Faculty Council Requests Suggestions For Proposed Grad Student Council

The Faculty Council yesterday mailed out a letter to every graduate student in the University requesting their opinions on the establishment of a Graduate Council to represent graduate students in the educational decisions of the Faculty.

Regina M. Kyle, assistant professor of English and sponsor of a Faculty Council resolution calling for the establishment of a Graduate Council, signed the letter and supervised its mailing.

The resolution also called on the Faculty Council to "communicate with all graduate students" on the subject of establishing a Graduate Council and to prepare a report for the Faculty by the Fall.

Dean Dunlop said Sunday that he hoped the proposed Council would investigate such problems as the definition of need criteria for graduate student aid, the tuition and fee structure of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), and the relative work loads for teaching fellows in the various departments.

The Kyle letter includes two models--prepared by graduate students--for the proposed Graduate Council. The letter asks that students comment on the models and provide any alternative suggestions they may have.

Model One would establish a 21-member graduate student body with Dean Dunlop and R. Victor Jones, dean of the GSAS, as chairmen. This model includes three alternative representation systems.

Under one suggestion members would be selected according to areas of concentration, years of study in the Graduate School, and the teaching fellow-graduate student ratio. Another proposal would have representatives selected in proportion to the ratio of members of the Graduate Student and Teaching Fellow Union to non-members.

The graduate students' Union was established last March after the GSAS announced termination of the Staff Tuition Scholarship program, a special scholarship system which provided money for teaching fellows.

A third proposal is that graduate representatives be selected from among the members of the body suggested in another model. This model--Model Two--would establish a Graduate Educational Resources Group with members elected to one-year terms on a departmental basis. The letter specifies that the two models are not mutually exclusive.

"This proposal is not intended to be an anti-Union idea," Kyle said yesterday. She added however that the proposed Graduate Council was "intended to deal with a much broader range of educational issues than a trade union which is primarily concerned with wages and working conditions."

Frank H. Ackerman, a member of the Union's Steering Committee, said Sunday that the Union has not yet taken an official position on the Faculty Council proposal.

"No one wants to establish a graduate student body by fiat," Kyle said yesterday. "This letter is just an attempt to get a student voice into the process. It's sort of like throwing the ball into their court and saying 'All right, come up with something.'"