The Graduate Student Council (GSC) discussed the monthly food pantry and housing reassignments with Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) representatives and developed its faculty sexual violence resolution, which aims to provide a more transparent process for reporting sexual violence perpetrated by faculty, during its Tuesday meeting.
Kahlil Wells, Assistant Director of Stanford Dining on West Campus, gave the GSC updates about the monthly food pantry for graduate students that was held on Jan. 9.
“We actually ran out of food before the end of the food pantry,” he said.
Wells said they typically ordered food for 70% of registrants for the food pantry. However, they always ended up with excess food, so this month, they reduced the amount of food they ordered and ended up ordering too little.
“We did run out of food, but you know, we’re going to take a look at the numbers and come back. We ordered for about 60% of the registrants and about 65% showed up, so we weren’t off crazy, but there were a few people that were disappointed towards the end of the event,” he said.
Next month, Wells said they will try to order more to accommodate all the students who attend the monthly food pantry. According to Wells, there is not a significant discrepancy between the anticipated and actual number of attendees.
Justin Akers, Director of Student Housing Assignments, gave an update on housing for graduate students, noting that there are housing spaces still available for graduate students and they are currently processing any reassignment updates. Over the course of the year, graduate housing has been a reoccurring issue discussed by the council, with a focus on affordability and a lack of on-campus spaces. With spaces still available, graduate students can apply to live on campus for the winter quarter.
With the recent heavy rain, Akers was asked about any news of campus flooding and if any graduate students were affected by Jason Anderson, GSC Co-Chair and third-year aeronautics and astronautics Ph.D. student. Imogen Hinds, the executive director of R&DE Student Housing Operations, said that there has been only ponding of water and a couple of ceiling leaks in graduate housing.
The Daily has reached out to R&DE for comment on how these issues were addressed.
Hinds also told the GSC council that a detailed list of how to make reservations in the Kennedy Commons Great Room and Hacienda Room is now available and will be sent out to allow residents and VSOs to reserve these spaces.
The GSC discussed its faculty sexual violence resolution that they drafted in response to the silence from the University surrounding recent occurrences of sexual violence.
GSC Co-Chair and a fourth-year developmental and psychological sciences Ph.D. student Emily Schell, who is the primary author of the resolution, said that the resolution’s aim is to address sexual violence and harassment from faculty in particular.
“There’s been a lot of conversation in the Faculty Senate, especially earlier in the year around the sort of assaults that were very jarring and scary but were perpetrated by members outside of the Stanford community. And there has been literally silence when it comes to commentary on other faculty sexual assaults that have come out in recent months,” Schell said.
Schell voiced her desire for the GSC and Undergraduate Senate to vote on the resolution as early as next week and send it to the Faculty Senate during its first meeting this quarter.