Since leaving campus for winter break last term, sophomore Vikas Mankala has been hard at work as scholarship season has arrived. Mankala is one of the hundreds of undergraduate students who will apply to scholarships during the term. For most scholarships offered by the University of Oregon, applications are due during winter term, but this year Mankala thought ahead.

“This time I was smart and worked over winter break,” Mankala said. “I didn’t procrastinate like I did last year.”

Majoring in both human physiology and biology, Mankala has to take extra classes to satisfy all of his requirements. The extra workload can be costly.

“I have to take more credits than the average student with one major so I have to take more classes, which costs more,” Mankala said. The scholarships Mankala has continued to receive have helped him pursue a double major.

For UO students options are available to help fund costs with higher education. The Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships offer two scholarships that continuing students can apply for: the General University Scholarship and the Diversity Excellence Scholarship.

Other scholarships are also offered within the different schools and departments on campus. Jeanne Coe, director of Student Services in the Lundquist College of Business, coordinates the undergraduate scholarships that the school offers. According to Coe, the college offers over $300,000 a year in scholarships for continuing students.

The College of Arts and Sciences, which consists of 41 departments and programs as well as 46 undergraduate majors, offers 28 scholarships to different majors within the college. Specific departments also offer their own scholarships. According to Sarah Bungum, associate director of Donor and Alumni Relations, the criteria varies for the scholarships offered by the college.

“It’s different for each scholarship,” Bungum said. “So we have this huge list of 28 and they’re all different. Some of them have financial need, some of them don’t. It’s one application and you just check off all of the ones that you are saying you’re eligible for. We try to make it easier and have it be all online.”

The online application process has made it easier both for students like Mankala and the staff who coordinate scholarship awards. Both the College of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences have made efforts to make their scholarships accessible to students.

“We put it on our weekly announcements, we have monitors in the building that we announce by,” Coe said. “And then word of mouth of course, and our advisors.”

“We definitely get a lot of applications, so they’re definitely finding out about them somehow,” Bungum said.

In Mankala’s opinion, the biggest obstacle preventing students from applying to scholarships is not accessibility, but a lack of “follow-through.”

“I think the financial aid that’s out there is being promoted well,” Mankala said. “There are banners on the street and I get lots of emails. The university does a good job distributing the information and it’s up to the student to follow through.”

According to Mankala, not only are the scholarship applications accessible, they are also a means of self-reflection.

“They encourage us to pursue our areas of study further,” Mankala said. “One of the prompts of an essay I wrote was, ‘What drives you in the area of sciences and what are your goals for the future?’ and that reflection alone is an additional resource I can use to follow that path.”

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A first-generation student at the University of Oregon, Jessica Bolts has been working part-time while in high school and full-time every summer since she was 16-years-old to save money for college. Now a freshman attending UO, Bolts continues to work up to two jobs to make ends meet this time in her collegiate career.

“I’m paying for school myself, so I’ve been saving up since I started working,” Bolts said. “I got the past fall term covered for tuition, so I’m just trying to work as much as I can.”

Bolts spends her days studying and attending class. After her last class of the day, she drives to the Valley River Center Mall to start her shift at All-American Ice Cream. She works until about 10 p.m., long after the mall has closed. By the time she gets back to her dorm, it is already close to midnight.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m never going to get back,” Bolts said. Some weekends Bolts works from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., and her friends try to visit her when they can. During fall term, Bolts worked a second seasonal job, and worked 15 hours in one day on Black Friday.

While trying to balance her work schedule and 17 credit hours at school, Bolts successfully paid for her first two terms without taking out any loans.

At the University of Oregon, full-time tuition has risen from $5,570 in 2004 to $9,918 in 2014, and federal and state aid have not risen proportionately. This has created a problem for many students, who take out loans or work multiple jobs to pursue higher education.

“I remember one of my teachers in high school said they worked one summer and then that paid for like all of their college,” Bolts said. “It is insane how expensive it is and how everyone is going to have loans that they carry until their forties.”

While Bolts has paid for her entire tuition and housing out of pocket and plans to do so for as long as she can, she acknowledges the possibility of taking out loans in the future. According to Bolts, she does not feel as knowledgable about how student loans work as she wishes she did, and thinks that more could be done in high schools to prepare students for issues concerning financial aid and loans.

“I don’t think I was very prepared or my friends were very prepared about how to take out loans and how grants work and all those things,” Bolts said. “In my opinion, part of an economics class in high school should include that for seniors just to prepare you.”

Despite the amount of time and work it has taken for her to afford higher education, Bolts said she would not change a thing.

“It would be nice not to have a job, just be able to relax and know that I have a lot of time to do homework,” Bolts said. “But I also think having a job is a good way to set out your priorities and learn how to balance out school and work.”

“I think it’s worth it, paying as much as I do.”

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After the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation strike during finals week of fall term, the last thing the University of Oregon community wants to see is another strike. That’s why administrators and other unions are optimistically approaching bargaining in January.

Graduate Teaching Fellows returned to work on Dec. 10 after agreeing on pay raises and the administration’s plan to form a financial hardship fund for graduate students. The union estimates that 650 to 700 GTFs went on strike, while 618 GTFs voted to strike in October. Now, GTFs will be receiving retroactive pay raises, and GTFs who were striking will not have pay or benefits docked for striking, as a part of the agreement between the UO and the GTFF.

“It is now time for us to begin rebuilding trust,” interim UO President Scott Coltrane wrote in an email after the agreement was announced and GTFs returned to work. For the next 10 months, GTFs will work under the new contract until bargaining starts again in October.

According to Richard Wagner, the GTFF’s vice president of membership communications, one aspect of their contract that will be up for discussion is pay.

“Certainly in the next bargaining cycle we will be looking for a continuation for larger pay raises than we got this year in order to close the gap between the cost of living and wages,” Wagner said.

SEIU and United Academics, the classified workers’ and faculty unions, respectively, supported the GTFF during the strike.

“That was really motivating,” Wagner said. “Having people show up in support means a lot. They didn’t feel alone when they had people showing up to support them.”

Now, SEIU President Carla McNelly and United Academics President Michael Dreiling are preparing for the beginning of their own negotiations with the university.

The SEIU includes custodians, grounds crew, food service employees, administrative staff, nurses and librarians at the seven public universities in Oregon. Representatives from each campus will be a part of negotiations according to Julie Brown, senior director of communications at the UO. Negotiations are expected to begin in January. The current contract ends on June 30.

McNelly hopes to stay united with the other universities’ classified staff during bargaining. Her goal is to receive one economic package applying to all seven schools instead of seven different packages that differ based on how much money each university makes, as well as a substantial cost of living increase.

According to Dreiling, there are instances in which faculty members are teaching too many of the classes and are underpaid compared to their peers.

“The faculty of United Academics are committed to solving problems and we see problems for the University of Oregon on a number of fronts, both in terms of the basic attention to faculty, where we just continue to see faculty leave for better offers and greener pastures,” Dreiling said.

However, all parties are optimistic. According to Brown, the UO anticipates successful resolutions to upcoming contract negotiations, as do Dreiling and McNelly. In McNelly’s eyes, the support between UO unions has positively impacted the negotiations of labor unions on campus.

“I believe that we are going to have a positive experience,” McNelly said, “because of the coalitions that were built here at the University of Oregon that got stronger during the GTFF strike, that I think sent a clear message statewide.”

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Helen Chu has never seen a software test come back with everyone satisfied – except Canvas.

Chu, director of Academic Technology for University of Oregon Libraries, is optimistic about UO’s learning management system switching from Blackboard to Canvas, which begins spring 2015.

The University of Oregon has been using Blackboard since 1999, and the market for learning management systems like Blackboard has changed drastically since its founding.

“Our students, our faculty and our GTFs are much more experienced with using technology and we have a much higher expectation of it,” Chu said. “If you think about all of the things that we expect an LMS to do now, they were completely foreign back then.”

According to Chu, the ending of the Blackboard contract allowed the university to make a thoughtful and deliberate decision to determine which LMS would best meet the needs of the UO community.

Sophomores Kelsey Bleck and Sam Valdez were enrolled in MUS 133 during spring term last year, one of the classes that tested Canvas. After using Canvas for a term, Bleck was pleased with the new software.

“With Canvas, the layout was much better,” Bleck said. “There were a lot less menus. With Canvas, you can just click and go.” According to Chu, a part of the criteria for the new LMS was that it would be more intuitive, and there were many ways to measure that aspect of intuition.

“How many clicks does it take to get to something?” Chu said. “Do you know where to find it? How long do you have to wait until something actually happens? So, how much time per day do you, as a student or a faculty member, spend just trying to navigate the interface to get to the real work that you’re trying to do?”

Bleck found that Canvas met his needs as a student, and supported UO’s decision to switch.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Bleck said. “I don’t exactly know how it’s going to proceed once it’s locked and loaded, but I think it’s a good decision to switch over to Canvas.”

While Valdez was not dissatisfied with Canvas, he did not agree with the decision to switch.

“I don’t think it’s a significant enough difference between Blackboard and Canvas for it to be a worthwhile switch,” Valdez said. “It didn’t seem like Canvas blew Blackboard out of the water for me. I think to justify switching everything over, you need something that’s significantly better.”

The use of Canvas in UO courses is anticipated to begin in spring 2015. While an exact timeline of the transition has not yet been determined, the university is working to make the switch as seamless as possible.

“We’re going to do as much as we can to make the process easy for everybody,” Chu said.

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The University of Oregon and the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation have reached a tentative agreement after eight days of striking in regard to higher wages and paid leave. The agreement includes 5 percent raises to the minimum wages retroactive for this year and 5 percent raises for next year as well. The agreement also includes the formation of the Graduate Student Assistance Fund that will be accessible to all graduate students.

The GTFF voted to strike in October after bargaining with the university since November 2013, and the strike began on Dec. 2. Initially the GTFF proposed two weeks of paid parental and medical leave, while the UO offered twelve weeks of unpaid leave and no paid leave. During the eight administrative days of the strike, the UO and the GTFF met in mediation sessions four times, the last session being on Tuesday Dec. 9. The GTFF and UO spent 22 hours in mediation over the course of Monday Dec. 8 and Tuesday Dec. 9.

In these sessions, different alternatives to paid leave were discussed and now both groups have agreed to form the Graduate Student Assistance Fund. While this is not paid leave, the fund will allow graduate students to relieve the financial burden of taking unpaid leave. The GTFF’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) will include new language regarding the fund. The fund will be an agreement between the University president, the dean of the Graduate School, and a Graduate Student Assistance Fund Committee which will include GTFF members and graduate students.

While the agreement is tentative and will be voted on by the GTFF membership, the agreement will allow striking GTFs to return to their work and to their students as finals week progresses.

“We are very happy for the strike to end,” GTFF president Joe Henry said in the GTFF press release. “Our students can now get adequate assessments of their progress and learning during the quarter.”

Interim President Scott Coltrane wrote in an e-mail that he is very pleased the bargaining teams have reached a tentative agreement, and that members of the university can now get back to “end-of-term activities.”

Coltrane also said the new agreement will give the UO an opportunity to be there for graduate students in time of need, and will attract future graduate students to the UO.

“Not only will it meet the needs of graduate students during life’s most challenging and rewarding times, it also allows the university to meet those needs in a fiscally responsible way and will help us attract the best graduate students in the country.”

“This has been a challenging time for our campus. It is now time for us to begin rebuilding trust. I urge everyone to look forward and to work to bring our campus community together.”

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The surprise mediation session between the University of Oregon administration and the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation that took place on Dec. 8 ended without a resolution and mediation will continue on Dec. 9. Both groups have attended several mediation sessions since the beginning of the strike on Dec. 2, but none have ended in an agreement.

The GTFF strike has affected students and faculty, as well as different services on campus. GTFs will continue to strike during finals week until a resolution is met with the UO.

Freshman Mack Veltman has been working on a paper for his journalism class for a month.

However, when Veltman turned the essay in on Wednesday, Dec. 3 after the GTFF strike had begun, his J201 professor announced that the essays would only be graded if the strike ended. For many students, the announcement was a relief. For Veltman, it was a disappointment.

“You’d think, ‘Oh, finals get canceled, that’s awesome,’” Veltman said. “But when you put as much work into it as I did, it’s kind of like slap in the face.”

The essay was to be considered a part of his final, the other part, a scantron test that will not be changed. Veltman was surprised that there wasn’t a back-up plan in place that would ensure that the class’s work was graded without GTFs.

“They told us to write our essays, prepare for our finals. There are plans in place in case the GTFs strike,” Veltman said. “So I assumed that there would be a back-up plan.”

There are backup plans that the university has set into place under the Academic Continuity Plan, but since the strike began there have been cancellations and other disruptions of classes. Many professors are changing components of their finals to make them easier to grade in a GTF’s absence, which affects undergraduates.

University of Oregon Interim President Scott Coltrane said he realizes this is a stressful time, but administration is working diligently to find a solution.

“We realize it’s stressful for students because we want to make sure that they can get the grades that they deserve and are working on different options to make that happen,” Coltrane said.

Veltman is not alone. Freshman Kimaya Duren encountered obstacles without her GTFs in multiple classes as well.

“My psych class was affected because we have three GTFs in that class and they run study groups for the midterm so I wasn’t able to study with them.” Duren said. “(The professor) also had trouble facilitating it because it’s a 300-person class and when you’re taking the midterm, the GTFs walk around and make sure there’s no cheating,”

Duren’s final for her writing class was also affected. The final for the class was to write an essay, but instead, students are to compile a portfolio of all of the assignments they have completed this term.

Coltrane said that there are different solutions for finals within different disciplines.

“It’s not one answer, it’s different for different kinds of classes,” Coltrane said.

While she has not encountered major changes like Duren and Veltman, sophomore Lydia Bales has had one final made optional. If a student wants to improve, he or she can take it, but it is not required.

“I think it’s a good solution but it sucks because we’ve all worked really hard for this class,” Bales said.

Despite the strike’s impact on her finals, Bales doesn’t blame her GTFs for taking action.

“I’m really glad the GTFs are standing up for themselves, but it’s taking a toll on undergraduates and it’s not affecting the higher-ups like I think like they wanted it to,” Bales said.

Duren, however, doesn’t agree with the GTFF in its decision to strike.

“They are affecting the entire student body,” Duren said. “I feel like they’re being a little bit inconsiderate of everyone else.”

According to Veltman, the most important thing to him is the success of his fellow undergraduates.

“I just want the best possible outcome for us students and for the GTFs as well,” Veltman said. “I just hope they come up with a resolution. And quickly.”

Coltrane agrees.

“We’re working on various activities to fill in replacement proctors for exams so that we can make sure that students who have to, or need to, or want to take their final exams can do so,” Coltrane said.

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After continuing mediation today, the University of Oregon administration and the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation have failed to reach an agreement.

GTFs have been picketing since the strike began on Tuesday and they will continue to strike into finals week, which begins on Monday, Dec. 8.

The GTFF has been striking since Tuesday Dec. 2 after an unsuccessful mediation session that took place on Monday, Dec.1, regarding higher salary and paid medical and parental leave. 

“We realize it’s stressful for students because we want to make sure that they can get the grades that they deserve and are working on different options to make that happen,” interim President Scott Coltrane said in an interview with the Emerald.

United Academics released a letter today on their Facebook page regarding the continuation of the strike and the affect it will have for students on final examinations.

The letter said all final examinations and end-of-term assignments in courses taught by graduate professors in the departments of philosophy, ethic studies, and women and gender studies will be optional.

It also said if the strike continues past Dec. 12, the Dean of Humanities in CAS will “assign all grades in affected courses, based on only a portion of the graded assignments and tests listed in course syllabi.”

In the philosophy department, all professors have been removed as instructors of record and more departments could face a similar outcome.

“The apparent goal of this attack is to break the GTFF, and not, as the administration insists, maintain ‘academic continuity,’” the letter said.

The next mediation session is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 9. Until then, the strike will continue.

The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation returned to mediation with the University of Oregon administration at 8 a.m. this morning after two days on strike.

The GTFF began bargaining with the UO nearly a year ago over higher wages and paid leave. The GTFF, which is the GTFs’ labor union, and administration met during mediation sessions on Nov. 25, Nov. 26 and again on Dec. 1.

They didn’t reach an agreement with the administration and decided to strike the next day and the GTFFs continue to demand higher wages and paid leave.

Throughout the mediation sessions, administration and the GTFF have been unable to find common ground, leading to several proposals that serve as an alternative for the two weeks of paid leave the GTFF included in its final offer on Oct. 27.

Financial Hardship Fund

The university offered a potential $150,000 fund per year that would be available to all graduate students with a medical emergency or financial need due to the birth or adoption of a child. The aid would be distributed as a hardship grant.

“The university has listened very carefully to our graduate students over the course of this negotiation process and this fund essentially represents another way we are attempting to meet the needs and the underlying needs they have talked about,” Tobin Klinger, UO senior director of Public Affairs Communications said.

In previous negotiations, the GTFF didn’t think the fund was made explicitly available for employees.

“In their language there was nothing about our status as workers, as employees or anything that would contractually guarantee that this fund would be automatically available for GTFs,” GTFF Vice President of Political Education Erin Moberg said. “And so, we’re not opposed to a fund that would be able to be used by graduate students, but we need it to be a guarantee for employees.”

Interim President Scott Coltrane addressed this aspect of the proposal on Wednesday, Nov. 3 in an interview with OPB’s Think Out Loud, explaining why the administration wants the fund to be accessible to all graduate students.

“The GTFs, for instance, get their tuition paid and all, but $61 of fees every term paid in return for working,” Coltrane said. “The other grad students are paying their full amount of tuition. They also have financial hardship. We want them to stay in school. We want them to be able to matriculate even if they have these family changes or these medical emergencies.”

Other GTFF members are surprised that paid leave alternatives have not been brought up before this month.

“We started bargaining a year ago,” said Brianna Bertoglio, GTFF vice president of operations. “This is the kind of offer that should have been on the table six months ago. Up until two weeks ago, the only thing they said about paid leave was no.”

Until an agreement is formed, striking will continue. The GTFF executive council has allocated $160,000 to a fund that will provide supplies such as warm beverages and hand warmers to striking GTFs as well as accounting for lost income.

“So if the administration docks the pay of individual graduate employees, those graduate employees can apply to our fund and get reimbursed if they’ve been docked,” Moberg said.

Keep an eye on the Daily Emerald for updates on today’s mediation.

Follow Francesca Fontana on Twitter @francescamarief

As social media flooded with posts from students about cancelled classes and discussion sections, the GTFs’ first day of striking is over.

Today several members of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation arrived on campus to protest their case.

Picketing was especially popular, as the GTFs gathered in front of various buildings, such as Willamette Hall, the Prince Lucien Campbell Hall, Colombia Hall, Condon Hall and Friendly Hall.

GTFs signed up for different picketing shifts and marched for hours, taking turns leading chants. Coffee and lunch were provided on location, but picketing continued through everyone’s lunch breaks.

Matthew Hannah left picketing after his first shift from 8 a.m. until 12 p.m. to work on his dissertation, but said he planned to return and stay as many hours as he could.

“I think that the more people we have out here showing that we’re angry and we’re not gonna take it anymore, the better off we’ll all be in the long run,” Hannah said. Hannah is committed to finishing his work as a graduate student, but is just as committed to picketing alongside fellow GTF’s in the below 40 degree weather.

“Ironically, whatever contract we get won’t benefit me, because I’m leaving,” Hannah said. “But I still believe in the cause and am definitely committed to fighting for my brothers and sisters.”

While the GTFs have begun to strike, the administration’s focus is on the undergraduates, according to Senior Director of Public Affairs Communications Tobin Klinger.

“This is a time of year when you have finals that are going to need proctoring, you’re gonna have grades that are going to be submitted, you want to make sure those things happen so that financial aid can be secure, so that people can graduate depending on where they’re at in their academic career,” Klinger said. “So we’re focused right now on implementing our contingency plans so that we meet the needs of our students.”

On the picket line, GTFs have similar concerns.

“I’m an instructor, I have students,” said English GTF Robert Zandstra. “I’ve got a writing class that I would love to continue teaching and helping them learn and giving them the grade they deserve.”

The classes that striking GTFs normally teach will be taught by the professor of the class or other faculty, according to the administration.

“I feel like I’m the only person who can finish out the term with my students,” Zandstra added. “At the same time, the university doesn’t give us graduate students the resources to do so.”

The resources that the GTFF has asked for during bargaining and mediation have been higher wages and paid leave.

The most recent proposals have been two weeks of “flex-time,” which would allow GTFs to take off two weeks of guaranteed leave and making up that time at some other point, and a medical hardship fund. Neither proposal has been agreed upon by the two parties, leading up to the GTFF to strike.

The administration and the GTFF will resume mediation on Thursday Dec. 4. Until then the GTFs are prepared to continue striking.

However, both parties are hopeful that a resolution can be made so that the GTFs can resume their work.

“The university remains optimistic that mediation will bring about common ground, that we’ll be able to finalize a deal and keep moving forward,” Klinger said.

Hannah also is hopeful that a resolution will be made with the administration, saying, “It definitely takes a toll in the cold, so we’re hoping that they settle with us soon and give us a fair contract and that we can go back to work.”

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