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Preeti on the Web |
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Providing Food for Thought |
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Through helping to bring graduate and professional students (G&P) together and build a sense of community, a $2 fee increase would make G&P students a strong, united group. |
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How $2 buys us internal group cohesion & political weight |
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October 24, 2005 |
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To Contact Preeti: preetiontheweb at yahoo dot com |
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Please note that all text on this webpage is copyrighted ©. Please do not quote or paraphrase without using proper citations. |
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Note: This op-ed column appeared in The Chronicle Oct. 24, 2005. GPSC helped put roofs over my classmates’ heads last summer. Let me explain. Graduate students—myself included—at Duke’s Sanford Institute of Public Policy must complete a summer internship. Being the save-the-world-types that we are, many of us accept internships at non-profit organizations and other places that can’t afford to pay us. This is where the Sanford Institute Internship Fund Committee comes to the rescue. It provides public policy graduate students with financial support to cover their living expenses during unpaid internships. The Committee obtains its funds, in part, through various fundraisers it organizes throughout the year. This is where GPSC comes in. Fundraisers themselves require funds in order to take place in the first place. And who’s going to provide some of those funds? GPSC—The Graduate and Professional Student Council! Last spring, GPSC provided the Internship Fund Committee with financial support to put on speed-dating and wine-tasting fundraisers. These successful events helped provide many of my classmates with the funding they needed to cover living expenses during their internships. This example is just one of the myriad ways that GPSC touches the lives of graduate and professional (G&P) students. Often, GPSC’s valuable contributions to enriching G&P students’ lives go unnoticed under the radar. Contributions like these, however, justify an increase in the mandatory fee that all G&P students pay to GPSC. Since the 2003 advent of GPSCNews, the weekly email alerting G&P students of upcoming campus activities, participation in GPSC-sponsored events has skyrocketed. These events have not only enriched the lives of G&P students, but they have also increased the sense of community among the G&P student population. Increased participation and an increased sense of community come at increased costs, however. Currently, GPSC’s expenses exceed its revenue, and the surge in expenses is largely fueled by an increase in the number of students groups’ requesting funding. I’m not alone in my support for a modest GPSC fee increase. Two weeks ago, GPSC asked G&P students to complete an on-line survey to gauge their views on the issue. While the nearly 900 students who responded were a self-selecting group and may not have been a cross-sectional representation of the entire G&P student body, the survey results serve as a rough approximation of sentiments. Sixty-two percent favored a fee increase of some sort. And about half of those favored a small, reasonable increase of up to $2 per semester, while the rest supported an even greater fee hike. A measly $2 per semester would translate into $24,000 of extra revenue, enough to cover last year’s shortfall of around $20,000. Tonight, GPSC will vote on whether to increase its fee next year, and if so, by how much. I urge all GPSC representatives to vote for a $2 increase. Simply put, community is worth an extra $2 a semester. A $2 fee increase—the first increase since 1999—benefits us all beyond the numerous student group activities, social events and thought-stimulating speakers that GPSC sponsors. Through helping to bring us together and build a sense of community, it makes G&P students a strong, united group. And, we need to be a strong, united group when it comes to issues that affect us all, such as parking, health insurance and representation on the Board of Trustees and Duke Alumni Association Board. For the university to serve us well, we need political weight, and ultimately that only comes from having internal group cohesion. My one suggestion to GPSC is that it urgently needs an informational campaign. When it comes to a fee increase, G&P students want to know, “What in it for me?” Therefore, it would be helpful to have a detailed list posted on-line of exactly which student groups and types of activities GPSC was funding. Through performing a search on Duke’s website, I was able to find such a list deeply buried at: http://www.duke.edu/gpsc/business/minutes/Group%20funding%20Feb%2005.pdf This list is not accessible via GPSC’s website as far as I can tell, however. Through GPSCNews, GPSC has shown that it can communicate effectively with students about campus events. It can surely do the same when it comes to informing students about exactly where their GPSC fee money goes. In fairness, I must disclose that I’m graduating in May, so any fee increase will not affect me. I can only argue that a stronger, more cohesive G&P student body will enhance your experience at Duke and make this institution more responsive to the unique needs of G&P students. |