The executive board of the Graduate Student Council met with F Jon Kull, Dean of the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, last Wednesday. They discussed parking, the old Dana Hall renovation, the graduate senate, an initiative to create a mentorship network for graduate students and leadership and mentoring training for principle investigators (PIs).
Pressure on the Dewey Lot behind the Life Sciences Center should ease soon for graduate students: long-term parking permits through Tuck have been moved east to A-Lot, and some faculty parkers will move into a parking lot under construction near old Dana Hall in the near future. The parking lot south of Thayer is also closing until 2021 for construction, when it will re-open as a parking garage with increased capacity, and temporary relief parking will be opened on both sides of Ledyard Bridge with shuttle service into campus.
Work has resumed on old Dana Hall, and it should re-open in December 2019. The newly renovated building will be very energy-efficient, featuring a solar roof and light-mitigating glass panel walls on its southern face. The GSC took an animated tour of the new design in a video provided by the architects. You can read more about the project in a recent Building Design + Construction article. The building will provide a central hub for the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies: the graduate lounge will move north from its current home downtown into the ground floor, and the Guarini School offices will move south from their current home at Dewey Field into the first floor. This proximity will facilitate communication and collaboration between the organizations serving graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at Dartmouth. The new graduate lounge will also feature a conference room, a bar counter, outdoor patio to the south, and secluded backyard to the west.
Representatives from all postgraduate schools at Dartmouth have met to revive the Graduate Senate. Faith Anderson, GSC VP, is representing the GSC and Guarini School in this process. The Graduate Senate working group is revising a draft Senate constitution produced by a similar working group in 2008. The GSC executive board discussed various aspects of the nascent Senate with Dean Kull and Assistant Dean Landers, including the role of a faculty advisor, focusing on organizational structure before financial structure (as member organization budgets are already allocated for the current year), the role of the Provost in relation to the Senate, differentiation of roles among representatives to the Senate, clarification of which degree programs will be represented by which member organizations, and reinforcing the social and collaborative power of the new Senate.
Graduate Women in Science and Engineering (GWISE) is planning to create a mentorship network for graduate students at Dartmouth. Although initial efforts will be focused on women, all are invited and encouraged to participate. Some mentoring opportunities exist within the graduate student population, but this initiative sets itself apart because it will pair graduate students with post-doctoral fellows, staff, research faculty, and administrators based on career goals and other qualifiers identified by the student. A general interest survey will be sent out within the next week, so if you are interested in being a mentor or being assigned a mentor please be sure to fill it out. If you have questions, comments or concerns, please email GWISE president, Savannah Barnett.
Savannah Barnett also provided a progress update on the Circle of Safety initiative discussed in the previous monthly meeeting, particularly the mixed response from Dartmouth faculty to mandatory management trainings as part of the second prong of the initiative. This topic was linked to the inclusive excellence and diversity awareness campus campaigns currently underway.
Other topics of minor discussion included the Dartmouth Three Minute Thesis in early April to select winner for advancement to the Ivy-wide championships in late April or early May, the return of North Park to graduate housing in 2019, and planning for the next GSC lunch with the Dean in February.
