The stereotype of the impoverished, overworked graduate student holds some truth. Graduate students are notoriously neglected. Our TAs and fellow library-dwellers play a dual role. While they teach and guide undergraduates, they are also students (though their academic work is held to higher standards). As a consequence, graduate students are difficult to define. They occupy a liminal space between undergraduate students and faculty. But they receive neither the flexibility and freedom of the former, nor the prestige and benefits of the latter.
The graduate student population is also less monolithic than the undergraduate student body, which is composed mostly of 18- to 22-year-olds. Graduate students span a wide range of ages and enroll in a variety of programs: the experiences of a master’s student will differ from those of a doctoral student, and a business student may not share a law student’s concerns. In addition, graduate students are, by and large, less involved with the University’s major student organizations. As a result they wield less of a voice in student governance. Voter turnout in March’s student elections pointed to this disengagement: just 8 percent of Arts & Sciences graduate students cast ballots.
So it is refreshing to see an initiative like GradDays, which runs through April 6 and seeks to highlight the intellectual and social activities of the University’s graduate and professional students. Planned by Graduate Student Council, the series of events kicked off Tuesday evening with a keynote address by University President Teresa Sullivan.
GradDays seeks to accomplish several important aims. The initiative provides support for minority graduate students; it gives graduate students opportunities to socialize with peers in other departments; and, in a hostile academic climate, it offers workshops and panels that provide professional-development tips.
GradDays is right to host a lunch workshop for minority graduate students. The independent nature of much graduate work can leave some students feeling isolated. Events that affirm the University’s support of its minority students can be empowering and can strengthen social and professional ties among these students. GradDays is also hosting an “Out in the Academy” panel geared toward LGBTQ graduate students. The event seeks to connect LGBTQ graduate students with LGBTQ professors. A lunch workshop bringing together female graduate students and female faculty accomplishes something similar for women in the academy. These three events are more than just expressions of solidarity. Negotiating one’s gender, sexuality or race in a competitive environment such as a college or university can be difficult. Graduate study rightly focuses on knowledge production rather than self-awareness or self-presentation; extracurricular presentations like the ones GradDays has organized help potentially vulnerable students integrate their identities into their professional academic lives.
It is rare that graduate students get the opportunity to bond with their peers in other departments. The social aspect of GradDays is therefore important both for graduate student morale and for the potentially fruitful intellectual connections it may engender. Interdisciplinarity has become a buzzword in the academic sphere. But without connections to people working in other departments, graduate students lose potential opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration. GradDays may help remedy this disconnect.
We commend Graduate Student Council for offering its constituents opportunities for development and relaxation, and we hope to see more events geared toward graduate students in the future.
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