U.'s grad students hope for a center

The center would be a venue in which graduate students could interact. Representatives for Penn's 10,000 graduate students recently submitted a proposal asking University officials for their own student center, which they hope will provide a place on campus to relax, study and socialize. The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and the Graduate Student Associations Council submitted the proposal to University President Judith Rodin and Provost Robert Barchi in late December. The request is being reviewed by the the Locust Walk Advisory Committee, which was recently formed to consider the use of available space on campus. "You always hear about the alienated grad student," said Kyle Farley, who is pursuing his doctoral degree in History. "[The graduate student center] is meant to build community, intellectually and socially," the GAPSA and GSAC member added. GAPSA serves as a graduate student government body, while GSAC represents the graduate students in the School of Arts and Sciences and doctoral students across the University. The two groups had been considering the idea of a social center for graduate students for almost a decade and began in earnest to formulate a proposal last year. They conducted a survey of 1,500 graduate students, which investigated facilities provided for graduate students at other universities. According to GSAC and GAPSA, Penn is the only Ivy League school without space dedicated to graduate students. An overwhelming majority of graduate students, 92 percent, feel there is a need for such space at Penn, according to the survey. Students would like the center to provide opportunities for students from different schools and different departments to interact. Graduate students want to see the center implemented as a non-residential college house, similar to Kelly Writers House and Civic House. The administrative structure proposed for the center would include a faculty master, program director and a group of students serving as graduate fellows. The center's physical layout, as presented in the proposal, calls for 7,000 square feet of space to include a conference room, multi-purpose room, study area, computer lab, kitchen and office space. "[We want] enough room to hold group socializing and events," GSAC member Eric Eisenstein said. "[There are] tons of grad student events." Eisenstein also expressed hope that the center would allow graduate students to coordinate events in which undergraduates would be able to participate. "When people do Habitat for Humanity, [I hope they don't] do it in the form they do now -- graduate students do a graduate Habitat for Humanity and undergraduates do an undergraduate Habitat for Humanity," Eisenstein said. "Some of those kind of events would hopefully be done together." While students anticipate receiving University funding for the center, plans for its financing have not yet been completed. A timeline for the project has also not been decided. "If the center is approved, we would love to be in a facility by September," Farley said. "But we currently have no guarantee on time or location."