Graduate Employees' Organization

at Purdue University

Graduate Employee Survey 2008

Overview

Many thanks to all who participated in our first Graduate Employee Survey. 472 graduate employees took a few minutes to take our short survey. Your feedback is extremely useful in assisting our organization’s commitment to represent the needs of graduate employees at Purdue University. Many of your comments will serve to strengthen our fight to obtain collective bargaining rights for graduate employees within the state of Indiana, and has offered critics of our cause concrete statistics regarding the issues graduate student employees face each semester.

Below are the results of the GEO survey. All questions, except where specified, were either yes or no questions or were rated on a scale ranging from strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, and strongly disagree.

To read a selection of the many written comments we received on the surveys, visit The Issues page.

General Information

1. Of the 472 participants, 368 have identified themselves as Doctoral Students, with the remaining identifying as Masters Students.

2. Of the 472 participants, 1.9 percent are Administrative Assistants, 3.4 percent are Lecturers, 58.1 percent are Research Assistants and 36.7 percent are Teaching Assistants.

3. With the exception of School of Technology, and the School of Veterinary Science1, we obtained 10 percent or more survey participants from each school/college. Here are the results:

4. When asked: “Do the number of hours you are expected to work under your contract match the number of hours you actually work?” 51.5 percent answered “No”.

5. When asked: “If no, how many more hours do you work?” Eighty-two percent answered that they worked six or more hours above the number of hours they are paid for. Of those eighty-two percent, more than thirty percent work 20+ more hours than they are paid for.

6. 43.6 percent either disagree or strongly disagree with the statement, “I believe I am fairly compensated for the number of hours I work.” 16.1 percent answered they were not sure if they were being fairly compensated for the number of hours they work.

7. When asked to rate the following statement: “I am able to maintain an adequate standard of living at the current stipend without having to seek outside funding (i.e. student loans),” 51.9 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Health Insurance

1. 394 participants answered “yes” to having graduate student health insurance.

2. More than 60 percent of the 394 agree that Purdue University’s health care plans are affordable.

3. When asked to rate the following statement: “The overall quality of health care facilities and services offered by the graduate student package are adequate,” more than 36 percent either disagreed or strongly disagreed, while 19.8 percent felt they were unsure.

4. 41.2 percent of those who answered “yes” to having graduate student health insurance are unsure if dental health care services offered are adequate. 44 percent either disagree or strongly disagree.2

5. Likewise, 47.5 percent are unsure if eye care services are adequate. 29.5 percent either disagree or strongly disagree.3

Dependents

1. 75 answered “yes” to the question: “Do you have dependents?”

2. Of the 75, almost 66 percent either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: “I can afford adequate health care for my dependents.”4

3. When asked to rate the statement: “I am able to find adequate and affordable day car for all of my children,” forty-three participants (62.3 percent) either disagreed or strongly disagreed.5

Housing

1. More than half agreed with the statement: “I can afford housing on my stipend/paycheck.”

2. Fifty-six participants answered “yes” to the question: “Do you reside in Purdue Village?”

3. Of those 56, 33.9 percent either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: “Purdue Village adequately serves my needs.”

International Students

1. 164 survey participants identified themselves as international students.

2. Although 51.2 percent of the 164 agree that the University provides adequate orientation and ongoing workplace support for international students, nearly 20 percent are unsure, and almost 20 percent either disagreed or strongly disagreed.

3. Of the 164 who identified themselves as international students, 84 percent said they either passed the University’s Oral English Proficiency Test, or are native speakers.6

4. More than half are either unsure, disagree or strongly disagree with the statement: “The University provides sufficient opportunities for graduate employees wishing to improve their English proficiency.”7

5. More than half are unsure if the University’s English training programs and its staff are adequately supported.

Overall Preparedness

1. 390 of the 472 survey participants answered “yes” to the question: “As an employee of the university, do you feel that you are adequately prepared/trained to perform the duties that are required of you?” Many who answered “yes” to this question, however, commented that they acquired many of the skills needed from previous experiences obtained outside of the University.


Footnotes:

  1. We were one participant short of obtaining 10 percent of the School of Veterinary Science, and five participants short from the School of Technology.
  2. Eight of the 394 participants who answered “yes” to question one under health insurance chose to skip this question.
  3. Seven of the 387 participants who answered “yes” to question one under health insurance chose to skip this question.
  4. Of the seventy-five, two chose to skip this question.
  5. Of the seventy-five, six chose to skip this question.
  6. Of the 164, one participant chose to skip this question.
  7. Of the 164, five chose to skip this question.

return to top