The Graduate Student Council held their October general body meeting on Wednesday, where students discussed union membership, student safety and funding woes.
At the meeting, Adit Sabnis GS, organizing director of the Graduate Labor Organization, discussed GLO’s initiatives for the upcoming year.
Sabnis first focused on the upcoming negotiations for a new GLO contract, which will begin this spring. The current contract is set to expire in June.
After Rhode Island codified graduate student unionization rights this summer, graduate students on fellowships are now considered student workers, Sabnis said. But under the current contract, graduate students with fellowships are considered “out-of-unit,” according to a handout from Sabnis.
As such, GLO will distribute “fellowship cards” this semester to students interested in joining the union under the new contract so the two sects of students are both part of one bargaining unit.
Additionally, under a new GLO initiative, any non-citizen graduate student can request a chaperone to walk with them on or near Brown’s campus if they feel unsafe due to federal deportation efforts, Sabnis said. The announcement follows masked federal agents detaining an individual on College Hill last week.
The GSC also discussed funding troubles as the Brown community reels from federal actions and University budget cuts. As the University cuts department discretionary funds, student groups are having trouble getting funding or being reimbursed for events, GSC President Kevin LoGiudice ScM’21 GS said.
LoGiudice also solicited general feedback from other students ahead of his annual meeting with Brown’s Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.
Ian Ritter is a senior staff writer for university news. A junior studying chemistry, he covers the graduate schools & students and admissions & financial aid beats. When he isn’t at The Herald or exploding lab experiments, you can find him playing the clarinet, watching the Mets or eating Ratty carrot cake.
