GSAS Student Council Holds Special Elections, Laments Dining Options

The Harvard Graduate of Arts and Sciences Student Council held special elections and discussed upcoming events and advocacy issues at its third open meeting of the fall semester.

Students ran for all three unfilled positions — divisional representative for the social sciences, at-large representative for special students and visiting students, and at-large representative for Allston students — capping a months-long effort to staff the council.

The council also motioned to correct all grammatical errors within their constitution, and motioned to ratify the creation of an at-large representative role for special students, who are non-degree seeking students at GSAS. Both motions passed.

In addition to correcting their constitution’s grammar, the GSC also announced its delegation to the Ivy+ Summit, a conference of graduate student government leaders across Ivy+ schools to discuss advocacy challenges and achievements at each of their locations. This year, the summit will be held in early December at Dartmouth College.

The delegation will include GSC president Laura E. König and vice president Victor A. Arul along with Harvard Graduate Council president Dalton Fogarty and vice president Brad Canales.

At the meeting, co-chairs of support David A. Caldas and Flora S. Giordani, who was elected to the role last meeting, asked for volunteers for a selection committee for January@HarvardGriffin, a program that allows GSAS students to teach courses during the January term. The committee will choose new courses for the upcoming term.

The GSC also discussed graduate dining services, the GSC’s advocacy topic of the month.

Max Lu said that the GSC was interested in soliciting opinions on graduate dining services to “bring the feedback to the administration.”

“We’d like to hear how that’s going, because we’ve heard different things. The food quality — we’ve heard it’s improved. But also, some people say it’s getting more expensive, which feels very important,” Lu said.

Julia Kempton, a nominee for division representative for the social sciences and a Master’s student in Middle Eastern Studies, said students living in residential halls are impacted by a requirement to spend almost $3,000 a year at the Commons at Lehman Hall, the GSAS dining hall.

According to Kempton, many students in residential halls are “not there by choice,” as their housing allowances cannot accommodate other options.

“So you’re sort of forced into this situation, which is fine, the food is generally pretty good,” Kempton said. “But there’s also been a number of incidents in the last couple of weeks where food has run out during meals, or the dining hall has closed early because they had no options remaining.”

Kempton’s comments were met with immediate applause from the rest of the members present at the meeting.

Crista Martin, a spokesperson for Harvard University Dining Services, wrote in a statement Friday that the Commons does not close early.

“The confusion may have come in students seeing a station in the process of replenishing and assumed it to be closed,” she wrote.

At the meeting, the chair of recognition, Zelin Wang, spotlighted third-year Ph.D. student Yi Zhu, who is doing his Ph.D. in Quantum Science and Engineering, as GSAS’ “Student of the Month” for his contributions to Harvard’s physics department.

Zhu will win a $100 cash prize for the honor.

—Staff writer Maeve T. Brennan can be reached at maeve.brennan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @mtbrennan.

—Staff writer Angelina J. Parker can be reached at angelina.parker@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @angelinajparker.