Part-time Graduate Student Position Available
with
Office of Health Education, Harvard University Health Services
Position: Seeking a part-time graduate student to work on research project from December 1996 through February, 1997. Needed for minimum of 8 hours/week, although hours can be flexible week to week.
The Office of Health Education is participating in a focus group study (qualitative market research) of student health issues at Harvard University. The focus groups will be run from February 17-28. The student hired will carry out the following activities:
Pay: $10-$12/hr.
- Handling logistics: arranging space for the focus groups; arranging food for student participants; locating and/or buying equipment and recruitment incentives (audiotapes, movie coupons, etc.); record-keeping of activities and expenses.
- Communications, recruitment and screening: contact and coordination of activities with advisory committee members; develop student recruitment materials (ads, posters, etc) and contact The Crimson, TheYard Bulletin, etc.; coordinate with UHS peer educators to recruit students for the focus groups--both for a pilot test in January and for final groups in February; handle phone contact; screen student applicants and assign to relevant focus groups; send reminders to students of participation dates; assist researchers with set-up, clean-up and handling of focus groups; provide up-dates and reports of actions to OHE. Other tasks as needed.
Please contact:
Christine Hollis
Manager, Office of Health Education
tel: 496-2343
e-mail: chollis@uhs.harvard.edu
The mission of the Office of Health Education is to promote the lifelong health and well-being of those in the Harvard Community. Working in partnership with others, the Office provides client-centered health promotion services that facilitate positive behaviors and enhance health literacy.
Council members offered suggestions for related issues for such a joint committee to investigate (e.g., preregistration, half-time TFs). Some of these topics are likely unknown to undergraduates but are very important is determining section sizes. As a related issue, graduate students are often not involved with decisions regarding teaching and classes (e.g., there has been no formal graduate student input on the Core review despite the fact that graduate students do the majority of teaching within the Core). It was suggested that the Undergraduate Council press the Administration to include graduate students on any committees which discuss and affect teaching and sections.
The text of the Undergraduate Council resolution is reprinted below:
This resolution was unanimously approved by the GSC.
Joint UC-GSC Campain to Reduce Section Size
WHEREAS undergraduates have long expressed disatisfaction with the current section-size standards in undergraduate courses,
WHEREAS many administrators including Dean Knowles have expressed a desire to reduce section sizes,
WHEREAS the Graduate Student Council represents the concerns of graduate students about their employment as teaching fellows (TFs),
WHEREAS the Graduate Student Council will meet to discuss this proposal on December 4, 1996,
WHEREAS the Graduate Student Council has scheduled a meeting with Provost Carnesale for December 11, 1996, to discuss this and other issues,
BE IT RESOLVED that the Undergraduate Council endoreses a joint campaign of the Undergraduate Council and the Graduate Student Council to persuade the administration to reduce section sizes for the 1997-98 academic year.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all specific proposals for joint action with the Graduate Student Council will be submitted to the Undergraduate Council for its approval.
A discussion was initiated about means for publicizing student group events (in addition to encouraged use of notices in the GSAS Bulletin, signs in Dudley House, etc.), particularly electronic resources. The GSC is considering ways to implement a GSAS-wide calendar of events to which all GSAS organizations would be encouraged -- and expected -- to submit event listings. This will help groups to reach new members who might not have signed up at registration as well as publicize their events through the GSAS community. Any suggestions about how to best implement such a calendar are encouraged (WWW, bulletin board, e-mail, newsgroups, etc.). The GSC can serve as a clearing-house for information about student groups and their events. GSAS groups are encouraged to submit information about their organizations to the GSC for posting on the bulletin board in the Graduate Student Lounge.
Student groups should be reminded that the GSC offers web space on the GSC
World Wide Web server for recognized GSAS student organization as well as
e-mail forwarding for group addresses. Please
contact gsc@gsc.student.harvard.edu
for more information.
The National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) is the only student-run, non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of graduate and professional student life in the United States of America. To this end, NAGPS works to actively promote the interests and welfare of graduate and professional-degree-seeking students in public and private universities, as well as in the public and private agencies at the local, state, and national levels. In addition, through its national office and regional networks, NAGPS acts as a clearinghouse for information on graduate and professional student groups at all stages of development. The Graduate Student Council sent three representatives (Justin Cooper, Carlos Lopez and Pat Malone) to attend the 11th national meeting of NAGPS held in Santa Monica, October 24-27. For the GSC, this annual meeting presents the opportunity for discussion of issues and concerns which other student organizations around the country may have. I think this is particularly important as we, being part of Harvard University, tend to be isolated from other schools. The conference gives us an opportunity to learn about the programs which other graduate student organizations (GSO) are doing.
This year's conference was pack full of work during the entire weekend. In addition to the regular conference program which included Organizing and educational workshops on topics such as Travel Fund Programs, Conference planning, GSO Budgets, Dissertation Peer Support Groups and Legislative concerns, regional and caucus meetings, the highlight of this year's conference was a mini conference on Post Graduate Employment.
The three representative divided the task of attending as many of the workshops, informational meetings and committee sessions as possible. What we present here, due to space constraints, is a general summary of some of the conference sessions.
A point of interest is that the GSC has been to some extent ahead of some of the GSO represented at the Conference. Sessions on Networking your GSO and Assistantship Clearinghouse discusses programs and services which the GSC has or has had in placed. The Networking session The presenter focused on setting up a website, which we already have, and on announcing meetings and other points of interest by e-mail, which we already do. The Career Services session made it clear that Harvard has a great Career Service set-up for graduate students. Very few schools even offer extensive counseling to graduate students, much less have a career counselor who focuses almost entirely on graduate students, as we do. The only suggestion raised at this workshop that seemed applicable to us was that perhaps spouses of graduate students should be granted some access to career Services.
The Mini Conference on Post Graduate Employment was held on Friday, October 25. Sessions included: Graduate Career Services, Preparing Future Faculty, Graduate Alumni Tell us How They Got their Jobs, PhD's Ten Years Later and Unions and American Higher Education.
The most important sessions of the mini conference were PhD's Ten Years Later and the session on Preparing Future Faculty.
Dr. Orlando Taylor, professor at Howard University and the director of the Preparing Future Faculty Pogrom (PFF) sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools discussed this national initiative by the Pew Charitable Trust and administer by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Its purpose is to prepare current Ph.D. candidates to assume the roles of faculty members in various types of higher education institution. A primary emphasis of the program is the primacy of teaching as a necessary skill. The PFF recognizes that Ph.D. programs in general tend to emphasize research over teaching. The program stresses the important of preparing graduate students for a variety of faculty roles and responsibilities, including advising, community service, departmental and university politics, etc. The PFF also seeks to address the increasingly diverse teaching environment which present graduate student will be coming in contact with and seeks to sensitize future faculty to the environment. In contrast to TA training programs which seek to prepare students for teaching, the PFF program seeks to help grad students integrate teaching and research, expose grad students to the role of service in faculty life and attempts to help students balance the various facets of faculty life. There are 17 active programs in existence with : Cornell, Duke, Howard, Marquette, CUNY and Northeastern University among them. We feel strongly that this a program which Harvard University, as perhaps the leading institution of higher education and graduate education in the country, should be sponsoring.
The session on Ph.D.'s Ten Year Later, presented by Dr. Maresi Nerad, Director of Graduate Research at UC Berkeley discussed the early results and findings from a national survey of the career paths of approximately 6000 Ph.D.'s in a variety of fields. For the presentation, Dr. Nerad chose to present the preliminary results of surveys from Biochemistry, English, Mathematics, Political Science, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Ph.D.'s. The goal of the study is to develop an understanding of the outcomes of graduate education in terms of program satisfactions and subsequent employment. The preliminary results uncovered two general trends. First, Ph.D.'s in the science tend to start out employed in public or private corporations, change jobs in the average of 4 times and often ended by starting their own businesses or returning to academia. The results of the Humanities and Social Sciences sample of the survey, which were given comparatively less emphasis in the presentation, show that Ph.D.'s in these two fields tended to start out in academia, generally non tenured jobs. The sample showed a tendency to move into further professional education, namely law. However, some of the PhD's surveyed remained in academia. The returns from the English and Political Science Ph.D. were rather low comparatively - it is important to consider that this study is in its very early stages. The survey also seeks to gather qualitative information about career choices.
The body adopted its national platform at the end of the conference which is intended, according to the bylaws, to act as a guide for the Legislative Coordinator to follow in his/her efforts in lobbying for graduate and professional students in Washington DC. In addition the 1997 Legislative Platform is intended for individual schools' lobbying efforts at the university, local and state level.
The conference was very enlightening and it keeps us in touch with other graduate students around the country. Membership in NAGPS guarantees that we wont become entrapped within the ivory walls of Harvard and become disconnected from the rest of the planet. As we can see from the report above, there are programs that exist which would be of great benefit to all GSAS students.
Carlos Lopez
Pat Malone
Justin Cooper
Adjourned for pizza!
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Graduate Student Council: gsc@hcs.harvard.edu Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University |
Page last updated: 18 March 1997, 07:17:00 PM. |