During its monthly meeting on Wednesday, the Graduate Student Council voted to add two new positions — Chair of Education and Chair of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — to its Executive Board.
The addition was passed alongside several more minor amendments to the GSC constitution, including adjustments to council member election and removal procedures and the removal of gendered pronouns from the constitution.
The amendments align with changes GSC President Farha Mithila GS has made in recent months to expand community engagement among department representatives and graduate students.
Previous changes include making name tags for representatives to wear in general body meetings, hosting biweekly “Breakfast Thursdays” and running more professional development events.
Mithila said that the chair of education will be “responsible for all graduate representation in professional development,” such as academic research, teaching and mentoring, career development activities and networking.
The chair will also serve as an academic liaison between graduate students and academic departments, providing resources, advice and support in “any academic or research conflicts for struggling students,” she added.
None of the current chairs are tasked with working with departments, Mithila said, adding that the new education chair will allow GSC to serve graduate students in new and more comprehensive ways. The chair will also improve upon and institutionalize the Council’s new professional development workshops, expanding the role of GSC at large.
The DEI chair will primarily advocate for graduate students in “areas of personal identity, issues of equity and fostering a culture of belonging,” Vice President of Advocacy Kevin LoGiudice GS said.
Addressing DEI issues is a job currently split among Executive Board members, according to Saoirse GS, GSC’s chair of student life. The DEI chair role will be a position dedicated to DEI issues. The chair may also work with Providence community groups and organizations, they added.
Both chairs, like the rest of the Executive Board, will be paid by Brown, so these additions won’t take up any GSC budget, Mithila said.
The chairs are set to begin their jobs in June and will be elected in the April GSC meeting. The April elections will also replace graduating board members, including the president, chair of technology, chair of masters’ advocacy and chair of international advocacy.
At the meeting, Council members voted unanimously to replace all gendered pronouns written into the constitution with position names. In addition, representatives voted to remove mentions of medical students — who are not represented in GSC and have their own elected student government — from the constitution.
The body also approved an amendment mandating that departments publicize open GSC positions “to all graduate students (in their program) before selecting any new reps,” Mithila said, adding that this will ensure everyone hears about open positions, and it will help stop departmental heads from electing the same students each year.
Another amendment gave the council the right to remove any representative who doesn’t attend two consecutive general body meetings without prior notice or without assigning a proxy for the specific meeting.
The Council also amended the process for removing an Executive Board member — which previously required a two-thirds vote from the general body — to require only a two-thirds vote among the Executive Board. This change would ensure that the Board’s internal conflicts can be discussed privately, according to Mithila.
The meeting also featured Vice President of Brown University Public Safety & Emergency Management Rodney Chatman, who prompted attendees to volunteer for the Public Safety Advisory Committee.
Chatman described a recent survey conducted by DPS, Facilities Management and student volunteers in which they drove around campus and nearby properties identifying dark spots for facilities to fix.
Katie Jain is a University News editor from New Jersey overseeing the graduate student life beat. She is a junior concentrating in International and Public Affairs and History.
