Indiana University Bloomington Chancellor David Reingold discussed faculty excellence, free speech and student success at the State of the Campus address Tuesday inside Franklin Hall, as graduate student workers protested for higher wages and benefits.
In the roughly 30-minute speech presented at the end of the Bloomington Faculty Council meeting, Reingold opened by reflecting on the year, including IU’s largest-ever incoming undergraduate class and a football season he called a “Cinderella story.”
Campus and academic growth
In fall 2025, 10,127 incoming undergraduate students joined the IU Bloomington campus, Reingold said.
He said the university anticipates a similarly sized class this fall.
Reingold also addressed IU’s ongoing general education curriculum reform, saying the updated requirements will offer students clarity. He said that more work remains to narrow down the more than 1,000 general education courses offered.
“We will consider how best to offer our students a meaningful core of education, from a coherent and relevant array of courses,” Reingold said.
Reingold also pointed to a $15.7 million investment approved by the IU Board of Trustees during its Feb. 20 meeting to renovate the Musical Arts Center, the Jacobs School of Music’s primary performance venue. It has not undergone a comprehensive upgrade since opening in 1972, Reingold said.
“The MAC is one of the facilities on Bloomington’s campus that distinguishes the place,” Reingold said. “It’s an epicenter of arts and humanities and higher education in the United States and beyond.”
Faculty recognition and pay
Reingold recognized 13 faculty members during the address. In March, IU Bloomington named five faculty members as distinguished professors, the most prestigious award offered to faculty.
Eight Bloomington faculty members were also among the 13 IU scholars elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest scientific organization, according to a March News at IU press release.
“They are top at the top of your discipline and are extraordinary members of our community,” Reingold said.
Reingold also announced the university plans to raise minimum salaries by an unspecified amount for all academic advisers, which currently start at $43,888 annually. He also said IU will develop a career lab to allow advisers to advance their careers. These changes will take effect July 1, pending the trustees’s approval.
Graduate workers protest
Protesters from the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition yelled from the crowd at the end of Reingold’s speech.
“Make sure you don’t cut our healthcare,” Bryce Greene, a member of the IGWC, said.
The IGWC, which is not recognized by the university, is a member-run labor union representing almost 2,000 graduate workers and students at IU, according to its website.
The demonstration included around 20 people holding a sign stating, “living wage for grad workers.” Graduate student academic appointees currently earn a minimum stipend of $24,000 annually, working 20 hours per week for 10 months of the year, as well as receiving health and dental insurance, according to an IU press release. Graduate student academic appointees are eligible for university-sponsored health and dental insurance coverage through IU’s graduate student insurance plans.
According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, a single adult with no children needs to earn $44,641 annually to meet basic living expenses in Bloomington.
At the March 3 BFC meeting, Reingold acknowledged that cost of living is a challenge for graduate students, saying his office was working to increase graduate student stipends for the next fiscal year, with details expected before the end of the semester.
IU Graduate and Professional Student Government representative Matthew Jackson at the March 24 BFC meeting asked Reingold whether proposed stipend raises for graduate students would come at the cost of reducing graduate students’ health insurance coverage.
Reingold said then it was an idea that was under deliberation, but that no changes to healthcare plans would move forward.
Protesters’ concerns over the potential for a benefits cut is what led them to demonstrate at the address.
“A pay raise with a benefits cut is not really a pay raise,” Greene told the Indiana Daily
Student.
Editor’s note: Bryce Greene is a former opinion columnist for the IDS.
