February 25, 2026 - Spring Grad Guide by The Diamondback

The University of Maryland’s Independent Student Newspaper

THE DIAMONDBACK

Graduate Guide

Spring 2026

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Students gather on McKeldin Mall as they participate in the Graduate Labor Union’s demonstration for collective bargaining rights for graduate student workers on Feb. 26, 2025. (Alexa Yang/The Diamondback)

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USM again opposes bill to grant graduate student workers collective bargaining rights

By Amelia Twyman I Staff writer

University System of Maryland leaders on Jan. 29 once again testified against legislation that would grant University of Maryland graduate student workers collective bargaining rights.

The bill would allow certain graduate assistants at university system institutions, which this university is a part of, to begin negotiating with administrators for a union contract covering working conditions such as hours and pay. It would also grant these rights to graduate student workers at Morgan State University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Sherri Roxas, the university system’s labor relations senior director, testified against the

bill during the Maryland Senate finance committee hearing in January. She said collective bargaining would “nearly double” the number of unionized workers at system institutions, thereby increasing labor costs and requiring additional state funding.

These changes could lead to tuition spikes, she said. She added that some graduate assistants are also paid through outside grants, which the university system does not control.

“We face challenges already at both the federal and state levels, which will only be compounded with passage of this legislation and other labor bills,” Roxas said.

Members of this university’s Student Government Association and Graduate Labor

Union met with the university system’s government relations vice chancellor on Jan. 28 to discuss the university system’s testimony ahead of the Jan. 29 hearing.

By meeting with Susan Lawrence, the meeting’s organizers hoped to break the university system’s pattern of testifying against legislation that would allow graduate student workers to unionize, said Shubh Agnihotri, SGA’s transportation and infrastructure co-director.

The groups’ representatives also met with university administrators in October to discuss collective bargaining and spoke

Story continues on page 5.

The front entrance of the Thomas V. Miller Jr. Administration Building on Nov. 5, 2025. (Ryan Bowie/The Diamondback)

with the university system’s academic affairs chancellor, both times leaving dissatisfied, Agnihotri said.

“It’s really frustrating, they treat us all the time like we don’t know anything,” the sophomore electrical engineering major said.

Graduate student workers at this university have fought for the right to unionize for years.

Maryland does not require its universities to collectively bargain with graduate student workers, and the Maryland General Assembly has considered legislation to change this law every session since 2017, The Diamondback reported in February 2025.

A similar bill to the one discussed on Jan. 29 previously failed to advance through the state Senate Finance Committee.

“Graduates at the University of Maryland play a central and indispensable role in the university’s teaching, research and public mission,” said state Sen. Benjamin Kramer (D-Montgomery), the bill’s co-sponsor, on Jan. 29.

The senator said teaching, grading coursework, managing labs and conducting research are among the essential roles of graduate assistants.

Caspar Popova, a second-year graduate student worker at this university who also testified at the Jan. 29 hearing on behalf of the Graduate Labor Union, said another reason graduate student workers should be able to unionize is to help address payment conflicts and delays. Allowing unionization would help graduate workers find recourse with the university for these delays or other problems.

More than 100 graduate student workers reported missing or delayed payments this summer following the implementation of the university’s new cloud-based administrative and financial services platform, The Diamondback reported in September.

“For an average grad worker making about $2,400 a month, this delay is serious,” Popova said. “It is rent, it is food, it is childcare.”

In testimony against the bill, Morgan State University graduate studies dean Mark Garrison said graduate workers are often “part-

time, short-term, limited individuals who, by the time the negotiation is done, they’re gone.”

“We are not opposed to collective bargaining,” he said. “I’m a very pro-union person myself, but I find this a very, very strange mix of things.”

Kramer disagreed.

“Graduate assistants are paid by the university, assigned duties, supervised, evaluated and disciplined. They teach classes, grade, conduct grand-funded research and staff labs that generate revenue and prestige for the institution,” Kramer said. “The fact of the matter is, they are quite simply employees, and they need to be treated and respected as employees, not children.”

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Kermit the frog delivers a speech during the University of Maryland’s 2025 commencement ceremony on May 22, 2025. (Riley Sims/Courtesy of the University of Maryland)

Graduate students come to UMD from a range of backgrounds

Whether they attended this university for undergrad or became a Terp after earning their bachelor’s, graduate students at the University of Maryland decided to continue their studies for a variety of reasons.

This university is home to more than 230 graduate programs and nearly 11,000 graduate students. Graduate students can either continue their education in College Park or attend another campus of this university. Here’s some of the reflections graduate students had as they continue their studies.

Joshua Chau is a recent graduate of this university and is now a graduate student studying public policy. In his senior year at this university, he began to take graduate

By Amanda Sinofsky I Diversionsreporter

level courses in order to complete both a bachelor’s and master’s in five years. This is his first year as a full-time graduate student through the plus-one program.

Despite completing his bachelor’s degree in government and politics and history this past May, Chau remains part of on-campus organizations, like the professional fraternity Kappa Omega Alpha.

“There’s a lot of graduate students who are still involved,” Chau said. “If they’re in a plus one program, they’re still involved with what they have done as an undergraduate.”

But since starting graduate school, Chau said his circle of people he is around daily

has become a lot smaller.

Alistair Morin graduated from Siena University with a degree in communication and marketing before coming to this university as a redshirt senior on the baseball team.

Morin is studying human development and chose to attend this university for graduate school for both baseball and the size of the school.

“There was a lot of things that we didn’t do at my old school,” Morin said. “I felt like this gave me a better chance getting out in the real world.”

Story continues on page 11.

People walk on McKeldin Mall on Sept. 2, 2025. (Sam Cohen/The Diamondback)

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While some students opt to continue their education in a traditional graduate program, the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in Baltimore offers a Juris Doctor, the professional degree needed to become a lawyer. Law school differs from graduate school in that it focuses on the practical skills needed to practice law, while graduate school typically involves advanced academic training in a specific field.

Meadow Santoriello is a first year law student at the law school after attending this university for its criminology and criminal justice program.

As a Maryland native, Santoriello decided to attend law school to both save some money and experience its positive environment.

“I just had the Maryland pride,” Santoriello said. “[I] really liked the atmosphere when I toured the school.”

Despite the heavy workload often associated with law school, Santoriello applauded the law program for keeping life very balanced.

Pursuing a graduate degree after completing a bachelor’s is a way that many students continue learning about the field they are interested in, no matter what it is.

“I just knew that there was more to be done,” Morin said. “I knew that there was more that I wanted to get from my time in college.”

An open sign on the doorway of the Graduate Student Suite locaTed in Stamp Student Union on April 29, 2025. (Clare Roth/The Diamondback)

UMD graduate students concerned about affordability of new graduate housing complex

By Caroline McDonough I Staff writer

As the University of Maryland plans to open its newest graduate housing complex in August, several graduate students have raised concerns about its affordability.

Discovery House, a 465-unit building that will house about 740 graduate students, is located between the university’s main campus and the Discovery District. Aside from nearly doubling the university’s graduate housing capacity, the complex is meant to foster a sense of community for graduate students, according to Stephen Roth, associate provost and graduate school dean.

But despite the Discovery House’s promise to build community among students, some graduate students are concerned about the complex’s rent.

Graduate Student Government president Keegan Clements-Housser said many graduate students, especially those living on graduate assistant stipends, would need to be paid significantly more for their housing costs to remain at a reasonable 30 to 40 percent of their income.

“We really just need somewhere that’s not priced out of our stipend level,” Clements-Housser said.

Monthly rent at the Discovery House ranges from $1,620 and $1,790 for a one-bedroom plan to $995 for a five-bedroom plan, according to its website.

Discovery House was originally intended to be an affordable option, Clements-Housser explained, with rent priced 20 to 30 percent below market rate thanks to financial support from both the state and the university.

But now almost every room option in the Discovery House is priced above other rentals in the area, according to Clements-Housser.

“Because nobody can afford to live here, people don’t live here,” Clements-Housser said, noting graduate students often live in places such as Silver Spring or Baltimore and commute to campus.

Lack of affordability leads to overworked and overstressed graduate students with long commutes, Clements-Housser said. This makes it tough to build community when no one lives nearby, he explained.

Economics doctoral student Lucas Rengifo-Keller said he wasn’t able to find secure on–campus housing so he was forced to find off–campus housing.

“I’m not close enough to campus to walk, so I had to get an e-bike, and my e-bike was stolen, and then I had to get a car,” Rengifo-Keller said. “So the expenses have added up just because I’m not able to be close enough to campus.”

Despite the affordability concerns, university officials remain optimistic that Discovery House will address a critical need for graduate students.

Story continues on page 13.

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Department of Resident Life director Dennis Passarella-George told The Diamondback that the university considered affordability when developing Discovery House through a public-private partnership.

Built on university land with assistance from the Maryland Economic Development Corporation and state funding, the project was designed to keep construction costs manageable, he said.

All fees and utilities are included in rent, offering students “complete transparency” and “the ability to have a predictable monthly budget,” Passarella-George added. The goal is to expand graduate student housing capacity and add to the options in this area for students with varying needs, he explained.

Graduate students have long wanted more campus-affiliated housing with greater variety in the College Park area, Roth said. He added that they have been actively involved in shaping Discovery House from the beginning.

“From focus groups, even before the thing was designed, helping to understand the market and the need within the community, and then throughout the process, they’ve been involved in the design efforts,” Roth said.

The Discovery House will also be home to the university’s Grand Challenges Graduate Communities program, a new

initiative that brings together small groups of graduate students from across majors to tackle issues like sustainability, AI ethics, threats to democracy and global health.

Jason Farman, graduate school associate dean and Discovery House representative, hopes that the program in the house will foster meaningful connections among graduate

students around shared passions.

“We’re hoping that [what] the Grand Challenges Graduate Communities does is connect people with others who care about the things that they care about, who want to make a difference with the kind of research they’re doing,” Farman said.

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The leonardtown community work site on March 28, 2024. (Neelay Sachdeva/The Diamondback)

UMD graduate workers march for collective bargaining rights, union recognition

By Oliver Mack I Assistantmanagingeditor

About 1,000 University of Maryland community members gathered Oct. 1 to demand collective bargaining rights for graduate workers.

Protestors marched along Route 1 to College Park City Hall and called on this university to voluntarily recognize graduate workers’ right to unionize and begin collective bargaining with the Graduate Labor Union, which would allow them to negotiate stipends, working hours and other conditions.

“For our union we will fight, ignore us if you want a strike,” participants chanted during the march.

Organizer and education doctoral student Cody Norton said Oct. 1’s protest was a continued escalation of previous action demanding voluntary recognition from the university.

“We want to be collaborative, and we are happy to do that when they recognize our right to unionization,” Norton said.

“Nobody working full time at a university should be struggling to pay rent or feed themselves.”

Voluntary recognition is when an employer acknowledges a union once a majority of employees show support, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. More than 2,300 graduate workers accounting for nearly 57 percent of the graduate workforce have already signed union authorization cards, which signal their desire to join the union, computer science doctoral student Sora

Cullen-Baratloo said.

The march culminated in speeches in front of City Hall and the unveiling of a letter that the workers plan to send to university president Darryll Pines after collecting 2,000 signatures. The letter emphasizes the importance of graduate workers and cites other schools across the country that have allowed unionization.

“Until we have a democratic and legally binding voice to help the university to live up to its stated values for its students and employees, we will continue to take whatever actions are necessary to secure our fundamental right to a recognized union,” the letter read.

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Striking is also a possibility if the university fails to meet the group’s demands, Norton said.

“If the university again refuses to recognize our fundamental right to unionization, then the next step forward is likely going to be withholding our labor through some sort of labor stoppage action,” Norton said.

This university’s administration has repeatedly testified against bills in the Maryland General Assembly that would grant graduate student workers the right to collectively bargain, which is not currently required by state law.

Though this university did not provide direct comment on the march, it said in a statement to The Diamondback that the administration “continues to work closely with the Graduate Student Government, the Graduate Assistant Advisory Council, and other student groups to identify student concerns and work to find common ground in

advancing improvements.”

The fight for collective bargaining rights is especially important amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on science funding and higher education, event organizer Jeremy Shuler said.

“Fundamentally, [collective bargaining] forces the university to have a contract with graduate students and bargain with graduate students, so that we will be present whenever [the] university makes a decision about us, and we’ll be there to make sure that they sufficiently respect what we want,” Shuler, a graduate research assistant for the physics department, said.

Graduate students have marched across campus in the past, but this demonstration took place off campus to show that the movement is larger than the university and to avoid university protest regulations, CullenBaratloo said.

A number of graduate workers and community members spoke during the gathering at City Hall, including masters student Jenan El-Hifnawi, who spoke about the struggles many graduate students face from their limited stipends.

“Nobody working full time at a university should be struggling to pay rent or feed themselves,” El-Hifnawi said during her speech.

Cullen-Baratloo said she thought the march went “really well” and left the demonstration feeling “pumped.”

“I really hope they just decide to recognize our union,” Cullen-Baratloo said. “I think it would kind of save the university a lot of headache. It would save us a lot of headache, and then we could begin bargaining as soon as possible.”

graduate students give speeches in front of the College Park City Hall on Oct. 1, 2025. Led by the university’s Graduate Labor Union, formerly known as Fearless Student Employees, the union fights for collective bargaining rights. (Jonathan Peter Belling/The Diamondback)