Nearly 500 Graduate Students Petition Harvard to Not Restrict Emergency Fund Access

Nearly 500 members of the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers signed a petition calling on Harvard to not limit graduate student emergency fund eligibility, which was delivered to top administrators in Massachusetts Hall during a Wednesday rally.

According to the current contract between HGSU-UAW and Harvard, the University must allocate $2,750,000 to funds during fiscal years 2024 and 2025. This money is then distributed between six funds used for expenses such as medical and dental care, childcare, and emergency payments.

Currently, graduate students employed by Harvard during any portion of the fiscal year have access to the emergency fund for the entire year. But in the fall, the University contested these rules, arguing that students should only be able to receive emergency funds when actively employed by Harvard.

The University agreed to maintain the existing agreement for the current academic and fiscal year — but HGSU-UAW members are petitioning to keep it in place for longer.

Ryan McMillan, HGSU-UAW’s financial secretary and the co-chair of the HGSU-UAW Finance and Benefits Committee, said Harvard’s proposed change would make students employed during only one semester of the year ineligible to receive funds during the other.

“If you’re, say, a teaching fellow, in one semester out of the year — which is a common situation for students in, say, a lot of humanities, especially students on fellowships — you might be restricted in terms of when you can teach,” McMillan said. “We said that that semester gives you coverage for the entire year.”

“This is language that the University had approved in the past and had never raised issue with before,” he added.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement to The Crimson that “the University believes, and the collective bargaining agreement stipulates, that these funds should be reserved for those eligible student workers who are actively working and covered by the Harvard Graduate Student Union contract.”

Sarah Broas, a member of HGSU-UAW who helped write the petition, said they believe the changes would especially harm disabled workers.

“I would imagine that people would put off care, for example, saying, ‘Well I can’t really have this doctor’s appointment unless I’m working, so I have to put off scheduling this doctor’s appointment until I’m in a position where I can afford it,’ which is simply despicable to me,” Broas said.

Broas pointed to their own experience with the emergency fund.

“I ended up in the hospital because my housing isn’t accessible to me,” they said. “That’s when the union stepped in and I was able to receive the emergency grant, which maxes out at $1,500 a year, and that was able to cover a significant portion of that expense.”

“Without that, it would have been very stressful for me to figure out how to cover my rent, pay groceries,” Broas added.

Corrections: April 11, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the University’s contract with HGSU stipulates it must allocate $2,750,000 to emergency funds during fiscal years 2024 and 2025. In fact, the University must allocate $2,750,000, which is distributed between six funds that are used for a variety of purposes.

A previous version of this article mispelled Ryan McMillan’s last name.

—Staff writer Aran Sonnad-Joshi can be reached at aran.sonnad-joshi@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @asonnadjoshi.

—Staff writer Sheerea X. Yu can be reached at sheerea.yu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @_shuhree_.