Nicole Gervasio

Instead of finishing my Literature Humanities syllabus or revising my dissertation chapter, I started my academic year as a sixth-year graduate student on the phone. The dilemma I was trying to resolve has been as perennial to my graduate experience as financial aid crises were to my undergraduate days: my ever-urgent need to access affordable healthcare. For some reason, dental care is not included in the graduate student insurance plan for the 2016-17 academic year. And as usual, instead of working toward any of my real jobs as a graduate student, like teaching, writing, or researching, I was wasting energy trying to broker access to healthcare that should be a right, not a privilege.