Carnegie Mellon University
December 05, 2018

GSA applauds student appointments to Search Committee for next SCS Dean

By Surya Aggarwal, GSA President, AY 2018-2019

Last October, GSA in collaboration with the Undergraduate Student Senate and Student Government, had expressed its disappointment on student exclusion from the Presidential Search Committee. Slightly over a year later, I am writing to commend the University for having course-corrected, and having invited students to be a part of the SCS Dean Search Advisory Committee.

Last year, we argued that diversity & inclusivity of student perspectives is critical in making decisions that will influence our collective future. For students to have a seat at all those tables, where decisions are being made, is important in ensuring that our thoughts and opinions are not overlooked. Inviting token participation is equivalent to exclusion. Over the past year, CMU has taken incremental steps in displaying commitment to inclusivity. For the SCS Dean’s Search, one undergradute and two graduate (one Master’s and one PhD) students have been asked to serve on the search advisory committee comprised of 21 individuals. Such a change in CMU is landmark, however, we believe that CMU must commit to student inclusion as a regular practice in staff, faculty and leadership hiring for such a goal to be called “achieved.”

A college Dean is entrusted with the responsibility of furthering all the aspects related to a college’s vision both academic and extracurricular - and these include graduate education and graduate student life. Graduate students are central to the strength of CMU and its various colleges by serving as course instructors and/or teaching assistants, supervising undergraduate students in their labs, and conducting their own research. Fostering the development of graduate students is not only essential for their current student success, but also to ensure the strength of CMU for years to come. As a college with a large graduate student population, these aspects are even more important for SCS to address. Outgoing SCS Dean, Andrew Moore, in his interview published in the Sept. 9 issue of The Tartan while recounting his unfinished business for SCS highlighted the need for keeping graduate student issues central to annual focus. As reported by The Tartan, Dean Moore said that he “worked on a bunch of things but I never really got started on the central issues of [the] ultra-important question of the quality of life for our graduate students. Many useful steps forward happened, but we never got around to making it a major annual focus for SCS as it deserves to be”. It will be incumbent on the new Dean to make this a priority in their role at the helm of this prestigious college. But a prerequisite is choosing an individual who understands and appreciates the importance of graduate education and improving graduate student lives.

In addition to many qualities that the next Dean of SCS would be expected to possess, they must be a champion of the cause to ensure a healthy work environment for all, particularly for graduate students. To borrow from a recently published article in The Chronicle of Higher Ed - “Yes, graduate school should be challenging - but it shouldn’t be traumatizing. There is a difference.” It is especially important that those in institutional leadership positions, or individuals vying for those jobs, recognize this important difference and can cultivate a healthy work environment. In that space, some related aspect they must pay attention to include: quality of mentorship received by graduate students, investing in resources and support for career and professional development, encouraging reasonable work hours, support students having a life outside of their research & courses, and help normalize these ideas.

It is my hope that this becomes the new normal; that students do not have to ask to be included in important university decision making processes each time. I hope that students will be included in the search committee for the upcoming search of the new Dean of the College of Engineering. And the searches for future University Provosts and Presidents. Finally, we also hope that our pending goal of student inclusion on the Board of Trustees can soon be realized as well.

Edited - an earlier version of this article mistakenly reported that two undergraduate students have been asked to serve on the search advisory committee.