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VOLUME 116 ISSUE 34
MONDAY, MAY 23, 2022
Not officially associated with the University of Florida
Published by Campus Communications, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida
Graduate assistants contest stagnant wages UF OFFERED TO RAISE MINIMUM STIPEND FOR GRADUATE ASSISTANTS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2017; GAU SAYS IT’S NOT ENOUGH
By Sandra McDonald Alligator Staff Writer
Sandra McDonald // Alligator Staff
Protestors stand at the entrance of campus on the corner of West University Avenue and Southwest 13th Street on Tuesday, May 17, 2022.
Gainesville begins 'Journey to Juneteenth' by celebrating Florida’s Emancipation Day Two events were held Friday to honor and celebrate the end of slavery in Florida By Jackson Reyes Alligator Staff Writer
Under tall pecan trees, community members joined hands in song, fried batches of fish and flew Juneteenth flags while honoring the end of slavery in Florida. Gainesville held two events Friday to celebrate Florida’s Emancipation Day and the start of “Journey to Juneteenth.” The monthlong celebration began on the day slaves in Florida were notified of their freedom by Union General Edward McCook, who read the proclamation at the Knott House in Tallahassee on May 20, 1865. It will end by honoring the day the last slaves in the U.S. heard the proclamation in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. Deloris Rentz, the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center’s financial secretary, hosted one of the city’s events, which featured a fish fry, live music, poetry and educational Q&A sessions. She compared honoring Florida’s Emancipation
SPORTS/SPECIAL/CUTOUT “Voice of the Gators” says goodbye
Story description finish with comma, pg# Longtime Gators play-by-play announcer retires after 33-year career. Read more on pg. 11.
Day to celebrating birthdays. While we recognize others’, we celebrate ours the most, she said. “Our biggest celebration is today, because this is our birth and we will celebrate with others,” she said. “But we give greater emphasis to our own celebration.” About 60 people gathered around folding tables outside the museum to enjoy the fried fish — a staple dish for the Gainesville community spanning over 100 years. Phillis Filer, a 66-year-old Gainesville resident, said when the enslaved were freed, they wanted to find their ancestors who had been torn away from them. Once they had gotten together, it was a time of sitting down and reveling in each other. During the program’s final performance, the audience joined hands as they sang along to “Reach Out and Touch,” performed by Evelyn Banks. “Reach out and touch somebody’s hand,” Banks sang. “Make this world a better place if you can.” About 40 people gathered around City Hall for
SEE EMANCIPATION, PAGE 7
UF offered graduate assistants their first wage increase in 5 years. It was less than a $1,500 raise. UF’s offer came after a sevenmonth bargaining period, which included two extensions. The offers give graduate assistants a raise of about $100 per month — those with 12-month contracts will see a raise from $21,333 to $22,753 and those with 9-month contracts will see a raise from $16,000 to $17,000. The graduate assistants’ labor union said the offer was unacceptable. Gainesville has seen inflation since graduate students’ last pay raise in 2017, said Bryn Taylor, a 25-year-old rehabilitation science graduate student and GAU’s incoming co-president. National inflation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, has risen to 8.3% in 2022. UF’s offer, Taylor said, doesn’t account for this increase. In a survey conducted by UF GAU, 72% of responding graduate students said they were unable to cover all living expenses. Taylor said many graduate students have families who cannot be supported by the current or proposed wages, and international students are not permitted work visas to find employment off-campus. She said UF has ignored quantitative data on what its graduate assistants should be paid. Anything below $25,000, she said, is effectively a paycut. “It’s pretty impossible to live on either $17,000 or $22,753 in Gainesville right now,” Taylor said. About 50 people marched from the Reitz Union to Tigert Hall Tuesday in protest of the wage proposal. Flyers, bikes and skateboards in hand, they chanted “Underworked, underpaid, top five school, top five pay.” GAU members also protested in April when UF asked for a second three-month bargaining extension.
Food insecurity in East Gainesville A 2021 USDA report data identified 11 food deserts in Gainesville, pg. 4
Last chance to have say in presidential search Listening sessions this week, pg. 5
Jennifer Perez, a first-year materials science graduate student, joined the march after it passed through the Reitz. “UF is a top five school,” Perez said, “and it’s embarrassing to see this.” Nearing Tigert Hall on the sidewalk alongside SW 13th Street, the crowd chanted “One, two, three, four, no one should be working poor. Five, six, seven, eight, we’re paid lowest in the state.” Antonios Kyriazis, a 23-year-old physics PhD student, said his work as a graduate instructor and researcher adds up to more than the 20 hours per week as outlined by GAU's Collective Bargaining Contract with UF. Kyriazis said that these 20 hours don't include administrative work, required office hours, time spent designing the course and time spent completing their own schoolwork. “It’s very difficult to maintain a good life-and-work balance,” he said. While he feels lucky to have a good relationship with the advisor who oversees him, Kyriazis said it’s not uncommon for that relationship to sour, making some graduate assistants’ jobs even more difficult. It’s cheaper to drop out and enter the workforce than to keep working at UF, according to Merideth Miska, a 36-year-old geology masters student and co-president of GAU. Miska said she has skipped out on going to the doctor because of her low wages, but continues to teach because she is passionate about her work and students. “UF is not listening to us as a whole. We are an important group of employees, an important group of students,” Miska said. “We are doing so much work in classes, working in their labs, and they are not listening to us.” Abby Held, a 24-year-old physical chemistry graduate student, said she was guilted into accepting an instructor position for Intro to Chemistry in Fall 2021. Held said UF told her she was the best replacement after the previous instructor graduated. Held said she felt she couldn’t
SEE GAU, PAGE 6
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