Union Cannot Replace Grad. Student Council

To the editors:

In the article by Daniel K. Rosenheck ’04, “Brown Grad. Students Allowed to Unionize, “(News, Nov. 20) Graduate Student Council (GSC) President Shaun Rein wonders what the role of the GSC would be should a union materialize at Harvard. “We wouldn’t do anything,” he says.

To the contrary, the GSC would continue to provide its important service as the voice of graduate students to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) administration on academic and quality-of-life issues. Graduate student representation to University committees; issues regarding student housing, transportation, campus safety and facilities; services such as the research and travel grant competitions—these are all ongoing areas in which the GSC plays a vital role in the lives of graduate students.

Relations between the GSAS administration and the GSC have been good in recent years; there is no reason union organization should change that. The existence of a graduate student union would only damage this relationship if the administration, or worse, the GSC itself, was too short-sighted to see that students will continue to need such a representative body.

Lisa Lauterbach Laskin

Nov. 20, 2001

The writer was co-president of the Graduate Student Council in 2000-2001.