The Graduate Student Council (GSC) heard updates on campus dining and social life and deliberated over the circumstances that would warrant GSC funding for campus events and organizations at its Tuesday meeting.
Housing and dining updates
Representatives from Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE) and Student Housing Operations updated GSC members on housing and dining on campus. According to Eric Montell, associate vice provost for dining, hospitality & auxiliaries, Kosher dining was expanded in Florence Moore Dining Hall to include continental breakfast on weekdays and Sundays.
Kahlil Wells, senior associate director for dining, hospitality & auxiliaries, also provided an update on the food pantry, which provides food items to food insecure graduate students at no cost. 724 adults, 153 children and 30 seniors were served at the Country Dinner on Nov. 14, with the support of 30 volunteers from the Hoover Institution, according to Wells. The next food pantry will be held on Dec. 11.
The University is also in the process of assigning students to housing for winter quarter, acording to Justin Akers, the senior director of student housing assignments. Housing assignments will be announced this Saturday, with the exception of assignments for students with extreme circumstances or preferences.
ASSU executive updates
Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) executives Sophia Danielpour ’24 and Kyle Haslett ’25 rolled out the Row Programming Board, a team focused on helping row houses fund and plan all-campus events, at the meeting.
“We wanted to … bring back school spirit on campus, and we’re thinking about how to do that,” Danielpour said.
ASSU executives created a targeted programming system for the first two weeks of the quarter. They also told the GSC they introduced pilots for security and bartending to support parties, alongside a possible redesign of the event registration process.
Funding committee updates
Rains community associates (CAs) requested $1,450 for the Rains Art and Music Festival at last week’s meeting. The GSC did not approve funding before the event was held and declined to waive prior notice in this instance. Councilors explored considerations to retroactively fund the event.
After conversations with a representative for the event, councilors decided they would be open to further review of cost details to make a conclusion, since the issue was not urgent. Jacob Benford, a first-year law student, said they would also explore future events to “use the money facing forward.”
The Stanford Optical Society requested $4,680 for a product and annual events for around 90 graduate students. The GSC ultimately approved $4,380 in funds. Kristen Jackson, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in education cited a “collective frustration” with how difficult it is for organizations and campus events to receive funding from outside the GSC — because other sources are severely underfunded — as underlying the approval.
The GSC confirmed two nominees to Constitutional Council and approved appointments of students to various University committees.
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the GSC approved appointments to the Nominations Commission. The Daily regrets this error.