After three years of tireless protest against the University of Florida’s International Student Fee, Graduate Assistants United—your labor union—proudly announces that the administration at UF has finally agreed to suspend this policy. GAU built a broad campus coalition against this fee that unfairly discriminates against international students (and especially against international graduate workers), and employed diverse strategies that applied pressure to our administration such as a circulating petition (signed by over 1300 in just two weeks!), three separate and well-attended protests and rallies (covered by both local and national media), a student government resolution against the fee, and numerous legal briefings against this fee. “This is a victory for campus-wide solidarity,” said Sociology TA and GAU Co-President Victor Romano. “All the hard work that the graduate workers have put into challenging this fee has paid off. Without GAU and the graduate student volunteers working within it, this fee—which ultimately hinders UF’s goal of a campus that values diversity and equality—would still be official policy.”
International Issues
GAU includes and represents all graduate assistants at the Unversity of Florida, including the many international students whose labor as graduate assistants makes the university work. We are working on three main issues that adversely and unfairly affect our international members, as well as all other international students at the University:
- the full-time credit requirement
- health insurance benefits, which international workers are required to purchase
- $50 registration fee charged against all international grads
Our current International Issues Committee Co-Chair is
Bharati Kasibhatla, bharati@english.ufl.edu,
phone number 352-284-3542.
In 2004 GAU created a petition drive to make UF administration
aware of the impact of policies in this area. Over 1300 signatures were
collected, and GAU received national attention from the press and
important journals like the Chronicle of Higher Education. We are
currently developing other initiatives to continue to support our
international members and create equal opportunities for all graduate
assistants.
INTERESTING DOCS RELATED TO INTERNATIONAL FEE
Fanelli to
UBOT on Intl Fee 2003
Goeddeke
to UBOT on Intl Fee 2003
UFF
to UBOT on Intl Fee (Legal Opinion)
UFF
Attorney to UBOT on intl Fee (Legal Opinion)
UBOT
to UFF on Intl Fee (Memo)
For a list of campus groups with related interest.
See the list below.
Note that most international students at UF are grad workers and/or
grad students, and that the contact info changes frequently.
AFRICAN STUDENTS UNION
Owoidoho Silas
owosilas@yahoo.com
(352) 846-9848
ARABIC CULTURAL ASSOCIATION
Stephanie Bendeck
nova84@ufl.edu
(352) 219 1875
BRAZILIAN STUDENT ASSOCIATION
Claudia Kusano
brasapresident@yahoo.com
(352)846-4215
THE CATALAN HOUSE OF FLORIDA
Alex Grasas
agrasas@ufl.edu
271-0024
CLUB CREOLE
FRENCH CLUB
Jennifer Bassett
jenibear@ufl.edu
407-443-8839
FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION OF CHINESE STUDENTS AND SCHOLARS
Jianlin L
jlli@ufl.edu
GAINESVILLE ROMANIAN STUDENT ASSOCIATION
ROXANA M COMAN
roxanna@ufl.edu
(352) 392 3367
GREEK AMERICAN STUDENTS ASSOCIATION
Maria Handrinos
mph15@bellsouth.net
(727)364-3483/ (352)395-6749
HELLENIC STUDENT ASSOCIATION
Ouranos Galanis
skouliki@ufl.edu
(352)335-8107
INDIAN STUDENTS ASSOCIATION
Paras Shah
Sparas@ufl.edu
LEBANESE AMERICAN SOCIETY
Roy Salloum
roysallo@ufl.edu
(352)870-2515
MEXICANS IN GAINESVILLE
Sebastian Galindo-Gonzalez
galindo@animal.ufl.edu
(352) 846-5137
PACIFIC BRIDGE
Jacob Spitz
mortu@ufl.edu
954-317-7399
PAKISTANI STUDENT ASSOCIATION
Aisha Khan
khan84@ufl.edu
352-262-9894
PERSIAN STUDENT SOCIETY
Yalda Davoodi-Semiromi
yalda@ufl.edu</a>
352-870-7311
RUSSIAN CLUB
Stanislav Veremeychik
sverem@ufl.edu
(561) 702-5241
BANGLADESHI STUDENT ASSOCIATION
Arif H Ahmed
ahahmed@ufl.edu</a>
352-281-0403
NIGERIAN AMERICAN STUDENT ASSOCIATION
Joyce Olushola
GATORGUL@ufl.edu
(352) 846-6770
MEXICAN-AMERICAN STUDENT ASSOCIATION*
Zannon Garza
zannonga@ufl.edu
(239)280-7732
TAIWANESE STUDENT ASSOCIATION
Sin-Shiu Chen
annhuang@ufl.edu
(352)337-9516
CHINESE AMERICAN STUDENT ASSOCIATION
Michael Wong
kinchung@ufl.edu
(954)695-8184
TURKISH STUDENT ASSOCIATION
Yarkin Ulku
bsonmez@ufl.edu
(352)381-2577
ASIAN STUDENT UNION *
Sandy Chiu
schiu@ufl.edu
561-676-4367
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