Rumbles of Financial Discontent

Graduate discontent over student financing may lead to the resurrection of the Graduate Student Union if a modified version of the present plan is not satisfactory, members of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Panel said this week.

The panel, which has set up a committee to hear student grievances and inform them of financial and academic problems, is waiting to voice their discontent until the re-worked Kraus plan is unveiled in January, Larry Vaughn, a union and panel member, said.

"The sentiment exists, but it's dormant. We don't yet know whether it's a sleeping baby or a sleeping giant," Vaught said Thursday.

The present Kraus plan, although a need-based plan for aiding students, is being re-evaluated in favor of a combined need and merit plan.

Under the terms of the re-evaluation, needy students may be under-funded by $1000 to allow departments to entice students to Harvard by offering up to $1000 in merit funds.

The Graduate Student Union has gone on strike each of the past two springs to protest graduate school financing practices and the discontinuance of Staff Tuition Scholarships in the spring of 1972.

Many graduate students, however, have questioned the effectiveness of the strikes and were bitterly opposed to the union's "attempts to form a group to exclude other graduate students."

Several suggested this week that the grievance committee replace the union as a vehicle for all financial reform efforts because the committee is recognized by the University and the entire graduate student body.