My thoughts on graduate student life at Washington University Student Life Perspectives Column November 21, 1995 page 5 Grads urge for representation [SL headline, not written by the author] by Lorrie Faith Cranor Often at Washington University the word "student" refers more to undergraduate students than graduate students. Student Union is the undergraduate student government. Engineering Student Services serves undergraduate engineering students. And the Office of Student Activities works almost exclusively with undergraduate students. Outside the schools composed entirely of graduate students, there are few student services that have been developed with graduate students in mind. While graduate students make up about half the student population at WU they are underrepresented on university committees and rarely invited to participate in activities. Undergraduates have been represented on the Board of Trustees for 25 years, but until recently there was no graduate student on the Board. I am now the third graduate student representative to sit on the Board along side two undergraduate students. In addition, while several undergraduates (besides the two undergraduate Board representatives) are routinely invited to attend Board committee meetings, invitations are rarely extended to graduate students. Often graduate students are not taken into account when decisions are made. In the past this was due in part to the fact that no formal mechanisms existed for soliciting graduate student input, and few graduate students indicated any interest in participating in the decision making process. The formation of the Graduate-Professional Council (GPC) -- the graduate equivalent of Student Union -- two and a half years ago, signaled a new attitude in the graduate student community. For the first time in a long time, large numbers of graduate students were interested in issues that went beyond their individual departments. The formation of GPC showed that graduate students were interested in being a part of a larger WU community. But becoming part of the community has proven difficult. It took one school-wide graduate student government two years before they were recognized by their dean. Graduate student organizations have found few sources of funding. And gaining publicity for graduate student activities on the pages of WU publications has been difficult. I don't believe the difficulties graduate students have faced are a result of any sort of systematic efforts to exclude graduate students. Rather, I believe these difficulties result from a combination of benign neglect, and several peculiarities of the graduate student population and the university itself. There are perhaps four interrelated factors that are most responsible for the difficulties graduate students have faced: the group registration system, the diverse graduate student population, a feeling among graduate students that they are not welcome to participate in university activities, and a lack of awareness of the needs of graduate students. The Group Registration System Because WU's group registration system is run by Student Union, there is no mechanism for registering graduate student groups. Thus these groups don't have student group mail files, are rarely notified about university-wide activities, and face difficulties reserving space for activities. In addition, because graduate students do not pay a university activity fee, they are only allowed to participate in undergraduate organizations in limited numbers. It has been suggested that GPC assume a role similar to that of SU and setup a registration and funding system for graduate student groups. However, GPC has a small budget that is insufficient for staffing an office, let alone funding groups. The obvious solution is to institute a graduate student activity fee and form a joint SU-GPC student group registration system. However, it is unlikely that grads would agree to pay a fee as large as undergrads pay. Alternatively, grads might institute a much smaller fee and form a separate grad student group registration system -- but a separate system would likely serve to further divide undergrads and grads. It might be possible to form a joint system in which grads and undergrads pay different fees if allowances are made for the fact that the participation rate is likely to remain much lower for grads than for undergrads. Even if the funding problem remains unresolved, it would be useful to have a single WU group registry. This registry would include all SU registered groups, graduate student groups, and groups funded through school councils. Diversity One of the reasons that gaining support for a large graduate student activity fee would be difficult is that the graduate student population is quite diverse. Unlike the undergraduate student population which is composed mostly of 18- to 22-year-old singles who are attending school full time and working towards four-year degrees, the graduate population is composed of full-time and part-time students working towards degrees that take one to seven years to complete. Some of these students are married, some have children, and some have full time jobs. Graduate students are spread across two campuses, and many don't visit either campus more than once a week. In some graduate programs most students are supported on grant money and thus get free tuition and a stipend; in other graduate programs most students pay for their education by taking out huge loans. With all this diversity comes a wide variety of attitudes about student activities. There is a portion of the graduate student population that does not have the time or interest to participate in university activities and therefore would be opposed to paying any activity fee. These students cannot be lured with free pizza and will only attend required activities. On the other hand there are many graduate students who do have the time and interest and are enthusiastic about getting involved in university groups. Grads Feel Unwelcome Some of the grad students who are interested in participating in university activities choose not to participate because they feel unwelcome. Often when I recommend a campus activity to grad students they tell me that they thought the activity was only for undergrads. This is a bit of a chicken and egg problem: grads often feel unwelcome because they don't see other grads participating. Once a few grad students break the ice, getting others to join is less difficult. In addition, once a few grads join a group, they can point out to the group members that grads are reluctant to attend activities held on the South 40 or activities that start after 10 pm. They can also be great resources for the group, sharing ideas they learned from participating in activities at their undergraduate institutions. While much of the blame for not participating rests with the grad students who don't participate, few university groups make much of an effort to try to make grad students feel welcome. Many organizations seem to have written grad students off completely because they have the mistaken impression that grad students never do anything except study and work on research. Lack of Awareness Finally, I suspect that the interests of graduate students are most often ignored because the WU community is simply unaware of what those interests are. Before the formation of GPC and the school graduate student governments, grad students often didn't know where to turn to voice their concerns. Now, that grad students have a voice, it is not always easy to identify the right person at this university to listen. Last year a grad student complained to GPC that he was unable to reserve a university field for his soccer team because the team was neither an IM team nor a sports club. He tried to register his team as a sports club, but was unable to because it did not include undergrads. It was never the university's intention to limit field use to undergrads, but because no grad students had raised the issue before, no mechanism was in place to accommodate grad students. Eventually GPC solved the problem by setting up a grad student sports club registration system. Other grad student concerns remain unresolved: grad students on the Hilltop Campus have no university housing and an inadequate health insurance plan, and some university services are unavailable during semester breaks when most undergrads leave town but most grads are still at work. Grad students have unique needs that are not adequately addressed by programs and services designed primarily for undergraduates. More communication is necessary to increase awareness of graduate student concerns. Decision makers who solicit input from students should solicit input from graduate students as well as undergrads. Student group leaders planning activities for the entire WU community should invite grad students to participate in the planning process. There have been many recent efforts to increase communication between student groups so as to foster better understanding and cooperation. But, as I mentioned before, grad student organizations are often "out of the loop" because announcements about upcoming activities are only distributed through SU or posted in places frequented by undergrads. Community Week, leadership workshops, campus group coordinating meetings, and group and individual service awards are all great ideas -- but they are only serving to bring together half the WU student population. ------- Lorrie Cranor (lorracks@cs.wustl.edu), a graduate student in the Engineering & Policy and Computer Science departments, is the graduate student representative to the Board of Trustees and a member of the Graduate-Professional Council.