Petition Demands More GSE Funding

An informal discussion of several students of the Graduate School of Education (GSE) at the beginning of the year has snowballed into a petition drive canvassing the campus. The petition drive, centered in the lobby of the school's Gutman Library, protests alleged unfair and inadequate treatment of the school by the University.

The petition, which is directed at President Neil L. Rudenstine and the University's other schools, asks for the creation of a committee, which will include GSE students and a representative of each of Harvard's schools, to address student complaints.

The petition drive is being organized by a group at the school billing itself as the Delta Initiative, based on the Greek letter delta, a symbol for change.

This group was formed by several students discussing the state of the school and the education they were receiving there. The Initiative has a core leadership of four members and a larger committee of about a dozen GSE students.

Students said they believe GSE receives much less support than the other Harvard schools. They place the blame on the decentralized nature of Harvard's organization and funding, which means each school must independently balance their budgets with their own resources.

"We take classes at other faculties and see discrepancies," says Monica Shah, a student in the one-year masters program at GSE and one of the four key organizers of the drive. She said students notice smaller class sizes and greater professor availability at other schools.

According to the students, this systems means individual school's budgets are based largely on the giving--and thus the wealth--of their graduates.

"We feel that [the decentralized financing system] needs to change," Shah said. "It is not efficient or effective any more."

They said Education School graduates are usually unable to contribute large sums of money to the school, as education degree graduates rarely go into lucrative professions. They argue this causes the school to have inferior resources to other schools on campus.

Specifically, students cite high student-to-faculty ratios at the school as a result of inadequate support from the University. Not only do the students note GSE has the highest student-to-faculty ratio of any of Harvard's schools, but also the highest of the U.S. News & World Report's top 50 education schools.

Another major consequence of the GSE's relative lack of funding, the petition claims, is inadequate financial aid for GSE students.

The petition cites statistics from the GSE's financial aid office: aid is only awarded to one-thirds of masters students and it only averages slightly over $3,000 per year, forcing many masters and doctoral students to cover most of the $21,410 cost of tuition with loans.

The petition states these unequal and inadequate resources devoted to the GSE reflect an acceptance of the low priority society as a whole places on education.

"Harvard University as a whole has not made education a significant priority," reads the petition. "Instead of mirroring societal values, Harvard University, as a premier institute of education in this country, should challenge ineffective and inequitable paradigms."

One of the organizers said this point was at the center of the drive.

"We're basically questioning the skewed value structure in place at Harvard and in society," Shah said.

The petition does recognize some efforts have been made to increase the resources devoted to the school, such as the use of money from President's Discretionary Fund for the GSE.

Members of the group have met with Rudenstine and found him sympathetic, according to Shah.

But Harvard's central administration controls only limited resources, and in order to get significant increases in resources for GSE, money controlled by other schools would be needed. This is the motivation behind student's demand for representatives from all schools to be committee members.

The petition and students also recognize the school is a leader in education, even with the current resources.

"We feel the school has served us well with the resources we do have," Shah said. But Shah said organizers see the potential to do even better with more resources.

The petition drive is running through May 11. Students are asking Rudenstine for a response to their concerns by May 26.