Temple is resuming negotiations with its striking graduate student union on Tuesday

With pressure building, Temple University’s administration will return to the bargaining table Tuesday to resume negotiations with its striking graduate student union.

Members of the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association are entering the sixth week of a strike, while a key deadline looms: The university has said striking graduate students must pay tuition by Thursday or face a $100 late fee and the inability to register for more classes.

“These tuition bills are a massive financial burden on members who are already in a precarious financial situation,” said Bethany Kosmicki, a member of the TUGSA negotiating committee and a past TUGSA president. “Additionally, international [student] members understand their ability to register for classes as impacting their visa.”

She said students must register for classes at varying times depending on the college and the program, but those deadlines could be very soon for some students.

Members of TUGSA spent Monday in Harrisburg, further making the case for their demands to legislators, according to the union’s Twitter feed. The union has relied on political support to help pressure the university to make a deal.

The university has said that students’ tuition remission is a benefit of graduate students employment, and while they are on strike, they don’t get that benefit.

“We are treating these striking students and their tuition obligations as we do any other student without an employee status,” the university said in a statement.

Members of TUGSA last month overwhelmingly voted down a tentative agreement. The university said that its latest offer included a 10% raise retroactive to Feb. 1 and another 5% in August, in addition to a $1,000 one-time payment, smaller increases in subsequent years, tuition remission, and free health-care insurance for the students, but nothing for their dependents. The average pay for teaching and research assistants at Temple — who work part-time, teaching core undergraduate courses and assisting professors with research — is $20,700 for nine months, according to the most recent figures from the university.

Also on Monday, the executive committee of the university’s faculty union was scheduled to meet to discuss whether to pursue a vote of no confidence in Temple president Jason Wingard, provost Gregory N. Mandel, and Mitchell Morgan, chair of the trustees board. Jeffrey Doshna, president of the Temple Association of University Professionals, the faculty union, did not respond to questions about the outcome of the meeting by deadline.

» READ MORE: Temple faculty union debates no-confidence vote in President Wingard, but makes no decisions

The meeting of the executive committee of the faculty union, which, like TUGSA, is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, follows a more than 90-minute virtual town hall on Friday that drew nearly 600 of the union’s 2,600 members who debated the issue of whether to call for a no-confidence vote.

Some argued for it, noting what they said was the mishandling of the graduate student strike, during which the university has stopped paying for health care and tuition remission for striking members. They also cited noncontract renewals for some non-tenure faculty, mounting concerns about public safety in the wake of the February killing of a Temple police officer while he was on duty, and vacancies in some key administrative jobs.

» READ MORE: Temple faculty union to discuss taking no-confidence vote in president Wingard and two top administrators

But others said it would send the wrong message to vote no confidence in Temple’s first Black president when he has had less than two years on the job and was confronting post-pandemic problems, such as a surge in gun violence and a drop in enrollment, that are not in his control.

Meanwhile, the president of Temple’s student government on Monday called the union’s consideration of a no-confidence vote “ridiculous.”

“Students that I’ve spoken to think it’s a bit absurd and almost grandstanding and showmanship in that the union has ... gone to such lengths over what are largely systemic issues that no university president alone can address,” said Gianni Quattrocchi. “It’s unreasonable and unrealistic for president Wingard to have solved all these problems within his first two years on the job.”

» READ MORE: Temple grad students overwhelmingly vote down proposed contract, strike continues

Students are concerned about what giving in to TUGSA’s demands for higher pay and better benefits could mean for tuition costs, he said.

And Quattrocchi said the safety problems are an issue for the city and the nation, not just Temple. Representatives of student government and other student groups met with Wingard and Jennifer Griffin, vice president of public safety, last week, he said, and there are plans for another meeting.

Students want to see more police presence in the areas around campus, Quattrocchi said, which is a departure from a couple years ago when they wanted less in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, faculty senate president, last week also spoke in support of Wingard and said he was carrying out the mission he was given: to be an outward face of the university and to meet with donors and alumni and fund-raise.