Asking for a Grad Student Voice

From the Bruin: Graduate student leaders are asking UCLA to include students on the search committee for a new dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.

The university formed a nine-person committee in November which aims to replace the previous GSEIS Wasserman Dean, Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, who left UCLA in July to join the University of Massachusetts Boston. All nine members of the search committee are faculty.

In response, the two student government groups representing GSEIS graduate students sent a letter to Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Emily Carter in mid-November asking Carter to appoint student representatives to the committee and demanding a rationale behind the exclusion of students in the search committee...

Anne Gilliland, a member of the search committee and the associate dean for information studies, said the lack of student representatives was unusual, since searches for faculty consistently include student representatives... Carter said... that although students are not on the search committee, they can still give input via confidential emails to the committee, at an early November town hall meeting and at an early December student hearing session. Students can also attend the interview for finalists and send confidential feedback on the candidates to Carter and the Chancellor, she added...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2020/12/14/graduate-students-advocate-for-representation-on-dean-selection-committee