THE UNIVERSITY is a pretty scary place for first years. Each of us arrived full of questions. Yet we also had several days of orientation. For me, the biggest problem was digesting all the answers.
Imagine, though, being a grad student. You've been to college, but you still have to adjust to a new place with different rules. Add in managing your own health insurance and juggling writing your papers with grading those written by undergraduates. You would probably want more orientation than the undergraduates would, but you wouldn't get it. Current graduate students get whatever their department provides, usually not much. Proposals to implement a formal graduate student orientation are long overdue and deserve to be funded.
The current orientation system for graduate Arts and Sciences students is woefully inadequate. In an interview, Eleanor Sparagana from the Office of Orientation and New Students described a highly decentralized orientation process. Some special programs exist for students TAing in their first semester. But for general orientation, graduate students must rely on their individual departments, some of which are better organized than others.
Such a haphazard system slows the process of adjustment and hinders the community building. Patrick McGuinn, president of the Graduate Student Council, sees a fragmented community as a major difference between graduate Arts and Sciences students and professional school students.
There are several reasons for this difference. For example, law students don't specialize immediately, and so are exposed to a larger cross section of the school. But a lack of community begins on the first day when students only meet within their departments. Having a school-wide orientation would not only give the students more information, but also give them a chance to meet each other.
At the moment, the administration is trying to solve the problem. The Office of the Dean of Students is working on several proposals as part of a strategic plan that it will finish in June and submit for approval to various administrators.
The centerpiece of the proposals would be an orientation day for all students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. According to Sparagana, it would provide panels for question and answer sessions on Student Health, transportation, common financial issues and child care options.
The idea of using panels sounds like the best way to inform graduate students who know what problems they may encounter, but not how to solve them. Much of their success, though, will depend on the composition of the panels. So far the proposals are ambiguous about this.
While it will be great to have officials speaking in person with students, orientation needs to preserve the role of student leaders. Students are inevitably not going to like some of the information they get - for example, the size of their insurance premiums - and they need to know how they can get involved. By recruiting students early on, organizations like the Graduate Student Council can achieve greater success in solving graduate student problems.
The efforts to reach out to graduate students will continue after orientation. Sparagana also mentioned proposals such as an e-mail listserve, a sort of "Graduate Connections," and a resource guide similar to one given to Law and Business students.
Unfortunately, the new orientation will not go forward this fall. According to Sparagana, funding can only be allocated after being approved by the Vice President for Student Affairs, Dean of Students, Provost and Dean of Arts and Sciences. The latter two positions are vacant, Sparagana said, and successors will be announced sometime this semester. So even if graduate student orientation is approved this summer, it won't benefit students until the fall of 2002.
This situation presents the danger that the proposals will fall through the cracks in the meantime. The administration will have to cope with a major budget headache, which means that money for new projects will be tight.
Students, therefore, need to join with the Office of the Dean of Students to make sure the orientation plan goes through. For the small cost of advertising the orientation and coming up with resource guides, the graduate students and the University overall will benefit from more informed and involved incoming classes.
The time has come for a centralized orientation for all incoming graduate students in Arts and Sciences. Both undergraduate and graduate students should become involved in the administration's efforts to make the transition to graduate school easier for students. Improving the climate for graduate students encourages their informed participation in the Academical Village, a worthy goal we should all support.
(Elizabeth Managan's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at emanagan@cavalierdaily.com.)
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