Welcome to the first TAU international Volunteers-managed blog! This blog has been created to give complementary information to the graduated students of TAU and to create a community where we can share thoughts and information. This blog is not affiliated to any of the TAU services or bureaucratic apparatus and it is meant to be an informal tool where people can be updated, alongside the Whatsapp group and the informal word-of-mouth. Each student or post-doc is more than welcome to approach and participate in the creation of this blog, acting as a volunteer (with a little basic commitment) but also as an user, where they can collect any sort of information. All of the content posted on this blog is under the responsibility of the person who wrote it and posted it. UPDATE 06.11.23 Guidelines for the WhatsApp group 1.Respect & Kindness: Treat all members with respect and kindness. Be mindful of your tone and language. 2. Stay On Topic: Keep discussions releva...
In these weeks, many though things are happening. Some of them, touched us in particular.
First of all, the Research Student Senate finally met on the 5th of January.
The discussion was mostly targeted at understanding the conditions and the necessities of the international students upon their arrival. We managed to point out some of the issues to be dealt with once one comes in Israel and gets to live on campus (Broshim dorms). Regarding this specific dormitory, we once asked to have the possibility to see the waiting lists in order to monitor the "positions" in the list, but this thing is not possible for policy reasons.
The focus was straightforward on this situation given the little time we had to meet.
Ulterior debate was carried out on the possibility of having a free or subsidized Ulpan (i.e. Hebrew course), a proposal we raised back then in November. For now, the official answer is that they are trying to get to some arrangement with the company providing the classes, but this is a long and demanding process.
On the other hand, we were told that - in order to increase the welfare and the community - we can organize events for the international students on the Balcony of Carter Building and for smaller events we can use the room 202 in the same building, both upon reservations.
To make it clear: even the events on the balcony need a reservation before they happen.
Another popular issue was some more explanation on the salary and the scholarships. Not everyone receives the same amount of money, and this is sometimes justified (different funding, different PI availability, different stages in career or departmental budgets, etc...) but not always. In order to have a better understanding about these things, we are connecting to the Teaching and Research Faculty Organization(TRFO), a body in TAU that supervises and offer helps upon the working conditions of the scholars (meaning any student who receives a scholarship, from master to post-doc). These people are opening soon the English version of their website where we can find all of the information regarding our rights and financial / work / University issues.
See their website (soon in English, but it is possible to translate the pages).
With this encounter that one of us personally had with the representative of this organization, we spoke about various issues, among them:
- Clarify the conditions for the pregnancy for PhD and post-Doc
- Possibility to have student discount coupons on meals
- Possibility of having a workshop day where one member of TRFO, who will come to explain our rights and answer in person to our concerns
- English website
- Updates on the ongoing struggle on the adjustment of the scholarship according to the wide increase of the cost of life of this year.
Check the email that we report below and support the struggle!
Prices are rising - raise the scholarships!
The semester is already ending and the university administration still hasn’t raised scholarships according to the consumer price index (CPI) (almost 5%), in violation of its agreement with the Teaching and Research Faculty Organization from 2009.
What does this mean for us? That the university owes each scholar between 330 and 3150 NIS for the semester (depending on scholarship percentage and research stage)! Meanwhile, the cost of living is rising!
As a result of our advocacy over the past weeks, the administration is finally addressing the issue: the president of the university told us that our concerns will be taken care of and that a decision regarding scholarship amounts will be made as soon as possible. However, we were just told that the administration is again postponing the decision.
For us, the situation is clear: the university administration made an agreement which it must respect, and therefore must raise scholarships immediately according to the CPI! We are thousands of research students on scholarship, and without us, the university cannot carry out research. We deserve to make a decent living!
Join the demonstration on Wednesday, 18.1.23, at 11:45, in front of the Shenkar building cafeteria (Faculty of Exact Sciences) in order to make our message to the administration clear: Respect your commitment and raise our scholarships!
Update on 12.01.23
The situation at the moment is, they’re stalling, as they do many times, and we’re concerned they won’t raise the scholarships or raise them in a smaller amount than they’re supposed to according to their commitment.
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