Grad students demand more space on campus

and Mike Madden If all 10,000 University graduate students decided to attend a Graduate and Professional Students Assembly Happy Hour, there would be no space on campus to fit them. That was the impetus behind a resolution passed by GAPSA on Wednesday night, which will be sent to the Perelman Quadrangle planning committee, proposing that graduate students be given priority use of a multipurpose room designated for the ground floor of Logan Hall. The resolution also suggested that a space in the Faculty Club be dedicated to graduate students. "The usefulness of a space is both social and beneficial to the quality of graduate student life," said Alex Welte, GAPSA vice chairperson for student affairs. Currently, there is a Graduate Student Lounge in Houston Hall that is too small to be used for planned GAPSA events, the fourth-year physics doctoral student added. According to Vice Provost for Graduate Education Janice Madden, the University wants to encourage the social and intellectual aspects of graduate student life. "All of the space in the Perelman Quad will be for the use of the entire community, not just undergraduates," Madden said. But GAPSA members said they think it is a false assumption that graduate students will utilize the same space that undergraduates use. "Graduate students do not interact and socialize in places that are primarily serving undergraduates not due to any sort of animosity between them, but rather due to the differing age, view points and goals of graduate students versus undergraduates," the resolution stated. Welte said the lack of social space is so bad that some University graduate students do not meet until they are at out-of-state conferences. Third-year music doctoral student Lex Rozin said he would use the space if it was available. "There is simply nowhere for us to go when we just want to hang out," Rozin added. GAPSA also passed a resolution calling on Provost Stanley Chodorow to seriously take into consideration students' opinions of the Student Judicial Charter draft he released at the September University Council meeting. "We urge the provost, the president, and the dean not merely to acknowledge the current dissatisfaction, but, in fact, to allow well-reasoned suggestions to affect and improve the final policy," the resolution stated. Welte said the body passed the resolution as a matter of principle. "As participants at University Council, we'd like to see that there is some consequence to people bringing their suggestions to Council," Welte said. "We don't find it encouraging that there was so little response when the issue came up at Council." Welte added that most graduate students would not be affected by the proposed charter, because individual graduate schools write their own disciplinary charters separate from the University-wide code. But he added that GAPSA is still interested in the judicial charter because it is an issue that indirectly affects the entire campus. "Under normal circumstances, graduate students get dealt with at the school level, not at the University level," he said. "But as a means of last resort, things that do not get resolved in the schools can be referred to a disciplinary board." Chodorow said he is incorporating suggestions from members of the University community into the draft. "I can assure GAPSA that those of us working on the draft charter are taking very seriously the comments and suggestions that have been made," he said. "As a result, the charter has evolved quite a bit since it was published," he added.