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[rose_fingered_dawn]

Are students often asked to do heavy lifting for professors? Say a student has an RAship with the department chair and when they signed the contract, it said the work would involve photocopying, proofreading, fact checking, and other mundane things. Recently the chair has been moving their office to another part of campus and certain students as their RAs are being asked to move all their books to the new office. The students come do this for three or four-hour shifts and are mostly using backpacks or shopping bags. At the end, backs are soaked with sweat, knees are wobbly (there is a walk and a flight of stairs involved), and there is on one particular student's shoulder raw skin because of constant chafing from the bags. This student asked to go home early because she couldn't carry any more books but did not mention the physical difficulty of doing so, and felt extremely guilty for copping out. She's going to be back the next day to do three hours.

Considering these are paid RAs, and the supervisor is the chair, can the student ever say no to the work? Even when this is happening during final exams where sleep is little and stress is high and nutrition is terrible? The students did not know this would be part of the RA duties. There is a lot of pressure to move these books fast.

[zuzu_]

I'm not going to comment on the politics of the situation, but there has GOT to be some sort of book cart you can borrow from the library (or some general sort of thing-moving cart from the maintenance dept.), and there's got to be an elevator somewhere in each of these buildings, no?

[systeme_d_]

Yes, students are sometimes asked to do heavy lifting for professors.  This is often because able-bodied and vigorous youth is usually more suited for schlepping than age and decrepitude.

However, when faculty are moving offices, usually the folks from facilities/physical plant/trucking will provide the labor, since it is intensive.  

In the case you describe, of course a student may ask to be excused from the work.

The guilty-feeling student needs to get a grip and tell the professor that she does not feel physically able to continue the task.

And perhaps someone could speak (quietly) to the administrative assistant about inquiring about getting the facilities/physical plant/trucking people to complete the move.

[larryc]

And perhaps someone could speak (quietly) to the administrative assistant about inquiring about getting the facilities/physical plant/trucking people to complete the move.

This. The prof is likely busy with many things, and when he realized that hundreds of books needed moving he just pointed to the nearest subordinate and said do it. At the very least, the physical plant guys can provide you with a dolly and some boxes.

[kaysixteen]

This sounds like exploitation, pure and simple, asking kids to do work that in no serious sense could be seen as within the overall realm of RA duties.  That means, of course, that the RA could decline to do this sort of thing, but how many grad students would really buck their advisors/ supervising profs and do so?  Someone should stand up to the professor, some admin or dept chair-type, and forbid it.  This sort of thing is why professionals such as MLS librarians have work contracts/ job descriptions which state the general scope of the duties expected of the position whilst adding clauses like 'and any other *professional* duties as assigned', preventing management from asking the librarians to clean the toilets, make coffee for the director, etc.  Schoolteachers have similar lingo in their contracts.  Academics generally would not bother since no one would ever expect Asst. TT Prof. X, or even Adjunct Y, to carry the chair's books for her, and the chair would not like the result of asking junior colleagues to do so.

[rose_fingered_dawn]

If it's a question of able-bodied and vigorous youth, then why not get male students to do it? All the students doing this are female, and two of the three, including the student in question, are thin and slight. I don't think in a situation like this it's possible to turn down the work. You were asked to do it, it's the chair, how can any of these students say no, no matter how knackered and sometimes bruised they are at the end of it? Yet this work is what none of them signed up for. It's hard not to feel guilty when a student asks to stop early, because it's clear that the chair is not particularly concerned the physical toil this takes. And these RAs aren't doing this in secret, other people (i.e. professors) know this work is being done, the students do it during working hours, so it seems acceptable culture around here, and thus there's even more pressure to do the full hours asked and to not turn down the work; you look like a complainer, especially if the other RAs also don't say anything (they're both further along in the program).

[systeme_d_]

What, young women cannot be able-bodied and vigorous?  In what world do you live, RFD?

Of course it is possible to decline.  Chairs are not gods, and grad students are not slaves.  Just ask any faculty member in the department, who, I am sure, will confirm this. 

You're blowing up this situation into something much more than it needs to be.  You've not talked to anyone about it.  You've just made a lot of unwarranted assumptions.  This is poor reasoning for an aspiring scholar.

Again, talk to the administrative assistant, and arrange for facilities to finish the move.   

[larryc]

Of course you are correct that you should not have been ordered to move book. But this is not some new Holocaust. Go get a dolly and some boxes and do this in a sensible fashion. Or call the physical plant and explain what you need and ask them to do it. Better yet go over in person and find some big burly guys and explain how you poor thin females are simply wilting under the strain.

[rose_fingered_dawn]

Sorry about the girls not being able-bodied comment, I didn't mean it quite the way it came out (I'm a girl myself). I guess I'm just tired and quivery and upset right now.

I'll inquire into a dolly tomorrow.

systeme_d_, I really can't imagine a first-semester student marching into the administrative assistant's office and arranging for facilities to finish the move! I think this chair would hit the roof at the student's presumptuousness, and besides, who would pay? Technically, the other RA jobs are being pushed aside so that the students can finish the book stuff, so it would be sticky to say no from every perspective.

[systeme_d_]

RFD, one does not march into an office and arrange anything.  One speaks to the administrative assistant, expressing dismay at not being physically able to finish such a very important task, and one asks plaintively what other options might be possible, whether dollies might be acquired, and whether the facilities people might be called upon to finish the task.

And it matters not one bit whether the research assistant who expresses dismay is male or female.

[imawakenow]

OP: Have you talked to the DGS? Your adviser? Those are two additional individuals who might be willing to run interference with the department chair.

I also see that you mention departmental culture. There are some departments where "pitching in" like this is expected. That doesn't make it right, however, which is why you might talk to the DGS, your adviser or a senior faculty member you trust.

[venerable_bede]

What's more, at some institutions, doing labor (like moving stuff) that is the purview of a unionized workforce is a big no-no. I know of places where a faculty member was given a tongue-lashing for moving a table into a classroom for an activity one day.

So that's another card to play, if needed.

[marlborough]

Unless the professor is moving secretly, someone further up the chain knows that moving needs to be done (has a professor ever moved without major book transport?).  There has to be an easier way to do this without carrying individual bags or boxes.  I moved offices two years ago and our department administrative assistant masterminded everything, and although it involved the brute labor of our three female work-study students, there were carts and dollys involved and I don't believe anyone broke a sweat.

If I were this hypothetical RA, I'd be delighted to be the genius who figured out how to make this into a far more painless process than what you describe. 

[grasshopper]

systeme_d_, I really can't imagine a first-semester student marching into the administrative assistant's office and arranging for facilities to finish the move!

As Systeme D said, you don't march in and start demanding stuff. You ask how it can be arranged.

I think this chair would hit the roof at the student's presumptuousness, and besides, who would pay?

The chair isn't going care, as long as the books are moved. And nobody pays. Do you think that the facilities people write up a little receipt every time they change a light bulb? That the custodians charge for each recycling bin they empty?

[zharkov]

Break a sweat?  You've got to be kidding!  Didn't these TA's ever learn to pace themselves?  Or perhaps even milk a job given the opportunity?   They need to learn how to take it easy.  They're not running a race. 

Seriously, it does not seem out of place to ask about other means, like getting some boxes, packing the book, having a moving day with the boxes moved to a car or truck with a hand cart (or dollie), and moved to the new office.   At any school I've ever worked, there were either maintenance people who would do this stuff, or at least access to a hand cart (usually kept in some supply closet).