For the first time ever, graduate students were invited to make a presentation to Caltech's Board of Trustees. The 20 minute presentation, focusing on issues currently facing graduate students, was delivered last month to a receptive audience of about 40 Trustees, President Baltimore, and Provost Koonin.

Parandeh Kia, Associate Dean of Graduate Students, brought together several students to design the presentation. In addition to the presenters listed below, the following people offered substantial help in preparing the presentation: Jason Cohen, Heather Cox, Diego Dugatkin, Florian Gstrein, Elizabeth Mayo, Steve Pracko, Alex Tobias, and Tashica Williams. Significant input came also from the general graduate student body in response to an e-mail request sent out by the GSC. Quotes from student e-mails greatly enhanced the presentation.

The presentation was delivered to the Trustees by Gabriel Acevedo-Bolton, Martin Basch, Mike Fleming, Sarah Heilshorn, Rachel Niemer, and Chip Sumner. A key concern expressed was the lack of communication by the administration regarding several recent decisions, such as planned changes to student health insurance and the introduction of dial-up modem charges. Other topics of focus were:

• The shortage of on-campus housing, compounded by rising rents and the low availability of off-campus housing.
• Concern over proposed changes that might weaken our currently excellent health insurance plan.
• The large variation in experience (workload, stipend, quality of classes and advising) that depends heavily upon one's advisor and department.
• Difficulties in supporting a family at Caltech. Dependent health insurance is very expensive and child care prohibitively so.
• Issues of diversity on campus. Low numbers of women and minority students often discourage more such students from coming here. Also, there has been no institute statement of support for international students still unable to return to the United States from their home countries after September 11.

The presentation suggested ways that the Trustees could help students with each of these issues and also called for the administration to take more initiative in seeking input from graduate students.

Reaction from the Trustees was positive. Several mentioned that they identified with the issues presented, having experienced the same themselves. Benjamin Rosen, the chairman of the board, said that he believed this would be the beginning of a dialogue between graduate students and the Trustees - a statement that hopefully reflects a growing interest by the Trustees in student life. The board meeting concluded directly after our presentation, so students do not yet have feedback as to what action the Trustees might take in response.

View the presentation: Presentation Slides (pdf)