posted
GRADUATE STUDENT GOVERNMENT (GSG) UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT I APRIL 2005
I have been rather preoccupied this past month with my Ph.D. comprehensive exams. During that time, I have received a number of special requests for GSG action on a variety of fronts. The Executive Staff and I have been tracking these requests and I am now fully prepared to move on these issues, and to push forward the legislative and policy agenda embodied in the Executive Strategic Plan, to the end of my term in July.
1) A rash of criminal activity at Graduate Hills and Graduate Gardens has lead to a growing and pervasive sense of, as one of my constituents called it, “insecurity.” Though managed by a private enterprise, this land is owned by the University and, as such, the University has a moral responsibility to take decisive action to ensure the safety of these residents, their families, and guests. The University must take care of the large and presently vulnerable graduate student population residing at these locations.
That is why I am announcing today the creation of a special GSG Presidential Task Force on Graduate Security to examine what actions the GSG, the University, and Southern Management are currently taking, or should take, to address these serious and growing concerns.
I invite all those who have raised the alarm and the general population of Graduate Hills and Graduate Gardens, as well as senior leadership from the Division of Student Affairs, Department of Resident Life, Southern Management Company, University Police, University Senate, and the GSG Student Affairs Committee to join me and Guillermo Cantor, Task Force Honorary Chairman, in tackling the very serious issue of security and safety at Graduate Hills and Graduate Gardens.
More information will be available next week for parties interested in sharing their views on this important set of issues.
2) Questions have also been raised about the new continuous registration/ABD fee as approved by the Graduate Council. I am working to obtain more concrete information and statistics from the Graduate School in order to assess the extent to which some graduate students may be (more or less) severely disadvantaged by the new policy.
I have found that it is of very little comfort to students in disadvantaged positions to claim the overall merit of the policy. If it negatively affects them, then that is the scope of their concern. And it probably should be.
It has been suggested to me that the Graduate Council could possibly "grandfather" the policy so that it only applied to incoming graduate students. To the extent that the discord arises from students planning their graduate careers around a certain set of guidelines and polices they find suddenly to have changed, this could go a long way to alleviating a (growing) number of concerns.
While I understand this policy to be revenue-neutral from the University's position, and while I understand the policy to be beneficial to graduate students in general, these questions have raised serious concerns in my mind regarding the structure and representativeness of the Council itself.
When these policies were presented to the Council there was little to no discussion about groups of graduate students who might be negatively affected. While all the graduate representatives present supported the policy at that time, that decision was based solely on the information provided to us. This lack of information, combined with the fact that all graduate representatives to the Council are appointed by, and therefore beholden to, the Dean – with the exception of my appointee – produce a situation wherein there may be serious limits to the discussion and debate possible. When one further considers the facts that 1) the faculty members of the Council are elected by their colleges or appointed by their college Deans, and 2) that the faculty members are so far superior in number as to effectively prevent a graduate-led voting majority, the structural defects of the Council, as concerns graduate student interests, become that much more apparent.
In light of this disparity, between elected faculty members and appointed graduate student members, it is obvious to me that one immediate remedy to these problems is to seek amendments to the Council’s bylaws to 1) allow the GSG to elect or appoint the graduate members of the Council, and 2) significantly increase the proportion of graduate student Councilors.
These are the policy reformations I will be seeking in the Council in the coming months. I welcome your comments and questions.
3) The Graduate Council’s Student Affairs Committee, the committee that reinforced the policy on the 20-hour workweek, is now taking up the issue of standardizing and codifying rights to vacation time for graduate assistants. The Committee is also working to increase the number of days graduate students have to drop classes after the start of the semester without penalty, and to ensure that all doctoral candidates pay the lower, rather than the higher, level mandatory fees.
4) Lastly, please consider running for the open Graduate Senator seats in the University Senate. The Senate is a powerful University policy-making body and the graduate student population could really benefit from qualified candidates. Unfortunately, more often than not, over the years many have used these positions as resume builders. I’d really like to see graduate student activists fill these positions whenever possible. More information is available on the official GSG Online Forum.
Posts: 258 | I am: Graduate Student Government President | Registered: Oct 2001
| Logged: 128.8.22.72 |
These Forums serve as both an administrative hub for official GSG business and a place for graduate students to socialize and discuss concerns. GSG officials will continue to post official information on this site including meeting announcements, legislation, EFR documentation, etc.
We have been subject to a significant amount of spam and bots attacking the forum. Therefore, in order to register on the forum, you will need an @umd.edu or an @gmail.com email address. Please contact the forum administrator if you would like to register with an email address from another server. Thanks!
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
