In 1988, Yimo Lin's '09 parents were far more familiar with College Hill than she was. Her mother, a nuclear physicist, and her father, a lasers and optics engineer, were post-doctoral researchers at Brown. But Yimo was back in their native China, two years old and living with relatives, waiting for her parents to make enough money to bring her to America.
While conducting their research on College Hill, Lin's parents lived in a "one-room attic barely high enough to stand up in," and washed dishes in a French restaurant, earning $25 a night, Lin wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Though Lin's parents were paid for their research, they needed to supplement it "with whatever work they could find," she wrote.
Two decades later, the Graduate School has spent millions of dollars to offer greater financial support for its students while lessening the need for outside employment. But the policies designed to meet these goals, including both a five-year guarantee of support and a matching grant program that will debut next fall, have critics saying the policies are too broad for a large university with a diverse student body.
For graduate students who need funding beyond their stipends, the University has started a matching program that will take effect during the 2008-09 academic year. "The program is designed for students to find external funding, which is part of their professional training - it provides financial incentive to search for funding outside of the University," said Chad Galts, communications director for the Grad School.
The initiative was prompted by "conversations with graduate students and observations of support within their departments," Bonde said. The departmental support "ensured that the policy was in the best interest of graduate research," Bonde said. The initiative will affect all graduate students, except those who are part of the Division of Biology and Medicine, which has its own separate sources of funds, she said. The program's offer of financial supplements is awarded to students whose external grants provide stipends of $3,000 and up.
Not all graduate students are familiar with the new program. "I'm not aware of this program," said Jonathan Nichols GS, who studies geological sciences. "In general, if the information does not come in through my Morning Mail, I will not know about it," he said. "It would be nice if the University made this information more visible."
The policy will have a greater effect on grad students in the humanities than in math and science fields, Nichols said. "In geology and most sciences, the funding comes from the departments and is facilitated by our advisers," he said.
The spread of information about the program differs from department to department. For instance, the English department "really kept us up to date and told us about the program," said Austin Gorman GS.
The new program, however, is not without its critics. "Where it is easier to get a larger grant, the program would be more helpful," said Martin Goetz GS. "For instance, in social sciences it is harder to get anywhere above $13,000," he said. "Also, it benefits students who know how to draw up grant proposals."
For Julia Shaw GS, currently working on her Ph.D. in the English department, the University's policy of five years of guaranteed funding has kept an outside source of income from becoming a necessity. "The condition for acceptance to graduate study at Brown, at least in the English department, is full funding; there is a tuition waiver and fellowship offer along with support for summer studies," Shaw said.
In fact, all doctoral students are fully funded for five years of study at Brown, and "individual departments can make requests to the Grad School to fund a sixth year, as long as the student works as a T.A. or participates in assistantships," Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde told The Herald.
This question of graduate funding for students in their sixth year and beyond caused controversy when the guarantee was first introduced in fall 2007. Many students felt the guarantee was too short for students in some departments, like in the humanities, where time to degree completion tends to be longer.
However, some students who once objected to the change are now more accepting of the University's policy. "The English Department has done a great job at changing benchmarks for us. They handled addressing the issue in a timely manner," said Gorman, who originally objected to a guarantee that he saw as too short and rigid. "In fact I prefer it. I'd rather complete my studies in five years."
Still, not all students support the five-year guarantee. "I don't like the one-size-fits-all approach," said said Goetz, who studies in the economics department. Some departments have different means, and I see it as a harsh statement that it is expected that all departments follow the same formula,"
Shaw, who has served as a teaching assistant, said financial help offered to Brown's graduate population compares to that offered by other institutions. In a grad student's second year, "a T.A. would get paid roughly $18,000 a year, which is something that is probably comparable to other Ivy League programs," Shaw said.
The full funding offered to graduate students causes students to "focus on their studies," Shaw said.
James Doyle GS, president of the Graduate Student Council, wrote in an e-mail that he has not looked for outside employment while studying at Brown.
In the past, the Grad School limited the number of hours any student could spend in outside employment. "We no longer have a standard number of hours in which students are allowed to participate in outside employment, but we do recommend that students do not take outside work that will take them away from their graduate studies, especially their work on their dissertation reports," Bonde said.
Like Shaw, Doyle said that the stipend offered by the University "is competitive with other top graduate programs and is quite reasonable considering the cost of living in Providence." For grad students with families, the University now accommodates potential financial difficulties. "The diversity of the graduate student body allows for many different financial living situations. Most graduate students with families do not seek outside employment in accordance with the Graduate School's policies," Doyle wrote.
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