Caltech Safety Net
Rarely has our community faced a set of tragedies of this magnitude. During a time such as this it is normal to have questions about what happened and to experience a mix of emotions. The GSC is working closely with the Graduate Dean's office to respond to these events in a timely and appropriate way. We invite you to a community gathering this week, 6:00 pm this Thursday, June 25th, in Avery Dining Hall. At this gathering, you will have the opportunity to learn more about the recent events, share your thoughts and experiences, and to open up a broader dialogue about the Caltech Safety Net.
We can all play a part in the Caltech Safety Net
Your role in the Safety Net:
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Andy Downard Catalina Apt 450-105 MC 210-41 Office: 218 Keck Office Phone: 626-395-3443 adownard AT caltech DOT edu
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Zeeshan Ahmed Catalina Apt 1036-201 MC 367-17 Office: 361 Cahill Office Phone: 2635 zahmed AT caltech DOT edu
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It is with great grief that the GSC must express our condolences for all those affected by Jackson Wang's untimely death. We once again encourage all students to seek the support of friends, neighbors, and community leaders to help in the process dealing with these events. The Resident Associates in the Catalina Apartments remain available to talk through an issue or to refer you to the appropriate campus resources.
During the past two weeks, the GSC and the GSO have engaged in a dialogue to determine the most appropriate short-term and long-term response to these events. We agree that the best short-term response is to try to bring together our community, so we organized the gathering that will take place tomorrow. We encourage as many of you as possible to show up to learn more about the current situation.
The long-term response is a more vexing issue, since several unique traits to the Caltech campus make it challenging to develop a truly comprehensive safety net. Many people in Caltech's leadership are frustrated by the fragmented and isolated nature of the graduate community. Even within the Catalina apartments, there is very little structure, but rather an amalgalm of 400 or so students. To deal with this challenge, the GSC and the Graduate Studies Office (GSO) plan to better engage the divisional structures to reach students in need, as well as try to take advantage of the Catalinas as a locus for the graduate community.
The GSC is also working with the GSO on two new initiatives designed to facilitate the safety net operation at Caltech: a peer mentoring program, and more student involvement in the "Safety Net Committee."
The details of the peer mentoring program are still being developed in the GSC's Advocacy Committee; roughly, the program would aim to match up current graduate students with undergraduates and incoming graduates in a fashion loosely modeled after the very successful "Women Mentoring Women" program run in the Caltech Center for Diversity. These peer mentors would meet regularly over lunch or coffee to discuss the range of issues affecting Caltech students: everything from how to handle academic workload, forging a career path, or dealing with the personal stressors that often feel unique the Caltech's environment.
In addition to developing a better peer network, the GSO and the GSC feel that it's appropriate for the existing Safety Net structures to have more interaction with the student body. Therefore, we are seeking nominations for a graduate student representative to the Safety Net Committee. Given the intensely emotional nature of this issue, ideally our student representative will be very strongly motivated participate. What is at stake is nothing less than saving the lives of our colleagues at risk here at Caltech.
Click above to view this presentation from the Caltech Counseling Center
Higg's Bozos Win Gradiators 2009
Ten teams of mighty warriors took to the arena on Beckman Mall for a day of full-spirited competition for the 16th annual Gradiators. All had fun, but only one emerged as the winner: The Higg's Bozos.
"As a first time team, no one has yet observed the HIggs Bozos in action, but experts all agree, they have a lot of potential. A quick check of the Vegas Gradiator odds show the Bozos to be a massive favorite. Pity the unfortunate teams which collide with the Higgs Bozos, for they will be utterly annihilated. When asked for comment, a member of the team had only this to say: "We're the reason yo mama so fat." We can safely say, and this is with no spin, that you can expect the value of the Bozo's play to break the other weak groups down to tears."
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. Click on show and press right arrow key to advance slide.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. Click on show and press right arrow key to advance slide. Many thanks to Tami Penunuri for the photos.
One of the highlights of Gradiators 2009 was the ability to talk to members of the Alumni Association who were responsible for its original creation. I asked Nicola Peill-Moelter to shed some light on the history of Gradiators:
Gradiators Origins
Nicola Peill-Moelter, PhD, Environmental Engineering Science 1997
The first Gradiators was held in August 1993. The idea was dreamed up that Spring when I became social chair of the GSC. Up until then there had only been a weekly Friday beer happy hour organized by students in the Bio department. The goal was to get grad students out of their labs and mingling across departments doing something non-academic for a change. The name was a derivative of and parody on Gladiators which was a new show at the time and one of the original reality TV shows.
The first Gradiators had about 8 or 10 teams including the "Dream Team" named after the U.S. 1992 Olympic basketball team - that lost if I remember correctly. It was a mix of grad students from various departments who were friends and had some athletic ability :-) - including myself and Brian.
I don't remember which team won or even if anyone cared. Everyone had a great time - at least enough to keep it going the next year.
The original games included:
GSC Strategy Memo: Diversity at Caltech
by: Ronnie BryanMembers of the graduate community and GSC Advocacy Committee are strategizing ways to tackle the problem of diversity at Caltech. In contrast to the recent success recruiting undergraduate women, Caltech has still to show much improvement in any of the other under-represented groups on campus. We have clearly struggled to compete effectively for women and minority applicants. The GSC is continuing to ask: Why is this the case, and what can be done about it?
Recruitment
How can we induce options to more aggressively pursue a diverse student body? Currently, the Moore Fellowship supports minority graduate students, but many in the administration feel that it has not been competitive enough as a 1-year fellowship. There is some debate as to whether or not the fellowship should be extended to guarantee at least 2 years of study. However, even proponents of this view realize that it is not the full solution. In reality, for the program to be effective, faculty must also feel invested in their students; to achieve this, one proposal that I support is for the Moore Fellowship to provide matching funds for two years, instead of full funding for just 1 year.The Moore Fellowship is just one example of financial incentives the Institute already has at its disposal to address the problem of diversity at Caltech. Another major source of funding is the Axline gift, which supports graduate and undergraduate students at the Institute. The administration may want to consider re-thinking the graduate half of this allocation to make Caltech more competitive in the minority applicant pool.
We can also raise money specifically for promoting diversity, by earmarking it with "preferences" for under-represented student groups. With the hire of a new VP for Development and Alumni relations Peter Hero, new "out of the box" fund-raising campaigns is now a real possibility. Of course, fund-raising for diversity is not that "out of the box," as other universities such as Stanford have been quite successful in similar efforts. For the past several months, members of the GSC have been offering to help organize donor/student interaction, often the most effective things a university can do to raise funds. We are involved in several efforts to help coordinate fund-raising around student activities, such as the Graduate Student Poster Session, and hope to include diversity efforts as part of this program.
In the meantime, we strongly urge Development to begin drafting (or re-drafting, hopefully), a "white paper" document on the Institute's current needs with respect to recruiting and retaining under-represented student groups. This document will serve as a framework for the Development office to help match up donors interested in diversity with the most effective ways they can give to the Institute and is a necessary first step for diversity fellowships to be financially possible.
However, we need not wait for the Development office to institute a new campaign goal before we can see concrete improvements at the Institute. For example, graduate students can show more initiative in recruiting minorities to campus. Specifically, graduate students can be efficacious recruiters because of their close ties to their undergraduate universities. The GSC, therefore, is calling for nominations for student graduate recruiters to travel to their alma mater and present either a research talk, or a non-academic talk about life in graduate school and Caltech. There are funds available in the Graduate Studies Office specifically for this purpose, so we should immediately begin the process of recruiting students for the fall's application cycle. Please email gscadvoc AT Caltech DOT edu if you would like to help.
Under-Represented Students Advocate Evans Boney, and Diversity Council Graduate Representative Geoff Lovely have recommended that Caltech partner with an area school such as UCLA or USC to host one of these national conferences. This would lower the barrier to participation by the faculty and could be a low-cost to raise Caltech's profile. Another similar idea is to invite select students to campus during area-specific conferences to see the nature of the work being done at the Institute. This effort would have to be organized at the Option level, but the Graduate Office could assist with the logistics of inviting the students, in a capacity similar to what it does during the Grad Preview program.
The sad reality is that the Institute's slow pace of improvement pursuing diversity is having real and lasting consequences. Already, much of the NIH support to the Biology division has been lost due to Caltech's insufficient outreach and minority representation. What's worse, is that this should not have come as a surprise, as over 5 years ago Caltech Trustee Shirley Malcolm alerted the Institute to this possibility. The fact that it was allowed to come to pass reflects a severe inability for the Caltech organization to control itself in an adaptive way.
In order to see results, the GSC should continue to urge the Institute to take more proactive measures and offer help in organizing and rallying students to this, ultimately very winnable, cause.
see next month for part 2: Retention and Climate
Net Impact / SASS Summer Movie Series
Net Impact, SASS, and the GSC invite you to view some movies of social relevance this summer:
Food Inc
"The veil on our nation's food industry is lifted, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli--the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually."
trailier:
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Lets catch this movie next Tuesday, June 30th, at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, show time 7:30. People should RSVP to rohde AT Caltech DOT edu; we can give students a $5 discount.
Garbage Warrior
"What do beer cans, car tires and water bottles have in common? Not much unless you're renegade architect Michael Reynolds, in which case they are tools of choice for producing thermal mass and energy-independent housing. For 30 years New Mexico-based Reynolds and his green disciples have devoted their time to advancing the art of "Earthship Biotecture" by building self-sufficient, off-the-grid communities where design and function converge in eco-harmony. However, these experimental structures that defy state standards create conflict between Reynolds and the authorities, who are backed by big business. Frustrated by antiquated legislation, Reynolds lobbies for the right to create a sustainable living test site. While politicians hum and ha, Mother Nature strikes, leaving communities devastated by tsunamis and hurricanes. Reynolds and his crew seize the opportunity to lend their pioneering skills to those who need it most. Shot over three years and in four countries, Garbage Warrior is a timely portrait of a determined visionary, a hero of the 21st century."
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Movie will start at 8pm, refreshments at 7:30pm in Noyes 153 on Thursday, July 9th. Come check it out!
Professional instructor Andre Fortin.
Mondays, starting June 22, 9:45-10:45pm
