Dear Professor Thain,

Following the email from the Arts and Humanities Faculty to PGR students on April 28th, we are writing to you to register our serious concern about the college’s response to Covid-19 and its impacts on Graduate Teaching Assistants. The college has provided minimal information as to how GTA teaching will be impacted by the pandemic in practice, and it has failed to offer any sort of meaningful support to PGR students. This is despite the fact that many PGR students depend on teaching positions as a source of income. For many of us who are not funded and/or in our final years, this indefinite suspension makes it impossible for us to know whether we will be able to support ourselves to finish our PhDs.

Assurances that GTAs’ work is ‘valued’ ring hollow when no detail has been given as to how decisions will be made going forward, and when there seems to be no interest in giving GTAs any meaningful way of voicing their concerns. This places PhD students in an untenable situation and perpetuates an attitude of negligence towards GTAs that undermines the University’s stated ideals of communality in these times. This is especially disappointing given the recent admissions by the Senior Management Team and GTA Strategy Group of structural failures related to the working conditions and hiring practices of GTAs at King’s.

As a result, we would like answers to the following questions:

– How does the Faculty (and/or College) plan to support postgraduate research students who had anticipated and depended upon teaching income next year, and for whom there are likely to be minimal job alternatives at this time?

– Who will be making decisions about GTA allocation, training, and teaching strategy at Faculty and Department level? How and when will these decisions be made?

– What is the latest date by which KCL will inform GTAs if they will be teaching in September?

– Why are there no plans to consult prospective GTAs in any part of this process?

– If any GTAs are recruited, what will the terms of their training, preparation time, marking, and hourly pay look like?

– Is the A&H Faculty aware of the recent proposal regarding GTA contracts put forward by the GTA Strategy Group and endorsed by SMT (27th Feb) for implementation by September 2020?

Signed,
Fair Pays for GTAs