Mixed reception for RGS program

But the assembly of Austen fans — known as the Whitman College Jane Austen Society — is also interested in another, closer-to-reality social ambition: bridging what many see as a stark divide between undergraduates and graduate students at the University.

The group’s formation followed this year’s debut of the Residential Graduate Student (RGS) program, which selects 54 graduate students — about nine per residential college — to live in apartment-style rooms in underclass dorms. Participating graduate students eat in the dining halls and are expected to “make a meaningful contribution to college life,” according to the Dean of the College’s website.

One year after the program’s implementation, many undergrads and grad students say the program has allowed them to interact outside of precept and get to know each other in social settings — like the weekly Austen Society meetings — rather than purely academic ones. Additionally, RGS positions have proved a coveted commodity among graduate students, with far more applications for the posts than slots available. Others say the program, despite its successes, remains a small step toward bridging a vast gulf in the campus community.

Your friendly neighborhood graduate student

Many of the program’s proponents emphasize its potential to bring undergraduates and graduate students together through an array of social activities. “Undergraduates have come to know resident graduate students [not only] over meals and on their hallways, but also through a variety of programs including advising fairs, yoga practice, film series [and] dinner discussions on graduate programs and career choices,” Whitman Director of Studies Cole Crittenden said.

Such contact with resident graduate students has left some undergrads with favorable impressions of their older neighbors. Maria Huerta-Cervantes ’11 praised the affability of her RGS, Briallen Hopper, who is a leader of the Austen Society and holds regular study breaks. “She drops by to say hello and ask how we’re doing,” Huerta-Cervantes said. “She’s great at sparking a conversation.”

“It’s easier to interact with [grad students] when you see them in the dining halls, as opposed to approaching them walking around outside,” Huerta-Cervantes added.

But other undergraduates said that they did not see much of nearby resident graduate students. “There are two grad students in my hall, but I’ve only seen one of them,” Nick Tagher ’10 said.

Interaction should increase, Forbes College Master Christian Wildberg said in an e-mail, “once undergraduates become fully accustomed to the idea that graduate students live among them, and have discovered them as the great resource they are.”

“I really do believe that, given the chance, the grad students will mingle with the undergrads,” Huerta-Cervantes said. “When it comes to reaching out, I think that initially it’s very difficult for both the RGSs and the undergrads to feel comfortable with one another, which is why having them living together helps reduce the ‘awkward’ or ‘sketchy’ barrier that exists.”

Former Forbes College Council chair Roby Sobieski ’10, who has worked closely with grad students to launch the U-bikes rental service for Forbes students, said he thinks the gulf between grad students and undergraduates is still significant despite the advent of the RGS program. Though this gap has diminished “maybe a little bit for a select few [undergraduates] who lived by the grad students,” he said, “a lot more needs to be put into place and worked out to make it happen.”

“I feel like it’s not an easy task for them to integrate,” Sobieski added. “More events and ways for them to do so need to be laid out.”

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Finding their place in an undergrad’s world

Administrators have been “immensely pleased by the response from graduate students” to the RGS program, Whitman Dean Rebecca Graves-Bayazitoglu GS ’02 said. Last year, there were 130 applicants for the 54 positions, she said, while this year, 85 grad students applied for 20 newly vacated positions.

Still, the high level of interest in RGS slots may also be due to the perks they offer, such as subsidized housing and 125 dining hall meals per semester.

Many RGSs, however, said they were genuinely eager to participate in the social milieu of the residential colleges. Vrinda Chidambaram GS, a student in the Slavic languages and literatures department, said she joined the RGS program “to see what undergraduate life was really like and to convince undergraduates that we’re not creepy.”

Chidambaram added that she was influenced by her undergraduate experience at Cornell, where she “gained a lot from hanging out with graduate students.” At Cornell, she explained, most students live in off-campus housing after their freshman year, bringing them into frequent contact with graduate students living in the same apartment buildings.

At Princeton, however, Chidambaram found the disconnect between undergraduates and graduate students “a little bit bizarre,” and she wanted to help bridge that gap. As an RGS in Wilson College, she said, she has had “a fair amount of interaction” with undergrads, including hosting events for the World Music Club and chatting with undergrads over meals. “It was easy to interact with freshmen,” she said, “because everyone was just getting to know each other.”

Politics grad student Daniel Mark also said he joined the RGS program because he wanted to “get involved” in campus social activities — a goal he has pursued by working with the Whitman College Council to plan study breaks and discussion tables. Both graduate students said they enjoyed the program, though Chidambaram was unable to stay in the program next year because she will be studying abroad in Slovenia.

The University does not provide an official budget for RGSs, but they can be reimbursed for any expenses related to activities within colleges. “We were encouraged to promote various types of initiatives, ranging from an art room to movie nights and inviting guest speakers,” said Luca Grillo GS, one of the grad students who worked on the U-bikes project. “We did not have set guidelines, but [Wildberg] and the staff supported our projects.”

Though not all residential graduate students have been as active as he has, “different people have bonded with different persons, depending also on their particular interests and personalities,” Grillo said. “It is true, RGSs got involved in different ways and to different degrees, but everyone, it seems to me, made an honest effort to get involved, and at the end everyone made a contribution.”