the decision right then and there. Instead, at the meeting, you should say that you do not agree with their evaluation and that you would like to appeal the decision and ask how to do that. This will go better as both you and the professors will have time to prepare and reach a fair conclusion. 

[kaufdichglücklich]

I had a very similar thing happen when I was doing my masters... I was accepted into the program with a university-level two year fellowship, but when year two came I found out that I was only going to be receiving funding for one semester due to state level budget cuts. My advisor was absolutely livid, because she had pushed very hard for me to be given the funding in the first place and felt responsible for misleading me about the terms of my acceptance. She had been assured by the department and the graduate school that I had two years of funding when she made my admissions offer. When we went back to my admission letter from the graduate school it turned out that the wording had been chosen in such a way as to give the university wiggle room for not renewing my fellowship. It said something along the lines of "second year funding is generally awarded in the form of TA-ship, GA-ship or fellowship (emphasis mine)." We had taken this to mean that the funding could come from any of these three sources, but the graduate school told us that what it really meant was that second year funding was "generally" awarded, but in the case of budgetary issues it could be terminated. My department was so upset that they actually stopped awarding the fellowship to incoming students because they felt the university crafted it in a way that deliberately mislead prospective students. 

Long story short... I wonder if it is possible that something like this has happened to you. I learned the hard way that, when it comes to a state school, anything not in writing can become ammunition against you if your school decides to cut spending. 

[bioarch_fan]

On 3/29/2017 at 6:29 PM, TakeruK said:

I agree with fuzzylogician that you need to find out more information at this meeting. Typically, the only reason to not renew someone's assistantship is unsatisfactory performance (as almost every grad assistantship is only renewable subject to satisfactory performance). In my opinion, "satisfactory performance" should mean "minimum required to advance to the next year of graduate school" because I think it's not ethical to keep students on without funding. So, you should be prepared for to consider that they might also ask you to leave at this upcoming meeting. Alternatively, they might say that you are on "probation" so they will give you another chance but without funding. 

I'm not saying that this will happen at the meeting, but since it sucks to have the news broken to you by the profs completely out of the blue, it might help to be prepared for this scenario. 

You ask whether you could appeal and that will depend on the reason they give for non-renewal at this meeting. If it's something like "sorry, we're out of money" or "sorry we changed our mind" then you need to find as much written proof of the 2-year promise as you can and appeal through that channel. If it's because of performance, then you should ask about an appeals process for that evaluation. You should collect as much evidence for performance, both from your students but also in your own graduate coursework. Look up the degree requirements and show that you have met the ones that needed to be met by this year and that you are on track for finishing all requirements before the end of your program.

Finally, my advice would be that you might want to look up all of these things for these two potential cases, but it might be better to not argue/appeal the decision right then and there. Instead, at the meeting, you should say that you do not agree with their evaluation and that you would like to appeal the decision and ask how to do that. This will go better as both you and the professors will have time to prepare and reach a fair conclusion. 

Thanks for your response. From what I can tell I'm doing well in my classes and I'm actually ahead of most people that are in their second year. My program has the requirement to have a completed and approved thesis proposal by the end of your second year. I have already submitted my abstract and outline to my chair and co-chair and they have given me the go ahead and start writing the proposal. So I don't think it's that they are kicking me out of the program. Plus my advisor keeps asking which classes I'm taking in the fall.

I think they pulled my funding to give to two new students next year. So that might be my way to fight the decision. They accepted a total of 4 new students for my discipline when they knew that they couldn't fund everyone completely. I'll go to the meeting on Thursday next week and see what they have to say. The DGS asked me not to seek information from any professors until that meeting, but I'm still really wanting to ask my advisor what happened because I'm taking 2 of her classes this semester. So as of right now it's hard to be in her class and not feel cold towards her and I think she can feel it too.

But thank you again for your response! It's nice to hear from other people about what I can do and how to handle this type of situation.

On 3/29/2017 at 6:51 PM, kaufdichglücklich said:

I had a very similar thing happen when I was doing my masters... I was accepted into the program with a university-level two year fellowship, but when year two came I found out that I was only going to be receiving funding for one semester due to state level budget cuts. My advisor was absolutely livid, because she had pushed very hard for me to be given the funding in the first place and felt responsible for misleading me about the terms of my acceptance. She had been assured by the department and the graduate school that I had two years of funding when she made my admissions offer. When we went back to my admission letter from the graduate school it turned out that the wording had been chosen in such a way as to give the university wiggle room for not renewing my fellowship. It said something along the lines of "second year funding is generally awarded in the form of TA-ship, GA-ship or fellowship (emphasis mine)." We had taken this to mean that the funding could come from any of these three sources, but the graduate school told us that what it really meant was that second year funding was "generally" awarded, but in the case of budgetary issues it could be terminated. My department was so upset that they actually stopped awarding the fellowship to incoming students because they felt the university crafted it in a way that deliberately mislead prospective students. 

Long story short... I wonder if it is possible that something like this has happened to you. I learned the hard way that, when it comes to a state school, anything not in writing can become ammunition against you if your school decides to cut spending. 

That sucks!!! I'd be furious about that too. That's kind of my situation right now, but mine's not that the funding was cut by the university, but they just pulled my funding to give to a new student next year. I'm going to fight it for sure though.