For select journalism scholarships, students submit the best stories that they’ve crafted as part of the application process. From dozens of strong applications for this round of scholarships, the department chose three winners – Grace Chai, Ezekiel Altman and Tymothy Brown. This is Chai’s winning submission for the Karen List Award for Excellence in Student Reporting, a piece about graduate student workers’ fight to improve working conditions in the Lederle Graduate Research Tower.
Sarah Bodansky, a graduate student in the astronomy department, spends much of her time on the sixth floor of the Lederle Graduate Research Tower (LGRT).
On the way to the lab, Bodansky walks by damaged floor tiles in the bathroom, discolored ceiling tiles and water-stained walls.
Down the hall, in the conference room where classes are held, a hole where four ceiling tiles used to sit looms above the tables. Water streaks on the wall facing the window hints at water damage from the past. A tile right above the door sports shades of brown, black and yellow.
In the department’s cryogenic devices laboratory, holes in the ceiling sit right above lab equipment. Punctuating the normal hum of a lab is a persistent clanging sound, which Bodansky says is normal to hear on the floor.
Concerns about health and safety prompted workers to file their first grievances against the University of Massachusetts Amherst seven months prior for violating provisions of their contract. Graduate student workers came together to discuss their concerns about health and safety in their buildings after several students in the astronomy department voiced worries about recurring issues in their workspaces.