Tel Aviv University International students volunteering and support group

Yesterday 19.07.23 three SEGEL representatives (Tuvaal, Elinor, Valentina) met some international scholars (mostly post-doc, but also PhDs). There were 10 people present, among them our team member Bhavana, who is kindly helping and supporting our campaign. We decided to focus on the following topics: Status of the scholarships and compensations The meeting between the postdocs and the VP of research and development and the VP of the International scholars Next steps to take in order to escalate or progress with the campaign At first, Tuvaal gave us a summary of the current situation: the various demands have been forwarded to the administration body of the University. In particular, the chairperson of SEGEL (Shachar) has reached out the CEO of the University, presenting three demands: increase of the Master and PhD students scholarships of 12.5% (percentage set according to the current status quo in Israel, resembling the general increase of salaries in the country due to the CPI); in...

From the  website The organization of the teaching and research faculty at Tel Aviv University was established with the aim of representing young researchers, practitioners, as well as lecturers without tenure. This is in order to ensure fair teaching and research conditions (as well as benefit from collective insurance and consumer power). The organization includes male and female fellows, as well as teaching staff at the university who do not have a senior position: teaching assistant (master's and bachelor's degree students), assistant and instructor (doctoral students), teaching associate, teacher from abroad, as well as faculty in the track the equivalent The organization represents these populations and has signed collective agreements regarding them. As you know, everyone is entitled to have rights and representation in the job environment. Unfortunately, in a foreign country, it is a big challenge to get to know your right, although you are granted them! Don't be sh...

 In these days, as we wrote before, we sent out a letter to Dan Peer, the Vice president of Research and development in TAU. The letter is an introductory explanation of the demands the postdocs came up with. Our goal is to meet with Dan Peer or someone of his same caliber. In the first place, he answered us that he is willing to follow up our campaign and proposed us to talk directly with Prof. Milette Shamir (Vice President of Tel Aviv University, in charge of international academic collaboration). Possibly, Milette will be our interface, but we are waiting for her response as apparently she is out of office for now. Today morning (09.07) we had an update from Dan, as it follows: "Dear all, I have spoken to VP international and TAU CEO. We agree with you that changes need to be occurring in the fellowships scale (the basal level should change) and it will happen in the near future. I hope that in the next few weeks you will get more info about these changes for the new ...

Somewhere around a month ago the Tenants' committee has been formed in order to diplomatically interface with the University on the most important matters of Dorms Tenants. The main group amounts to 200 people. In particular, the committee has monitored and collected data from Broshim and Einstein Dorms, reaching a pool of approximately 100 respondents. Then, it went through the various reports made by these people and listed a series of common problems and demands. There is so much work to do that the very first action has been directed towards changing the terms of the contract: the committee went through the points of the current contract (updated 2018) and highlighted the most problematic ones, which conflict with the demands of the tenants. NOTE: these are proposals, still need to be evaluated by the dorm managements and the University! At the start of July, the following demands have been submitted: 1) Allow bringing in personal furniture and to hang items on walls, including...

As you might know, in these days SEGEL members fronted the high level Administration personnel in the University, proposing a condition for better scholarship amount for everybody. If you did not read or received the email of today, here we forward it. PS Nevertheless, we are still looking for Postdoc fellows to join Valentina for a personal meeting with the Vice President of the Research of the Uni. Possibly, we need someone from the Indian community(and not only), to show more internationality. For now we have 2 Europeans and an Asian person -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear members, We have a new committee - Good luck to us all! The elected representatives  In the general annual assembly that took place on 22.06.23, the current chairperson Shachar Frank was reelected as chairperson. The new elected Committee members are: Valentina Alberti (Life Sciences), Noa Gedi (Humanities), Ben Flickstein (Neuroscience), Tuvaal ...

  Dear all, we are glad to announce that the elaboration of the postdocs' issues and the Introductory letter to the Vice president of the Research and Development are ready and we are now planning the actual meeting. Here below, there is the text of the letter and the claims we want to discuss with the relevant authority. Before we proceed, we need to be as brave as possible: some postdocs should tag along during the meeting, to be the actual spokespersons and representatives of the entire community, to change in better the working conditions of all of you guys! Please give feedback as soon as possible, we are about to send the letter!  We must stress that THIS IS NOT a battle against PIs but an offering to the TAU administration to improve their contribution to our scholarships and experience on campus. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Draft Post Doc Demands Letter - by Sunday 2.7 To: Prof. Dan Peer Vice Pres...