Dear Alisha,
I feel with you. I was fortunately to share my office only with 1-2
students as a graduate student. I can't imagine having done this with
40 folks in a room. I wished I could point you to a reference, but I
am also not aware of any literature on the topic. Still, Kevin and
Daniel has some interested ideas about quantifying how much graduate
students contribute to your institution. Quantitative measures I am
thinking about include proportion of publications published in your
department with graduate students as authors & coauthors, proportion
of presentations or posters given by graduate students, proportion of
undergraduate student contact time with graduate students.
Alternatively - or in addition, you might want to track down graduate
student unions and see if they have information about graduate student
value. I am sure they have some info on the topic. I can tell you that
Michigan State University has a graduate student union (I graduated
from there...anybody out there currently at MSU who can get Alisha in
touch with the president of the GA union?).
Hope this helps at least a little to guide your ideas. Please put
another post on this list serve once you figured this out. I would be
interested in learning if and how you resolved this issue.
Best of luck,
Eva-Maria
On Apr 21, 2010, at 10:34 PM, Alisha Dahlstrom wrote:
Hi all,
I am currently a phd student in my second year. Currently, within my
department, grad students share a small building with several rooms,
5-7 in
a room. There is a proposal to uproot all the students (and combine
them
with grad students in a similar department) to a renovated basement
that is
currently not being used because it is moldy, has poor ventilation
and no
natural lighting. Apart from a few short partitions, this would be a
large
shared space that "packed as many students in as possible" (about
40; you
can imagine the potential noise and disruptions). As the grad
student rep,
when I explained this to the proponent of this new plan and asked
for his
justification, it was that "grad students aren't worth much to a
university
(monetarily speaking, at least, undergrads earn a school more) and
it would
be nice for visitors to see all the students in one space."
As this plan seems to be moving forward rapidly, I would really like
to pull
together some documentation that supports my belief that 1) grad
students
will have a higher completion rate and better output in a better
(e.g.,
quieter and well-lit) work environment and 2) grad students are
actually
valuable to a university. In my cursory, search, I haven't had much
luck -
does anyone have any suggestions or input? Feel free to email me
directly.
Cheers,
Alisha
