Graduate student concerns omitted from hurricane plan

By Eileen Meyer     10/2/08 7:00pm

While I am grateful that all faculty, staff and students pulled through the recent storm without injury, I must comment on the disquieting attitude of the administration both before and just after what remains one of the worst natural disasters in Texas history - an attitude that has severely injured the relationship between the administration and graduate students.As I have spent four years as an undergraduate at Rice, followed by several more as a graduate student, I can personally attest to a different standard of treatment of undergraduate versus graduate students. Most recently, even as undergraduates and parents were being soothed and reassured in the face of the hurricane, faculty and graduate students were told they were "nonessential" personnel, and were banned from campus unless they were in Rice housing.

Undergraduates and the few graduate students in university housing received timely and informative updates throughout the storm. Outside of a single e-mail from Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Paula Sanders stating Rice's upcoming closure late on Thursday before the storm, not a single e-mail was sent to graduate students for five days after, leaving many in the dark about classes being held, or even the fact that the campus was dry. Sanders made it very clear in her e-mail on Thursday that graduate students were on their own - "We do not have the facilities to offer shelter to all graduate students, but those in Rice Graduate Apartments and the Morningside Apartments, as well as graduate students who live in designated mandatory evacuation zones (you can check these by zip code) may take shelter in McNair Hall."

During Hurricane Rita, all graduate students were welcome on campus. During Hurricane Ike, even though communities known to house many graduate students and faculty were hard hit, leaving members of our community with no power or usable water, water-logged homes and children home from school, an administration which denied taking any responsibility for us demanded our prompt return, as classes were held as early as Tuesday. Graduate students with no place to stay during and after the storm were turned away from shelters on campus and kicked out of their offices. The negligence toward the graduate community, particularly in relaying basic information, was neglectful, shameful and was certainly felt. In addition, by Thursday evening all the hotels that were accepting guests in Houston were booked, and it was too late for students to find alternative housing - especially those that did not feel safe in their current place of residence.

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While Rice was congratulating itself on a job well done for keeping the undergraduate population safe and comfortable during a natural disaster, there was no concern for the suffering of graduate students who had been severely impacted by the hurricane. Many of us have damage to our homes and had no power for many days.

President David Leebron stated on the Rice Web site that he opened Rice for all off-campus undergraduate students "because much of Houston remains without power, and in some cases without adequate water pressure, [therefore] we have been sheltering our off-campus students in the residential colleges. Because Rice has water and power, we are offering to continue to house all off-campus undergraduate students who do not have power at their apartments." Further he adds, "we are doing everything we can to assist students who are living off campus. Before the storm struck, all off-campus students who were in Houston and not staying with their families were asked to shelter in the colleges. After the storm, those students and others who returned were invited to remain on campus if they had no electricity or their apartments were damaged. We also provided free meals to our temporary residents." "Students" in this case do not include graduate students.

The uncaring attitude and utter lack of communication was a total failure on the part of the administration toward an important but often neglected population at Rice: the graduate students.

It is sad that it often takes a natural disaster to bring out the best in our natures - the helping hand and understanding ear that neighbors and colleagues might find otherwise unavailable. It is sadder still when our community completely fails an entire segment of the population, seemingly without noticing.

My three years as a graduate student and also serving the Graduate Student Association as department representative have resulted in a pervasive feeling that graduate students are second class citizens on campus and the actions by the administration further support this feeling. Is it too difficult to ask that graduate students be carbon copied on e-mails to undergraduates so that they are at least as prepared and informed in times of difficulty?

On behalf of all graduate students, I implore Sanders and the Rice administration to create better policies to deal with graduate students in as fair and consistent a manner as are the undergraduates. If Rice is to reach the Vision for the Second Century and strengthen its graduate and postdoctoral programs by attracting and recruiting high-caliber students and young researchers, it needs a better approach to making graduate students feel welcome and happy to be at Rice University. That feeling does not exist today for many graduate students who are still dealing with the aftermath of Ike.

Eileen Meyer is a physics and astronomy graduate student. Roman Natoli, a bioengineering graduate student, contributed to this column.

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