The Graduate Student Government sponsored and hosted the conference, which was held at Princeton for the first time in at least a decade.
“The purpose of the conference is to share information amongst our peer institutions, as the graduate student governments at these schools face challenges most similar to our own,” GSG president Kevin Collins said in an e-mail.
Roughly 15 students participated in each of the breakout sessions, which covered topics like advisor-student relationships; health care coverage and advocacy; building bridges with undergraduates and faculty; and fostering relationships with alumni. Each seminar was moderated by a Princeton GSG representative and functioned as an open forum in which students could ask questions and discuss current issues faced by their institutions.
One seminar examined the perceived lack of connections between undergraduate and graduate students. GSG health and life chair Kelly Kearney said she saw a significant divide between the two student groups at Princeton.
“The way we can cross bridges is with extra-curricular[s] which are mixed,” Kearney said. She participates in the wind ensemble.
Collins said he thought the limited contact between undergraduate and graduate students was the main reason for each group’s impressions of the other.
“Undergraduates tend to see graduates as sketchy, while graduates have certain impressions of undergrads,” he said in an interview.
Because graduate students typically do not attend the same institution where they completed their undergraduate degree, Collins said, the experience of adjusting to a new school might also contribute to the divide.
Another seminar discussed diversity within the graduate student community, focusing on the organization of events that would welcome students from all backgrounds. Participants in a seminar on health care and advocacy discussed problems like unpaid or brief maternity leave and the importance of having accessible facilities for new mothers to breast-feed in privacy.
“[This summit] helps us realize where we stand in comparison to other similar institutions,” Kearney said.
In addition to providing a forum for graduate students to discuss key issues facing their institutions, the Ivy Summit has also provided graduate students with tools to advocate for policy changes.
Emily Stoops and Paul Pearlman, both graduate students at Yale, used data from last year’s summit to lobby for reforms in Yale’s dental plan, which Pearlman said was inferior to that of almost every other Ivy League school.
“We proved this to our general council with data from last year’s summit, and the administration recently changed” Yale’s health insurance coverage, Pearlman said.
The Ivy Summit has also proved informative at Princeton.
“The Graduate Student Government has made several changes based on our participation,” Collins said in the e-mail, citing an annual survey to track graduate student satisfaction that began last spring after the 2009 Ivy Summit.
The GSG is also attempting to address the divide between undergraduate and graduate students.
“The GSG plans to sponsor more social and service events where undergraduates, graduates and faculty can interact comfortably,” Collins said in the interview.
Collins explained that he hopes such activities will allow the graduate-undergraduate dynamic to evolve. “If you only know graduate students as preceptors or in seeing them on the Street,” he said, “you are simply not getting the full picture.”
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