Harvard Law School Student Government

The Harvard Graduate Council received the following e-mail about the opportunity for all Harvard graduate students to apply to the Student Advisory Board of the Hauser Center for Nonprofits.

As this is a position that runs from January 2010-January 2011, students who will graduate in June 2010 are not eligible to apply (with the exception of students at HGSE in a one-year masters program who may serve from Jan thru June 2010). More info can be found below and also here: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hauser/students/studentadvisorycommittee/index.html

A quick look at our recent accomplishments:

• Student Government Pub Nights: very popular weekly happy hours for students, with free beer and wine (starting this year on Thursday, Oct. 1!)
• Faculty-Student Lunch Program: every year, we arrange for students to have free lunches with distinguished HLS professors.
• Organize and distribute Unofficial Course Evaluations each semester.
• Solicited, collected, and presented student feedback regarding the grade change to Dean Kagan.
• Solicited, collected, and presented student feedback regarding the switch to the Early Interview Program to Office of Career Services.
• Formed and headed a student committee to meet with President Faust on the new dean search.
• Changed news@law in order to allow students to plan their weeks more conveniently.
• Convinced administration to buy toasters for the 2008-2009 free Monday morning bagel breakfasts.
• Obtained Splenda, strawberry cream cheese, and Heinz ketchup in the Hark.
• Worked with Restaurant Associates to respond to vegetarian students’ needs, including increased quantity of vegetarian sushi and better vegetarian labeling.
• Increased quantity of sweat towels at the Hemenway gym.
• Successfully advocated to see the Hark re-open from 2:30-5:00 to serve students’ needs in 2009.
• Distributed bags filled with candy and faculty advice to the 1Ls when they received their grades.
• Created a database of 3Ls willing to give 2Ls advice on applying to law firms.
• Dodgeball tournament (co-sponsored with HL Central and the intramural sports).
• Approved of many new students groups in 2008-2009.

The Harvard Graduate Council is sponsoring two events in the immediate future:

1. A talk with Steven Pinker, entitled “Language as a Window into Human Nature.” Thursday, April 9th, at 7 PM in the Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall.  

2. Harvard Graduate Leaders Summit. Monday, April 13th, 5:30 PM in Paine Hall. This will be a gathering of more than 140 leaders of student groups from across HLS’s campuses. Register here (free dinner included): http://www.harvardleaderssummit.com/

David

From Nilab Rahyar ’10:

The Advocacy Committee is organizing a university-wide leadership summit for leaders of student organizations of all graduate school at Harvard. Leaders from student organizations within each school have been contacted, and many have expressed a strong interest in attending this event. The location has not yet been finalized, and we are looking into possibly hosting it at HLS. The Social Committee gave an update of the speed dating event held in early March, and announced a St. Patrick’s Day party (details to follow).

Last week we sent out the following email seeking feedback for the Visiting Committee.  We’re still looking for more feedback.  See the email below for details.

Here’s a quick report from ITS Committee Rep, Shane Matthews, on what the ITS committee is up to:

1) reducing as much as possible the number of usernames/passwords. Current solutions for email and course information preclude a single password system, but integrating all systems to need as few logins as possible is a major goa

2) finding and implementing a new information architecture for the Student Information (this would address the acknowledged complaints about stability, queue times, and accessibility) though is cost prohibitive, especially in light of the recent difficulties with the solution purchased

3)the new more digital friendly application process for LLMs

The following update is from one our HGC Reps, Annie Levin:

Here’s the report from tonight’s meeting:

1.  The Advocacy Committee is restructuring, becoming one larger committee rather than several smaller ones, in order to better coordinate advocacy issues.  The committee would like at least one representative from each school; we need to determine which of our reps will serve on that committee.

2.  Every year the HGC sponsors a “Presidents’ Summit” for the student government presidents from each grad school.  This year, they are thinking of combining it with the Harvard College “Club President Summit” in April.  More details at the next meeting.

3.  There is potentially a “town hall” meeting in the works, to allow graduate students to voice concerns with a high-ranking Harvard official.  Date and time (and Harvard official) still pending.

4.  The Events Committee is working on a “Developing Dialogues” event to bring students from different schools together in an academic setting.  Ideas of speakers and topics are welcome from all HGC reps.

5.  There is a speed dating event next Wednesday, March 4.  The following advertisement should be made available to the student body:

Single?  Want the chance to meet other single Harvard graduate students?
Try Speed Dating!

When: Wednesday, March 4th
Appetizers begin at 6:30pm–Please arrive on time.  We need everyone there for
dates to begin.

Where: Vinalia Restaurant Lounge and Wine Bar
101 Arch Street
Boston, MA 02110
(Near Park St. and Downtown Crossing Stations)
www.vinaliaboston.com

Cost: $10 (via pay pal)

Registration Details:  Due to the popularity of these events, and to make the
registration process more fair, everyone who registers for opposite sex speed
dating will be placed in a lottery for a spot at the event.  We will notify you
if you have been randomly selected by email on Saturday February 28th.  If you
are not selected you will be refunded your registration fee.  We hope that this
change ensures that even if you’re not at your computer the moment registration
opens, you still have an equal chance of going to the event!

Dating: Round robin style, 2.5 minute dates.  We have space for opposite and
same-sex speed daters.

Sign up online at:  http://harvardspeeddating.com/

The HGC is sponsoring Beer School tonight and Queen’s Head.  And while it’s not free, it still looks like a pretty good opportunity to try some great beer.  Details below.

Brian

“BEER SCHOOL WEDNESDAY 5 PM!

Come grab your tickets for HARPOON BEER SCHOOL, Wednesday at 5 pm at the Cambridge Queen’s Head!

Harpoon will be bringing and speaking about their signature 100 Barrel and Leviathan Series, as well as their Celtic Ale and our very own 1636. Tickets are $10 at the bar, grab them any time during the day.

$10 buys you at least 4 frosty beverages with matched food to go with each. Tickets are going fast, so grab yours today!”

From one of HLS’ reps to the HGC, Philip Foust:

1. Richard Townsend was elected VP of Internal Affairs.
2. Our next meeting is scheduled for 2/24. Location TBD.
3. HGC is putting on a Valentine’s Day Party ath the Estate at 7:30PM. Does anyone know how we usually go about advertising these events?
4. Several other possible events and opportunities were discussed, but details were not settled:
   a. Greater collaboration with other universities, including MIT and Tufts.
   b. Another speed-dating event is in the works. If anyone has suggestions for locations, please contact the events committee.
   c. The Harvard Alumni Association is interested in greater interaction and input from the HGC, and there may be an opportunity for members to attend the next HAA meeting.

David

Following is an update from the December meeting of the Harvard Graduate Council from HLS representative Annie Levin.

Brian

I went to last night’s HGC meeting, and here’s my little synopsis:

1.  Head delegates signed up from each school.  (I signed up . . . It’s really just a “communication hub” designation.)

2. The spring agenda was set.  The following projects are in the works:
a) HGC vision statement
b) Web connecting/grad school event calendar project (a centralized location to find daily events at each school)
c) University-wide club collaboration event (a networking and leadership-building event for all the presidents of all the graduate clubs across the university, to help nurture opportunities for collaboration across schools)
d) Cross-registration mentoring program (a program to designate mentors at each school that can help grad students with cross-registration–helping grad students know what classes and professors to take and how to navigate each school)
e) indoor tennis courts (currently the indoor tennis courts are free for undergrads but up to $40/hr for grad students)
f) 5K grad student run on the Charles, to raise money for a charity
g) monthly social events (more speed dating, a Valentine’s Day event, St. Patrick’s Day event, end of the year event)

3. One last idea discussed at the meeting to help facilitate more social interaction between schools was to ask each graduate school to open up one event next semester to the whole graduate student community; it can be an academic event, a social event, a student-government organized event…the HGC could co-sponsor and help with advertising.  Would the law school be willing to do that?

Today we emailed our mid-year report to all HLS students (if you didn’t get one, let us know). The report outlines what we did this semester and what we plan to do next semester. But, ultimately, your Student Government exists to serve you. So let us know how you think we’re doing and what we could do better!

David

The Harvard Graduate Council is sponsoring a speed-dating event this Monday, December 8th, at 6:30 PM. Registration starts on Wednesday, 12/3. Here is the website: http://harvardspeeddating.com/.

David

Following is a report from one of HLS’s four representatives to the Harvard Graduate Council, Nilab Rahyar ‘10, on the latest HGC meeting:

The last Harvard Graduate Council meeting was held at HLS on Tuesday, November 25th. The University Planning Office organized a focus group with HGC members to discuss the Common Spaces Project–an effort to bring together Harvard students from the various schools. Many HGC members expressed interest in a graduate student center (with space for social events, sports, dining, studying, etc.). The feedback from HGC will be relayed to the Common Spaces Steering Committee. We look forward to working with the University Planning Office on this exciting project!

Please share any thoughts or questions you have on the HGC with us via email or leave us a comment here.

David

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Gregory Dworkowitz, a student representative on the Financial Services committee, reports:

“We had our first meeting last week.  We focused primarily on the SFS website, brainstorming ways to simplify the internal site, make it more user-friendly, and help the office run more smoothly.  This is a big project and will occupy much of our time this year.  We also reviewed the data from the last year and projections for this year, focusing on early response to the PSI.  Finally we spoke about the Harvard endowment and any impact its fluctuations might have on our mission.  This was just a preliminary discussion, as we don’t yet know what the budget will look like going forward. We also discussed the need for a 1L on the committee!” 

The Harvard Graduate Council is a University-wide student government body, made up of representatives from all of the graduate schools.  HLS has four representatives on the Graduate Council.  Following is a report from one of the those reps, Nilab Rahyar ’10, on the latest HGC meeting:

The meeting began with general introductions from the members of the various grad schools. Aaron Chadbourne will be meeting with people from Queenshead Pub, they have expressed interest in working with the HGC and individual grad schools to attract grad students there. Aaron would like an update on how each grad school feels about this, any thoughts we have, etc. The events committee has organized a mixer at Redline this weekend which they want publicized through each school. Future events include speed dating (both opposite and same sex) and a winter formal. The meeting ended with everyone splitting up into committees that they expressed interest in being involved in. I am on the committee that will be drafting a document/vision plan on behalf of the graduate students of the university and which will be presented to President Faust, deans and other university leaders. The document will address the objectives and proposals of HGC, we will develop these issues after analyzing survey data from grad students that was compiled last year (the data includes concerns and comments from grad students).

Please share any thoughts or questions you have on the HGC with us via email or leave us a comment here.

Brian