Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United rally for unionization, higher stipends and affordable housing

UPDATE: This piece was updated on Feb. 17 at 6:35 p.m. CST to include a response from the university.

Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United hosted a demonstration on Feb. 14 outside Buttrick Hall to call on the university to provide more affordable housing options and raise graduate stipends to a level commensurate with Nashville’s rising housing costs. The rally also aimed to amass support for graduate student unionization.

The university opened its first graduate student housing, The Broadview at Vanderbilt, in July 2023, which prompted criticism over its alleged lack of affordable housing options. The College of Arts and Science also announced an increase in graduate student stipends for the 2023-24 academic year.

Calls for affordable housing 

VGWU Co-President Max Hamilton, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in cancer biology, said that despite these changes, housing remains unaffordable due to rising rents and inflation that outpace graduate stipends. 

“[The Broadview] was supposed to be affordable grad student housing, but $1,600 for 250 square feet or so is not affordable. Rents continue to rise, by far outstripping our stipends, and the same thing goes for the inflation spike in the past couple years,” Hamilton said.

The university formed a Housing Task Force in response to previous graduate student protests over affordable housing. The university declined The Hustler’s request for comment on the status and findings of this task force.

Kaitlyn Schaaf, a sixth-year Ph.D. student in the microbe-host interactions program, said that she has lived in six different residences over the course of her six years at Vanderbilt largely due to rising rent, which she believes stipend raises fail to pace.

“Just between rent hikes year after year, about 40-50% of my stipend has gone toward rent consistently over the time I’ve been here,” Schaaf said. “They’ve given us small raises here and there, but that’s barely matched the increase in rent that I’ve had.”

Schaaf further pointed to the dichotomy of graduate students working as professionals but living as — or worse off than — undergraduate students. 

“I treat grad school as a professional opportunity, and it’s frustrating when you have to live like a college student during that time, or when you’re barely surviving to live like a college student,” Schaaf said.

Households spending more than 30% of income on rent and utilities are considered “rent burdened,” as defined by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Schaaf said her situation classifies her as rent burdened, which has affected her ability to obtain housing around campus due to base income requirements.

“That’s always been hard, even just finding spaces near campus that are willing to rent to you,” Schaaf said. “[The Broadview] takes advantage of the fact that [it] for Vanderbilt students doesn’t require a credit check, so you can get around some of the issues.”

A move toward unionization

Michael Reynolds, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in physics and astronomy, pointed to the success of past rallies and petitions in addressing graduate student needs, including covering of student services fees and granting dental and vision insurance in spring 2023. However, he said that a union is necessary to advance students’ “higher” demands, such as the $40,000 campus-wide base stipend for which VGWU has been petitioning.

“The higher up you go, the harder it is to collectively bargain. We can deliver petition after petition, and we can have all these rallies. But until we have a union, admin is not going to formally recognize us,” Reynolds said. “This is the beginning of the fight, the real fight.”

Hamilton said that the rally marked the first day of VGWU’s public union card campaign, formed in partnership with United Auto Workers. According to the campaign website, unionization would allow graduate students to elect a bargaining committee that “negotiates on equal footing toward a fair agreement” with administration and affords graduate students a say on their employment contract.

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