Transcript Summary from July NLRB Hearing

by | Nov 10, 2023 | Emails

What are we emailing you about, and why now?

  • This past spring, we filed for our union with over 80% support from student workers at Sinai and delivered a letter to Deans Nestler and Filizola requesting a fair and efficient process for establishing our union.

  • Despite this, Mount Sinai administration argued in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing that graduate student workers like us are not “employees” and should be denied the right to vote on unionization and engage in collective bargaining, despite the precedent set by thousands of unionized graduate student workers across the country, including Columbia University, Rutgers University, Northeastern University, MIT, Harvard University, University of Michigan, Duke University, and University of California among many others.

  • We, as student workers at Sinai (1; see citations at bottom of email), felt really strongly about sharing what our deans and faculty members say about student work, thus student workers volunteered their time to read and write summaries of the hearing transcript.

  • We who summarized the transcript feel frustrated by Sinai administration’s characterization of our work. Many of the testimonies were long and included a lot of back and forth. We have added specific quotes where possible and relevant, and encourage anyone with questions or feedback to reach out.

The TL;DR

Mount Sinai’s lawyers argue that PhD students are not employees. Several deans and faculty members testify to support this stance. Of all their reasons, the notable ones include: PhD students are only required to complete research pertaining to their dissertation and core academic program, don’t begin their program with enough skills to significantly contribute to grants, and are granted unlimited vacation time.

The lawyers representing our case argue that PhD students are students AND employees. The evidence and student testimony demonstrates that students are directly compensated for their work, make significant contributions to grants and research, can be disciplined by Sinai if not delivering quality work, and exist in the payroll/tax system as “permanent employees” like any other Sinai employee. Scroll down for more info!

Key quotes

  • Marta Filizola: “I don’t have any PhD in my lab because my research, by its nature, requires a higher training than the – one of the PhD student would have, and so we — I — we work primarily with the Postdocs rather than the PhD students.”

  • Matthew O’Connell: “…a student comes in, in a much more undifferentiated state with little to no knowledge on some occasions…”

  • Basil Hanss: “…also, at times, you know, they’re joining a laboratory community, so there might be some community tasks that they’re asked to do. But those are really not major, those are general kind of good citizenship roles.”

  • Daniel Wacker: “…overall, I would say [PhD students] have probably more of a negative impact than positive impact on productivity.”

  • Matthew Cipriano: “…within the graduate school, our students are receiving stipends, they’re not paid. Our students are not employees of the institution…”

  • Adam Lupion: “Virtually all of the PhD student’s time in the lab is spent researching toward their dissertation. In fact, Mount Sinai has procedures in place to ensure that students are not asked to assist their PI or others in the lab with research that is unrelated to their dissertation at the expense of their own thesis research.”

If you have any questions, please respond to this email and an organizer will be in touch. To get more involved in building our union, let us know on this form!

In solidarity,

Sam McConnell
Neuroscience MTA
SSW Organizing Committee Member

See below for a more detailed summary + click here for link to full transcripts.

Who’s who:

Adam Lupion: Lead lawyer for Mount Sinai

Joshua Fox: Lawyer for Mount Sinai

Tom Meiklejohn: Lead lawyer for SSW-UAW (our union)

Nicole Rothgeb: Lawyer for SSW-UAW (our union)

Marta Filizola: Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai

Matthew O’Connell: Senior Associate Dean for PhD programs at Mount Sinai

Basil Hanss: Senior Associate Dean for Postdoctoral and Student Affairs & Associate Dean for Graduate School Wellbeing at Mount Sinai

Talia Swartz: Director of the MD-PhD Program, Senior Associate Dean for MD-PhD Education

Scott Russo: Professor of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai

Daniel Wacker: Assistant Professor of Pharmacological Sciences at Mount Sinai

Hamel Vyas: Senior Associate Dean for International Personnel at Mount Sinai

Matthew Cipriano: Associate Dean for Operations and Administration at Mount Sinai

Sam McConnell: PhD Student at Mount Sinai

Bremy Alburquerque: PhD Student at Mount Sinai

Avi Kumar: Hearing officer for the National Labor Relations Board (Note: this is not the person making the decision in this case. That will be the regional director.)

Opening Statements: Mount Sinai’s lawyer, Adam Lupion argues that PhD students are not employees (p. 59 line 25–66 line 17):

  • PhD student funding isn’t dependent on the PhD student performing any research “outside their core academic program.” The only requirement to secure funding is satisfactory academic progress.

  • PhD students choose their own mentor, lab, research to perform, and what thesis topic to pursue. “In fact, even if a PhD student presented a thesis topic to their PI that was outside the scope of a PI’s grant, the student can still be permitted to perform the research.”

  • “Virtually all of the PhD student’s time in the lab is spent researching toward their dissertation. In fact, Mount Sinai has procedures in place to ensure that students are not asked to assist their PI or others in the lab with research that is unrelated to their dissertation at the expense of their own thesis research.”

  • “The PI is not a supervisor of PhD students.” “A PI does not have the ability to unilaterally remove, terminate, or otherwise discipline the PhD students in their lab for poor performance or otherwise.”

  • “PhD students have the flexibility to take as much vacation time as they would like, subject only to making satisfactory academic progress, without any reduction or  diminution in their stipend.”

  • “The distinction between Mount Sinai’s PhD graduate students and the graduate students whom the NLRB found to be employees in Columbia University are significant and they justify a different — a different conclusion.”

The lawyer representing our case from UAW, Thomas Meiklejohn, delivers an opening statement that acknowledges PhD students are students AND employees (p. 67 line 1–69 line 20):

  • The PhD student handbook refers to students receiving payments called “direct compensation.” This direct compensation is for performing research.

  • PhD students are labeled as “Permanent Employees” in the Sinai payroll system, paid every other week, pay taxes, and receive W-2 forms in the same way acknowledged employees of Mount Sinai do.

  • PhD student work is day-to-day supervised by their PI, and the committee that may discipline the student consists of Sinai employees.

SINAI FACULTY AND ADMINISTRATION TESTIMONIES

Marta Filizola: Marta’s testimony mostly centers around logistical details of the administrative structure and functioning of the graduate school, and its context within the larger Mount Sinai community. She implies that PhD students do not have previous research experience (2), and says that she does not have PhD students in her lab because they don’t have enough training to handle the work (3). She also says she doesn’t know why our pay is referred to as “direct compensation” in the student handbook (4), and says the part of the handbook that refers to us as employees is poorly worded (5). She also says that students begin conducting research in their second year in the program, and that “a hundred percent” of their time is devoted to attending classes in the first year (6).

Matthew O’Connell: O’Connell’s testimony outlines the program structure, admission processes, benefits, student roadmap/how student progress is measured, and expectations in each year of the program. He notably says that PhD students enter the program in an “undifferentiated state” (7). During cross examination, he confirmed that students are required to undergo drug testing (like all other employees at Mount Sinai), and that PIs must demonstrate that they have funding in order to accept a student into their lab. He states that there is no overlap between the lab duties of technicians and PhD students (8). He was called back again later in the hearing for further cross-examination about his own NIH grants, during which he said that grad students are not listed as “key personnel” because they are entirely interchangeable (9). However, when asked about a PhD student that he listed as non-key personnel on his grant, he acknowledges that she had prior experience that was useful to the project (10) and that she contributed to work on the grant during her rotation (11).

Basil Hanss: In Dr. Hanss’s testimony, he states during a first year rotation, there are no expectations for students to generate data or perform research in furtherance of a PI’s grant (12). He states that once students join a lab, they are only expected to complete research contributing to their dissertation, and are still not expected to contribute to work done for a PI’s grant (13). Regarding work outside of lab, Basil states that “there might be some community tasks that [students are] asked to do” but refers to these tasks as “really not major” and “general kind of good citizenship roles” (14) without recognizing the hours per week that students dedicate to community building and advocacy work such as Student Council, Student Affairs, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Peer Mentorship, and more. As Sinai’s lawyer puts it, “These students are not hired to perform specific tasks in a lab,” “are not hired to teach,” and the only thing we have to do to receive a stipend is maintain “satisfactory academic progress” (15).

Talia Swartz: Talia Swartz’s testimony centers around the MD-PhD program, particularly the PhD phase, and how it compares to the traditional PhD. Overall, her testimony makes it clear that MD-PhD students in their PhD phase are treated as PhD students. She testifies that all of the work MD-PhD students do in the lab is for their dissertation (16), and students are not required to to fulfill any requirements of PI grants (17). When asked if any MD/PhD student has brought a concern to her about being asked to do research outside of their dissertation, Dr. Swartz responded: “I’m not recalling like specific incidents where that has happened, but that shouldn’t be happening.” (18)

Scott Russo: Scott Russo testifies about rotations, the kinds of work that PhD students perform in his lab, and how he funds them. He acknowledges some overlap between the work that PhD students, postdocs, and research assistants do in the lab. However, for first year rotations, he says “the students are not coming in with skill sets that they can go off and do research” (19) and “there’s a six-week period and it’s really a period of observation. It’s not a period where they’re actively participating in — in — in the research project” (20). This testimony is notably contradicted by later testimony from Sam McConnell, a PhD student who conducted research and generated data while rotating in Scott Russo’s lab (21).

Daniel Wacker: Dr. Wacker is asked to describe the differences between how PhD students and postdocs operate in his lab. He says that only postdocs work on his funded research aims (22) and postdocs have expertise that would help him “set up a new research direction” in his lab (23). He says that “there is a considerable reduction in productivity by taking on PhD students simply because more of my time is dedicated towards training” and that “overall, I would say [PhD students] have probably more of a negative impact than positive impact on productivity.” (24) He further says that they are not his employees, are not (and cannot be) reprimanded/disciplined for choosing their own hours or otherwise not performing well (25), voluntarily choose to participate in training opportunities such as departmental retreats (26), and that they have an upper limit set on how much he can compensate them (27). Notably, Dr. Wacker characterizes F31 (or other similar fellowship) recipients as indistinguishable from other PhD students in terms of the work they do (28).

Hamel Vyas: Hamel Vyas (the Senior Associate Dean for International Personnel) provided a short testimony to describe the visa types that are issued to international post-doctoral researchers versus international PhD students (29). In a very brief cross examination, Ms Vyas testified that international students are offered the same benefits as all other PhD students (30).

Matthew Cipriano: Matthew Cipriano provided testimony on teaching assistant (TA) work. He says that student TAs aren’t paid as employees of the institution (31), and that TAs aren’t expected to dedicate more than 30 hours/term and instead should be focusing on their academics (32) which ignores the amount of effort current students realistically put into teaching students, designing curriculum, and spending time in lectures or labs.

 

STUDENT WORKER TESTIMONIES

Sam McConnell: Sam McConnell provided testimony on work he performed during lab rotations. He performed procedures in Dr. Russo’s lab as a rotation student that contributed to ongoing projects in the lab, including tissue processing and behavioral testing, which he did independently following training. He also contributed to research during his rotations with Dr. Ables, Dr. Rudebeck, and Dr. Rich, including independent procedures and data analysis. Sam’s testimony also notes that he arrived at Sinai with robust prior research experience.

Bremy Alburquerque: Bremy Alburquerque provided testimony on work he performed during his lab rotations. Bremy also testified that he pivoted from his thesis work to COVID-19 research with the vanBakel laboratory in spring of 2020, work which was of social importance and led to publications for the laboratory. Other work he performed with the vanBakel lab contributed to publications in the lab but are not part of his dissertation.

Closing Arguments: In his closing statement, Meiklejohn reiterated that PhD students at Sinai are employees, as defined by the NLRB in previous cases such as Columbia. Lupion, in contrast, argued that we have “no employment relationship at all” with Sinai (33). Furthermore, he argued that our case is so different from the Columbia case that “the Regional Director would be required to ignore the Board’s decision in Columbia” in order to decide that we are workers (34).

__________________________________

  1. Credit to Alissa Valentine, Ally Magee, Aster Perkins, Hannah Young, Greg Zilberg, and Sam McConnell for reading through hundreds of pages of transcript.

  2. Marta Filizola: So, what I was trying to say is that the – the difference between PhD student and other student in – conducting the research is that the PhD student is acquiring a — an expertise, their first expertise in the research, and that the Postdoc is expanding upon that expertise in research. Right, so completely different type of exposure to research, if you will. (p. 109 lines 14-20)

  3. Marta Filizola: Yeah. No, I don’t have any PhD in my lab because my research, by its nature, requires a higher training than the – one of the PhD student would have, and so we — I — we work primarily with the Postdocs rather than the PhD students. (p. 87 lines 22-25)

  4. Tom Meiklejohn: So, I would draw your attention to the first bullet point under “General Information” where it provides that the funding package for PhD students and MD-PhD students includes “Direct

    Compensation.” Do you know has that phrase been part of the handbook for — since between you joined Mount — the — before you assumed the position of dean? Or is that new?

    Marta Filizola: I honestly do not know the answer to your question.

    Tom Meiklejohn: Okay. But if you look at the parenthetical that follows that, it states that “This direct compensation is sometimes referred to informally as a ‘stipend.'” You have used the word stipend in your testimony, but the official, and correct — the official terminology for the payments made to the graduate students is “direct compensation,” correct?

    Adam Lupion: Objection.

    Hearing officer Kuma: Relevance?

    Tom Meiklejohn: Your — is that the objection, relevance?

    Adam Lupion: No, the document —

    Hearing officer Kuma: The relevance for the objection.

    Adam Lupion: The document — the document says what it says. And you’re mischaracterizing it when it says what the official — official characterization is. The document speaks for itself. (p. 113 lines 1-25)

  5. Tom Meiklejohn:  Yeah, I think you answered it, “If it’s in the handbook, that’s the policy for the Graduate School.” And could you read the first sentence of that policy?

    Marta Filizola: Yes, “The following statement describes ISMMS’s policy regarding substance abuse for all employees, which include faculty, administration, house staff, students, graduate students, fellows, bargaining and non-bargaining unit employees.”

    Tom Meiklejohn: Okay, thank you. So, this policy —

    Marta Filizola: Looks like that there is some —

    Tom Meiklejohn: Go ahead.

    Marta Filizola: Weird way to phrase this sentence, honestly

    Tom Meiklejohn: Well, as counsel would point out, it says what it says. And —

    Marta Filizola: It is poorly worded in my opinion, but —

    Tom Meiklejohn: Okay. The —

    Adam Lupion: I’m sorry, Doctor, I didn’t — I didn’t hear that. You said it was “what” worded?

    Marta Filizola: Poorly worded. It seems to me that is poorly worded.

    Adam Lupion: Poorly. Poorly. Thank you.

    Marta Filizola: Poorly worded.

    Adam Lupion: Thank you, Doctor.  (p. 130, line 24 – p. 131, line 21)

  6. Tom Meiklejohn:  You testified regarding the academic requirements quite a bit for PhD students. Do those academic requirements include conducting research?

    Marta Filizola:  Yes. It’s part of their requirements.

    Tom Meiklejohn: And percentage wise, how much of those requirements involve conducting research?

    Marta Filizola: It’s after the first year, and after — starting the second year, they are enrolled in a course that is a research basis, and they are conducting research towards their thesis as part of that course.

    Tom Meiklejohn: Is that 100 percent of their academic requirements?

    Marta Filizola: That —

    Adam Lupion: In what — in what year?

    Tom Meiklejohn: I’m sorry, after the first year, starting in the second year, is that 100 percent of their academic requirements?

    Marta Filizola: In the second year is only 75 percent of their requirement because they are still attending other classes, other electives. Starting in the third year is 100 percent of their requirements to be conducting research towards their thesis. So they are enrolled in a course that is called “Research Thesis.”

    Tom Meiklejohn: And are they also enrolled in that course in the second year?

    Marta Filizola: They’re also enrolled in that course in the second year when they are conducting research towards their thesis, yes. In the second year the thesis work starts, and the Thesis Proposal starts to be built. So those are courses that the students are required to do.

    Tom Meiklejohn: The classes that they take, they take — how much of their time in the first year is devoted to attending classes?

    Marta Filizola: A hundred percent. (p. 117 line 18 to p. 118 line 24)

  7. Matthew O’Connell: Yeah. So a post-doc has already completed their PhD and so they are more developed in their training, and are probably the equivalent of like a medical resident to consolidate their training before they move onto independence. Whereas a student comes in, in a much more undifferentiated state with little to no knowledge on some occasions, which they will gain during their years of training.” (p. 173, lines 10-16)

  8. Tom Meiklejohn: Are there — is there overlap in the duties performed by these technicians and research assistants with the duties performed by doctoral students?

    Matthew O’Connell: No. It can’t be redone. But —

    [talking over each other]

    Matthew O’Connell: They may assist people in the lab through various mechanisms, but there’s a redundancy of effort.

    Tom Meiklejohn: How would you compare the skills and abilities of a research assistant with the skills and abilities of a doctoral student?

    Matthew O’Connell: More the — the research assistant would be more specialized and the skills would be more technical, not academic, not — not on a path to — of academic development. (p.230 line 24 – p. 231 line 13)

  9. Tom Meiklejohn: You testified that doctoral students are rarely listed or are — are — excuse me, that doctoral students are not listed as key personnel on government sponsored research grants. Are doctoral students sometimes listed as personnel on those grants?

    Matthew O’Connell: Under budget justification, but not key.

    Tom Meiklejohn: Not key personnel, but they’re listed. What — what is the significance of being listed under budget justifications?

    Matthew O’Connell: Budget justification is a proposal. And as non-key personnel, the understanding is anyone of equivalent standing — I — for the — you are referring to a graduate student, could play the same role.

    Tom Meiklejohn: But if — so you — what you’re saying is with respect to non-key personnel, you could substitute one person for a similar — for someone with in the same classification with similar skills, is that–

    Matthew O’Connell: If they’re not — if they’re non-key (p. 498 line 17 – p. 499 line 8)

  10. Tom Meiklejohn: Why did you list Ms. Ramalingam by name on the grant?

    [skipping a bunch of Matthew O’Connell not answering the question]

    Tom Meiklejohn: But you listed her because she had the skills that would be required to complete a portion of research under this grant?

    Matthew O’Connell: Basic skills. So, you know?

    Tom Meiklejohn: She had the skills that are listed on the document; is that right?

    [skipping a bit where sinai’s lawyer makes an objection]

    Tom Meiklejohn: So just — I want to make sure I understand. You’re saying that because she — based upon her previous education and training as a master’s student, she had the basic skills needed to fulfill this function under the grant?

    Matthew O’Connell: She had a toolkit that was a starting point at this point of the proposal. (p. 503 line 16 – p 504 line 17)

  11. Tom Meiklejohn: Did Ms. Ramalingam conduct any of the research in furtherance of Aim 1 while she was doing her rotation?

    Matthew O’Connell: She assisted a different person. So a minor contribution.

    Tom Meiklejohn: She made a minor contribution during her rotation?

    Matthew O’Connell: She was loading procedures.

    Tom Meiklejohn: Did she perform some of those procedures as well?

    Matthew O’Connell: In the early stages of the research.

  12. Adam Lupion: Is there — is there any — is there any expectation that students generate data during the lab rotation?

    Basil Hanss: There is not.

    Adam Lupion:  Is there any expectation that students would be performing research in furtherance of a PI’s grant during the lab rotation?

    Basil Hanss: No.

    Adam Lupion:  Is a student’s funding conditioned on any activities performed during their lab rotation?

    Basil Hanss: There is no expectation. (p. 246 line 18 – p.247 line 2)

  13. Adam Lupion: Doctor, are PhD students evaluated on how much progress they have made in connection with a PI’s grant?

    Basil Hanss: No. They’re not. They’re not. They’re assessed on the progress they make for their thesis or their dissertation work. So I — I think one –one point that I think is important to make at this point is that the thesis proposal is intended to be developed solely by the student.

  14. Basil Hanss: …also, at times, you know, they’re joining a laboratory community, so there might be some community tasks that they’re asked to do. But those are really not major, those are general kind of good citizenship roles. (p.259 lines 3-7)

  15. Adam Lupion: These students are not required to perform specific tasks in a lab. They are not hired to perform specific tasks in a lab. They are not hired to teach. In that fact, there is no service requirement at all. The only condition on their receipt of stipend and other benefits is the maintenance of satisfactory academic progress. (p.254 lines 15-21)

  16. Adam Lupion: …just like second year PhD students in biomedical science or neuroscience, third year MD-PhD students join their chosen lab full-time and begin to conduct research? Doctor, my question is this. The research that is conducted in that lab, what proportion of that research is towards their own dissertation topic?

    Talia Swartz: All of it. (p. 307 lines 5-11)

  17. Adam Lupion: Doctor, are MD-PhD students expected to fulfill any requirements of their PI’s grant?

    Talia Swartz: No. (p. 308 lines 3-5)

  18. Nicole Rothgeb: And in any of your time in — in those director type positions at various levels of the dual degree program, have PH  — have the dual degree programs ever — a student in the dual degree program ever come to you and raised concern that they were being asked to do resource — research beyond the scope of their own dissertation?

    Talia Swartz: It shouldn’t — it shouldn’t be the case that a student is doing research beyond the scope of their dissertation. The — the idea is that the research that they’re doing is — is like part of — is their — is there dissertation. So that — that shouldn’t — that shouldn’t be happening. I’m not — I’m not

    recalling like specific incidents where that has happened, but that shouldn’t be happening. (p. 316 line 15 – p. 317 line 2)

  19. Scott Russo: But six weeks, you know, the students are not coming in with skill sets that they can go off and do research. And so a six-week training period, there’s not a whole lot we can have them do. (p. 327 lines 13-16)

  20. Tom Meiklejohn: Are there certain preparatory steps that have to be taken before the tissue sample can be examined under the microscope?

    Scott Russo:  Yes.

    Tom Meiklejohn: And what preparation is necessary?

    Scott Russo: It — it — it really depends on the application. And there’s — there’s, you know, hundreds of applications that you might use to look at brain tissue. You know, I — it’s a hard question to answer, but at the very least, I guess they would’ve to slice the brain up in — in a way that would allow them to put it onto a slide so they can mount it under microscope.

    Tom Meiklejohn: Is that a function that you’ve had graduate students on rotation perform in your labs?

    Scott Russo: Not typically. You know, as I testified yesterday, there’s a six-week period and it’s really a period of observation. It’s not a period where they’re actively participating in — in — in the research project. (p.376 line 22- p. 377 line 13)

  21. Nicole Rothgeb: And how was it you became involved in that particular activity?

    Sam McConnell: So that was — so when I started my rotation in the lab, I had an initial meeting with Dr. Russo. And he kind of handed me off to one of his postdocs, whose name was Jody, as my primary point person for like, sort of organizing my rotation in the lab. And so Jody was the one who introduced me to Tony. Told me a little bit about like Tony’s project and Tony was on, like, I have this thing that needs doing — to be interested in doing it because I — like, had done a lot of tissue suctioning before, but hadn’t specifically worked with a vipertome. So it was good experience for me to like have that and also useful for Tony to like then have the tissue placed.

    Nicole Rothgeb: And I think you referred to a vipertome, could — just for us non-scientist, could you tell us what that is? Of course —

    Sam McConnell:  I mean, it’s — yeah. It’s just a machine that is able to slice tissue sample into very thin slices. (p. 534 lines 5-21)

  22. Joshua Fox: How, if at all, does the research that the PhD students do in your lab differ from the duties that the postdocs perform in your lab?

    Daniel Wacker: They’re fundamentally different. The postdocs in my lab effectively conduct research towards fulfillment of foundation aims, not foundation aims, to funding aims, whereas the PhD students pick their training projects and their time spent on conducting research towards completion of their PhD requirements. (p. 386 lines 12-20)

  23. Joshua Fox: Can you provide us with an example of something that a postdoc has done in your lab that a PhD student has not or cannot do?

    Daniel Wacker: Yes, I can. The first postdocs — the first postdoc that I hired, I hired him specifically to set up a new research direction of the lab. I worked on one specific research direction pretty much all my career. Certainly, during my postdoc tenure and my PhD time, and so I’ve developed expertise there, but I wanted to acquire new expertise, a new research area that I wanted to develop. And I specifically hired a postdoc with extensive research experience in methodologies that — that — that were applicable to that research direction. PhD students in my lab, their training is entirely on projects that I have extensive experience in so I can provide better mentorship. (p.387 lines 2-16)

  24. Joshua Fox: How, if at all, does the presence of PhD students in your lab affect the productivity of your lab?

    Daniel Wacker: That is technically a complex question. I would say that initially there is a considerable reduction in productivity by taking on PhD students simply because more of my time is dedicated towards training. Sometimes I engage other lab members in training them in specific methodologies and that obviously takes time away — significant time away from productivity. And so overall, I would say they have probably more of a negative impact than positive impact on productivity. (p. 388 lines 15-24)

  25. Joshua Fox: If a PhD student was not performing well in your lab, could you discipline the student?

    Daniel Wacker: I cannot to my understanding. I haven’t had to do that but it’s — it’s my understanding that I cannot.

    Joshua Fox: And what forms the basis of that understanding that you have?

    Daniel Wacker: They’re not my employees, they’re students at the school who respond more to the grad school and the grad school requirements. But typically, obviously, they’re here to effectively conduct research towards dissertation goals. So they are hopefully self-motivated. (p. 394 lines 13 – 23)

  26. Joshua Fox:  With respect to the training opportunities that you just described, were the PhD students in your lab required to participate in these training opportunities?

    Daniel Wacker: No, absolutely not. I advise them to take them, but it is entirely up to them if they — if they decide to do so. (p. 394 lines 4-8)

  27. Daniel Wacker: There’s also a limit and it’s an upper and lower limit so there’s a certain number that I basically — that — that the stipend of them is – is – is limited. There’s very little flexibility as to what — what they’re being, you know, given. (p. 397 lines 1-5)

  28. Joshua Fox: So would you say that PhD students on external fellowships operate similarly to all other PhD students in the graduate school?

    Daniel Wacker: Yes, I would. They – they are for — in terms of purposes

    indistinguishable, yeah. (p. 403 lines 10 -14)

  29. Joshua Fox: What’s the difference between a J1 research visa and F1 visa?

    Hamel Vyas: Sure. So the F1 visa is issued to students who have the intention to study in the United States solely for the purpose for engaging a full course of study. The J1 visa is provided to people that will come here to engage in specific research activities. (p. 410 lines 10-16)

  30. Tom Meiklejohn: Okay. Are they offered the same benefits including stipend, tuition coverage and health insurance?

    Hamel Vyas: Yes. They’re treated like students. All students are treated the same in that regard. (p. 418 lines 5-8)

  31. Matthew Cipriano: …within the graduate school, our students are receiving stipends, they’re not paid. Our students are not employees of the institution… (p. 434 lines 2-4)

  32. Joshua Fox:  Why does Mount Sinai place these hour restrictions on teaching assistants?

    Matthew Cipriano: The students are here to pursue their education and we want the students to able to focus on their studies and academic research. (p. 424 lines 16-20)

  33. Adam Lupion: PhD graduate students at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, specifically the PhD students in biomedical science and neuroscience, as well as the dual degree MD-PhD students are students, not employees, and there is no employment relationship at all with the school. (p. 577 lines 13-17)

  34. Adam Lupion: And the record in this case confirms that the Mount Sinai students in the petition for unit are students. Based on the factors the Board articulated in Columbia, we respectfully submit that the Regional Director decline Petitioner’s invitation to extend Columbia. Because to find that these students are employees, the Regional Director would be required to ignore the Board’s decision in Columbia. (p. 577 line 23 – p. 578 line 4)