Quote:
Originally Posted by sofasurfer
Care to elaborate?
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For Mac if you are doing a PhD you can only get four years of TAing, since in theory your PhD should be completed in four years (haha). Obviously doing it on time is fairly rare, so there are many still around for a fifth year that would love to be able to TA for a fifth year. Since there are only so many TA spots available and Mac would rather use them to entice new grad students, Mac isn't keen on this, plus they like the illusion of finishing in four years, so guaranteed funding for five years is not on their agenda.
I believe in previous contracts Mac has given some piecemeal money for fifth year funding, but fairly half-assed. One issue with the union is that those that have been around for a while and are controlling it care a lot about the fifth year issue. Two year master's students generally don't become stewards. Frankly the fifth year funding is more of a symptom of the larger issue that for a lot of disciplines that don't have private sector opportunities, there's not enough tenure track jobs out there. That leads to an arms race of paper publishing where it isn't in your best interests to finish in four.