COLUMN: Privide some room for conversation

From Carl Seaquist's, "Ahaan Ahim," Fall '97 From Carl Seaquist's, "Ahaan Ahim," Fall '97 As a result of recent campus events, the placing and use of public space has become a current and vital topic at the University. This was in fact a serious complaint, and one that does not seem to have been taken as seriously as it should have been. Forget the old wisdom about freshmen living alone for the first time and their need for a place to belong. The University itself admitted the importance of community in its admission decisions.The major theme of promotional literature at Penn for a long time has been: not only are grades, exams and letters important, but the admissions committee also seeks a balance of diverse types within its incoming class. The residential college system is an excellent way of providing an organized structure to support and encourage social interaction among undergraduates. Unfortunately, nothing comparable has yet been proposed to meet the needs of graduate students. Of course, a residential college system is not what graduate students need. Many have families, most have more possessions than they did when they were in college (and as a result need more space than a typical dorm room provides), and most expect amenities like kitchens that tend to be of less concern to undergraduates. All of these things require more space than a traditional dormitory allows for, so University housing is not an option for most graduate students. But nevertheless we face many of the same needs for social contact that undergraduates do. We work long hours, we have few connections with the surrounding community if we came here primarily to go to school --- in these ways our situation is similar to that of undergraduates. If we do not have an organized system to allow us to meet one another, we will go through our four or six or eight years at Penn meeting few students outside our home departments. I do not know how the University can best meet the social needs of graduate students. But I do know the only way we will learn how to meet those needs is through conversation: conversation among graduate students to determine what our needs are, and conversation with the administration, to determine what they can provide. Clearly, the first of these will be difficult to accomplish, since this sort of conversation probably presupposes the very structures we need to create. Some ideas have been proposed already, such as dining facilities specifically for graduate students, meeting and study space and a graduate student bar. I do not see how a dining hall would serve its intended function (we would all go, then sit alone and read while we ate), and idea of a graduate student bar strikes me as ethically dubious, especially given the recent crackdown on undergraduate drinking. But one thing is clear --- simply allocating space is not sufficient. Institutions must be created to foster contact between graduate students. This is why the residential colleges are such a good idea: undergraduates already have space to come together in the dorms, but they currently do not have the institutions that would encourage contact to occur. The second of these can best be accomplished by the two organizations that represent graduate students in the University: the Graduate and Professional Students Association and the Graduate Student Associations Council. Ironically, both of these organizations have problems of their own to contend with. With the construction of the Perelman Quadrangle, many groups will be losing office space in Houston Hall, including both GAPSA and GSAC. And so far, they have not been offered new space for the transition. The allocation of interim space is currently under way, and neither group has yet been offered a new home. At a minimum, the administration should offer both GAPSA and GSAC proper space right away, so that we will know that graduate students will at least have a voice in future policy decisions. At most, the construction of the Perelman Quadrangle offers a wonderful opportunity to begin meeting the non-academic needs of graduate students But meeting the needs of graduate students requires conversation, and conversation requires time. If space in the refurbished buildings must be allocated now, the administration should devote additional space to graduate students, but leave its dedicated use open for the present.