A University administrator has halted a plan between the Program Board and graduate student leaders that would earmark a portion of PB’s annual budget to graduate programming.
Some of the plan’s creators said they were startled Monday when Mike Gargano, assistant vice president for Student and Academic Support Services, told student leaders he was against any long-term proposal and would work to prevent it.
“Gargano expressed concern about developing an agreement, which lasted more than one year, because he was concerned future generations of student leaders would not feel the same way we do this year,” said Student Bar Association President Scott Mory. “He wanted to give each year’s student leaders a chance to put their fingerprints on it.”
The plan called for the majority of the money graduate students contribute to PB to be put into a fund each year. A new organization of graduate student leaders would oversee the fund, providing programming opportunities for graduate students.
Under the plan, PB would give the programming fund $15,000 this year, and in three years would be required to give 85 percent of grads’ contribution to PB.
“(The Student Activities Center) specifically told us to make it long term,” said Emily Cummins, a member of the Columbian School Graduate Coalition. “This is direct counteraction. Either it’s hypocrisy or something else is going on.”
Cummins said she was not sure whether administrators had the authority to overrule student organization decisions but said she was disappointed about the intervention.
Gargano said the graduate students still will receive funding this year and will work each year to find an amount to be devoted to graduate programming. He said he could not let PB sign a deal that would bind future students who had no say in the terms.
“I was not going to be able to put forward a three-year guaranteed funding mechanism,” Gargano said.
PB Executive Chair Brian Nathanson said the proposal ignored the human element needed in working with the two groups.
“It’s not a change in perspective but a change in application,” Nathanson said. “We want something to legitimately change the way the relations work.”
Gargano said he hopes to sit down with PB and graduate student leaders later this month to work out how the two constituencies will meet each year.
Mory said he believes Gargano’s concerns are valid but said he wished it would have been addressed earlier in negotiations.
“I’m disappointed that this concern was brought out so late in the process,” he said. “We need to create a solution that the PB and graduate students feel comfortable with.”
Gargano said he believes this issue will remain at the fore of both PB and graduate student leaders’ minds.
“I don’t think this is one of those issues that graduate students, PB or myself will let get swept under the rug,” he said.
