<p>A recent diagnosis might result in the need for reduced total weekly work hours for medical reasons. This is for a grad student in a PhD program. About 1/4 of the student’s income is from a university grant which is tied to research productivity and academic performance, and the rest is from work as a TA (paid by university) or RA (paid by principal investigator’s or departmental research grants), depending on the semester. Has anyone had experience with this kind of situation? Suggested negotiation strategies, information about legal protections, ways to cope with departmental politics are welcomed. Teaching seems the most challenging task for this student, who has already more than satisfied the stated TA expectation of the program. My sense is this is entirely up to the PI, but if there are overarching guidelines, laws, policies, etc. it would be good to know where to find out more about them. </p>
<p>the student [ who is an adult] needs to see the Deans of Graduate studies and explain his situation. A medical leave might be the best resolution for this student. But each U has its own policies . </p>
<p>You have to give up the income to match the reduced hours.</p>
<p>This is a tough one. I think you are right. A lot will be up to the PI (research director). What is the nature of the experiments the student does? Do they require the student to be present a do stuff to keep them running for set periods of time? </p>
<p>Experiments are timed but student can set the schedule, so can work around own scheduled medical downtime.</p>
<p>The university most likely has someone with the title of “ombudsman”- either in the human resources department, or in the General Counsel’s office (check the website.) The student can discuss the situation in confidence to learn what the options are before deciding how to proceed.</p>
<p>Because the research work is mostly self-scheduled, and student will probably be able to sustain adequate hours on it, but teaching is different because scheduling is not in student’s control. The first negotiation goal is to not have to teach any more. But PI/dept have been making grad students teach (beyond the stated requirement in their admission offer) rather than pay them out of research funds. </p>
<p>Thanks all for your suggestions. These are good places to start.</p>
<p>What year are they in? What sort of PhD program is it? Science or humanities?
How long are they expected to TA? Is it the whole time?
Is this a chronic disease or something that may be resolved? In the latter case, a leave of absence may be considered.</p>
<p>The best case scenario is to reduce the TA hours and take reduced pay, if it is logistically possible, rather than reduce research productivity (even if they let you keep the same pay by TAing and doing less research). This is less likely to hurt your career as ultimately you will be evaluated on the number/quality of papers you produce. </p>
<p>My feeling is that there must already be a policy for medical issues, so it shouldn’t be a case of negotiating. </p>