HANOVER — Before enrolling at Dartmouth College, Rendi Rogers used her savings to move from Oklahoma to the Upper Valley.

What awaited her in Hanover was a $35,000 annual stipend to teach and conduct research while taking courses toward her doctorate in microbiology.

“I made it OK my first year, then my rent and cost of living started to go up,” Rogers said in an interview.

Rogers, 26, was among the Dartmouth graduate students who gathered Tuesday on the college Green to announce their effort to unionize.

Organizers circulated through a crowd of more than 250 people, asking graduate students to sign pledge cards that they plan to present to college administrators in an effort to secure voluntary recognition of the union — Graduate Organized Laborers at Dartmouth, known by its acronym GOLD.

In July, graduate students voted to affiliate with the national United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, also referred to as UE.

Dartmouth has roughly 800 graduate students who receive stipends, college spokeswoman Diana Lawrence said on Tuesday. They receive an annual stipend of $35,196, and the college covers $4,575 for their health insurance and health access fees.

“Stipend-receiving students are trained in high-quality facilities under the guidance of expert faculty mentors,” Lawrence wrote in an email. “Our students also broaden their training through one or more terms of being a teaching assistant, which helps them to become proficient in explaining scientific concepts to others, mentoring, etc.”

Students who spoke at the rally said Dartmouth could afford to do more, pointing to the college’s $8 billion endowment.

“The pay is justified as being a little low for the standard of living around here because we’re on a full-tuition scholarship,” said Sasha Brietzke, a psychological and brain sciences graduate student who is one of the union organizers, in a phone interview.

When Brietzke started her program in 2016, the stipend was $28,000 a year. But with rent, inflation and the general cost of living on the rise, “I’m making less money than I did six years ago even though it’s technically more,” she said.

In 2018, Brietzke was one of nine plaintiffs in a federal class action lawsuit against Dartmouth, alleging college administrators turned a blind eye to sexual misconduct by three professors in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. In 2020, the students and Dartmouth reached a $14 million out-of-court settlement in which the college acknowledged no fault.

The Dartmouth graduate students’ unionizing efforts coincide with similar actions at other schools, including Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It also follows a successful union drive by another group of Dartmouth students. Earlier this year, students who work for the college’s dining services formed the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth to advocate for better pay and working conditions.

Among GOLD’s requests is a cost-of-living raise of $1,668 a month, which organizers said would put them at roughly $50,000 a year. Students argue the raise is reasonable given Hanover’s median rent of about $1,300 a month.

They are also asking for additional and improved health care benefits. Currently, the students’ health plan doesn’t include dental insurance.

“It’s cheaper to fly to Pakistan, get a surgery and come back than it is to get dental surgery in the Upper Valley,” said Qasim Khan, a graduate student from Pakistan studying physics who attended the rally with his roommate, Jackson Yant.

Khan said he spends about 80 hours a week conducting research. Even if he had time to get another job, he wouldn’t be allowed to because of visa restrictions, Khan said.

Yant said he had it better than most. His family helped him purchase a home in West Lebanon and he rents out rooms to three other students at a below-market rate, he said.

At the rally, students held signs reading “Pay us to live” and “Dartmouth works cause we do.”

Student organizer Chris Callahan told the crowd that GOLD is hoping, among other things, to secure better insurance coverage for mental health needs.

Other parts of GOLD’s platform include “a safe and equitable workplace” and “fairness for international students.”

Rogers and other graduate students have been talking among themselves for almost year about initiating a union drive.

To make ends meet, Rogers worked for a while for the food delivery service DoorDash. She regularly visits the food pantry at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth and also uses a credit card to help pay for living expenses.

“At the end of the month, sometimes I’ll take the bus to work if I know I can’t afford a tank of gas,” she said.

In addition to students at the rally, some Upper Valley residents turned out to support the union effort. Among them was Liz Blum, of Norwich, who has gotten to know graduate students over the years.

“I think what they’re doing is terrific and it’s a national movement,” Blum said, adding that she was impressed with their organization and commitment to their cause. “All their demands are good demands.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.

CORRECTION: Dartmouth College pays for stipend graduate students' health insurance and access fees for a total of $4,575. An earlier version of this story misstated what the college pays for. 

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