When 威尼斯人平台 教育学院 courses transferred to an online modality last March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of graduate students felt uncertain about their academic futures. But instead of becoming discour年龄d, they gathered together and formed a Graduate Student Association (GSA), 哪一个 allows them to bring attention to issues they and their peers are facing.
“We realized we didn’t have a formal avenue for advocacy,21岁的Kevin Velez说, GSA的主席. “If any concerns were to come up in the future, we didn’t know how those would be addressed in a constructive way.”
该集团的副总裁, 香奈儿·帕里什21年, notes the reaction to the GSA has been positive and conversations—such as meetings with former Naslund Endowed Dean Andrew Wall and current Naslund Endowed Dean Mario Martinez—have focused on the wellbeing of graduate students.
“We want to be really aware of who we’re serving,” Parrish says. “在早期, we were advocating for the CARES Act, 无证学生, and the needs and mental health of our Black students during the time when George Floyd was murdered. All of those things were on the very top of our list.”
除了倡导, communication and collaboration are the group’s other two goals, 哪一个, 维说, align with the 教育学院’s foundational pillars of educational justice and accessibility. In addition to improving communication between students in different programs, the group has facilitated meetings between faculty members and students that have addressed questions about curriculum.
“We might have a good idea as students, 但如果我们没有教员, 工作人员, 或者船上的管理, those ideas aren’t going to go anywhere,Velez说。. “We really want to make sure that all the stakeholders know that we have a place in this process, and we have a responsibility to make sure that we see this thing through.”
Associate Director of the Office of Student Success Yessenia Yorgesen, who is currently advising the group, is among the administrators who appreciates the role the new organization can play, as well as the students behind it. “These students have shown an incredible amount of initiative, 奉献, and an overall desire to create an organization that will include all student voices,她说。. “Their drive and passion for creating an organization that will be sustainable has impressed many of us in the 教育学院.”
除了Velez和Parish, three other students—Emilia 克莱恩Arellano '21, 斯蒂芬妮·拉德21岁, and Mary-Jean Stevenson ’21—sit on the organization’s cabinet.
克莱恩Arellano, who was discour年龄d to learn that a graduate student association didn’t exist at the U of R when she arrived, 赞赏如何, in addition to bridging to gap to faculty and administrators, the GSA provides a platform for connecting: “Having a place where students are available to make connections for each other can be really beneficial.”
克莱恩Arellano也注意到了这一点, 在组建团队的过程中, its members have incorporated systems they learned in their respective programs, “I’m taking a curriculum and instruction class and we’re learning how to create a school-wide programming model,她说。. “It just so happens that the GSA has the four criteria to be successful—it was great to learn that we have a supportive theoretical framework.”
目前, the group meets biweekly and has been reaching out to graduate students to encour年龄 participation. In the future, GSA group members hope to collaborate with other clubs and organizations. 最终, they hope the group expands to include all graduate students at the U of R—not just those from the 教育学院.
“I think that's one of the clearest ways that [the GSA] embodies educational justice and accessibility,Velez说。. “By allowing students to use their own voices and then amplifying their perspectives.”
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