The Graduate Student Council (GSC) held its first official meeting with its councilors of the 2020-21 academic year on Wednesday evening. The council elected fourth-year theater and performing studies Ph.D. student Kari Barclay and Will Paisley ’20 M.A. ’21 to serve as co-chairs for the new GSC cohort.
“I’m super excited to continue serving the community,” said Barclay, who previously led the GSC’s Diversity and Advocacy Committee alongside fourth-year immunology Ph.D. student Lawrence Bai, who did not run for a position in the council’s 2020-21 cohort.
Paisley, who is serving as a councilor for the first time, also expressed his excitement in being elected.
“I see this as a really awesome step to get involved with the graduate community,” he said. “I want to do the best job I can to organize the GSC and listen to as many voices as possible.”
Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) representatives present at the meeting said that graduate student housing lottery results will be announced by June 29 — tentatively.
“Things are always changing, so if something comes up, we might have to delay that announcement,” said R&DE representative Justin Akers.
Barclay also brought up the issue of the University not yet having concrete plans for the upcoming academic year and posed a question about whether graduate students would be allowed to cancel their housing accommodation requests after lottery results are announced.
“If you decide to cancel, there is usually a fee that is associated,” Akers said. “However, we suspended that fee until July 15, but we are flexible and open to modifying that.”
Akers also said that R&DE has not yet charged any early termination fees — which are typically charged if students leave their residences prior to the end of their housing contracts — since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and assured the GSC that Escondido Village Graduate Residences (EVGR) is on currently scheduled to be ready for graduate students to move in before the start of fall quarter. With the opening of EVGR, R&DE will be able to house 75% of graduate students on campus, according to Akers.
Arrillaga Family Dining Commons (AFDC) will remain open throughout the summer, according to R&DE Executive Director of Stanford Dining Eric Montell.
“We usually close after spring quarter for one week,” Montell said. “But this summer, AFDC will be open at its current regular hours, even during that week we would typically close.”
Contact Camryn Pak at cpak23 ‘at’ stanford.edu.