Amid a debate about its role, the GSC works behind the scenes to improve quality of life for grad students
Whether the issue is mentoring, access to mental health services, transportation, or improvements in parental accommodations, the Graduate Student Council is an advocate for the wellbeing and success of GSAS students, enjoying a rare degree of access to and credibility with faculty and administrators.
Serving as a voice for graduate students in academic, residential, and administrative matters, on topics both programmatic and personal, the GSC takes as its primary mission the cause of improving the quality of life for students, says current president Cammi Valdez, a PhD student in biological and biomedical sciences. Through regular meetings and continual dialogue, the GSC brings student concerns to the attention of the GSAS deans and administrative staff. It also gives grants to students for conference travel and research, and it sponsors GSAS student organizations and January@GSAS mini-courses.
Over the last year, a debate has emerged about whether the GSC ought to play a more activist role on campus — whether it should take positions on issues relating to Harvard investment strategies and labor practices, for instance, or have a voice in a broader discourse on national or political issues. As that debate plays out in elections this April, current GSC officers express differing views about how the group can best fulfill its commitment to its student constituents.
“At the most fundamental level, I see the GSC as performing two related, yet qualitatively different, services for GSAS students,” says Patrick Rich, a PhD student in linguistics who serves as GSC secretary. “The first is referring people to resources already available to the Harvard community that they might not be aware of. The second is becoming a resource for people who have identified a problem that isn’t already addressed — or insufficiently so — through existing resources. Put dif-ferently, the GSC is both a reference and an advocate.”
Valdez, who traces the roots of her GSC involvement to challenges she faced when changing labs and struggling to find her place at Harvard, also sees the GSC as a valuable resource for students navigating particular roadblocks, whether academic or administrative. “I know how difficult it can be,” she says, “and I know that other students go through similar challenges. I’m interested in how we can look at these challenges, policy-wise, and see what we can do to address them.”
Andrew Pope, a PhD student in history who is the GSC’s treasurer this year, and was a candidate for GSC president last year, believes that the group should become “a political body that works to identify and advocate for graduate students’ interests at Harvard.” In the wake of the Occupy movement in 2011, Pope says, a number of students became interested in seeing the GSC chart a different direction. “In addition to taking up issues of free speech,” he says, “we recognized a serious need for a collective graduate student voice on issues like parental leave, child care costs, teaching loads, and many other issues. Graduate students have their own interests that are related to, but ultimately independent of, the professors and administrators at Harvard. The GSC is one way to articulate them and forcefully push for their implementation.”
One of the discussions in which the GSC has played an influential part concerns the role of advising and mentoring in a successful graduate student career. In 2012, following up on a detailed survey it had launched in 2009, the GSC released a report, titled The State of Mentoring at GSAS, which found that although a majority of GSAS students said they felt satisfied in their primary advising relationship, a sizable number (18 percent) said they did not.
As a result of the GSC’s advocacy, former GSAS Dean Allan Brandt made effective mentoring at the graduate level a centerpiece of the second half of his deanship. He held discussions with faculty, pushing for the articulation of best practices in each discipline — and shining a spotlight on an issue whose importance was under-acknowledged in the broader Harvard community.
Alumni jumped on board, further encouraged by Brandt’s successor as dean, Xiao-Li Meng, who had long been a champion of effective mentoring in his own Department of Statistics. Alumni-led initiatives such as the DMS Paths program and the recent January initiative to spotlight business applications of the PhD reflected the new energy.
Since the fall of 2011, the GSC has distributed a “Letter on Graduate Student Mentorship and Advising” to all new faculty, attempting to encourage healthy dialogue and clear expectations on both sides of the mentoring relationship. And to publicly celebrate the qualities that play into effective mentoring, the group also bestows an annual award that recognizes faculty mentors nominated by their stu-dents as exemplary.
The GSC was also instrumental in helping international students augment their teaching hours. Because student visas limit the number of hours students can work, international teaching fellows were able to lead only two sections each term, curtailing their income and professional experience. The GSC advanced the issue with the GSAS administration, and a scheduling solution was ultimately found that allowed international TFs to take on an additional section.
And the group has worked to enhance access to — and recognition of — mental health resources at Harvard. It helped spur the recent decision by Harvard University Health Services to expand its coverage of outside mental health visits. And it is now partnering with HUHS to conduct a confidential mental health survey of the graduate population, informing future policy work on treatment and coverage options.
“The relationship we have with the administration is a rarity,” says Valdez. “Having met with peers, we know this isn’t always the case.” She says that at the annual Ivy Summit [a coming-together of graduate student councils from peer insti-tutions], “there are always panels on how you get time with the administration, how you get access. Other councils are seeking what we have.”
Funding for GSC activities, programs, and facilities comes directly from GSAS students themselves, via a $25 GSC fee assessed on the November term bill of each resident student. Rich says he’s particularly interested in engaging more of that membership in the group’s ongoing activities. “The GSC has always had a small and active cohort of representatives and committee members but little effective communication with people who didn’t regularly attend our open meetings. I’d like to solicit feedback from people who would never attend a meeting,” he says.
One way of doing that is through a new Google Moderator page that the GSC will soon launch, allowing it to take questions, ideas, and suggestions from students, who will also have the ability to “like” or “dislike” the suggestions of other students.
“Then the executive board, for example, can respond to these questions in the same forum, creating a live feedback tool for student concerns,” says Rich. “I think that’s exactly where we need to be heading as an organization.”
Story credit: Bari Walsh
Photo: Emma Mueller