Laskin Lists Benefits of a Grad-Student Union

To the editors:

Thank you for Lisa L. Laskin’s superb opinion piece (Op-ed, “A Force For Change”, March 5). As a former Financial Officer of the Graduate Student Council at Stanford, and as one still heavily involved in student advocacy, I am aware that experience in campus politics frequently embitters graduate students. Laskin’s op-ed reflects several layers of wisdom, each of a sort that emerges only from laboring in selflessness and deep reflection. The ability to affect change at an institutional level is indeed praiseworthy. Yet Laskin rightly points out the greater gifts of successful political involvement: comradeship, service, the ability to judge fairly, and becoming a better person.

Ray J. Rivera

Stanford, Calif.

March 6, 2003

The writer is a doctoral candidate at Stanford University.