Students as Advisors

For some years the Provost Office has supported a Student Advisory Committee. Groups of undergraduate and graduate students fill its ranks. It consists of students who currently occupy roles that represent other students. School academic councils consist of undergraduates chosen by their peers to work collaboratively with their dean’s office in improving the academic affairs of their school. Some members of the provost advisory committee are academic council members. They’re joined by elected officers of the undergraduate and graduate student governments.

The Provost’s Student Advisory Committee serves dual functions. The students have an opportunity to bring ideas to the Provost’s attention, and the Provost brings ideas to students who act as a sounding board for early-staged university initiatives. Committee members inform the Provost on student issues brought forward by fellow students within various schools. The Provost seeks student comments at an early stage before presenting them to the larger student body for further discussion. Feedback is sought from the students on various student-related ideas to ensure that Georgetown continues to advance towards achieving its goals and mission.

This is a post noting appreciation of the good work accomplished by the group over time.

The operations of the committee consist of polling members about desired agenda items and consulting with students about topics for which the provost office seeks student input. The students on the committee receive questions and expressions of concern from fellow students continuously. Sometimes, the question reveal that the university needs to clarify practices in an area (e.g., the opening hours of Yates). Sometimes, there are perceived gaps in services that students believe they should enjoy. On its part, the provost office floats ideas it is considering as “trial balloons” for the students’ reactions.

For example, some years ago, students raised issues about food insecurity. After investigation, it appeared that two simultaneous changes made sense. First, we established a food pantry available to students and staff who needed help. This has been in operation for some time and has expanded its offerings. Second, we realized that some students were cashing out their meal plans, and having too little money to feed themselves. We altered meal plan design to assure that no undergraduate could fail to have access to the food at Leo’s.

With regard to provost office initiatives, the undergraduates provost advisory committee were very helpful in designing a special program to bring to campus in Summer 2021, the entering class who started their Georgetown experience in fall, 2020, when all teaching was online and students were largely away from campus. The resulting Summer Hilltop Immersion Program (SHIP) gave that cohort of new students a chance to experience life as a residential student and do some bonding as a class. The session appears to achieve its goals.

More recently the group forwarded a new set of concerns. They noted that students were able to access digital versions of some national newspapers through the electronic resources of the library, but that not all features of the papers were available and the access was clunky. With a little polling of interest and negotiations with newspaper companies, we were able to sponsor free access to the New York Times and the Washington Post electronic versions for all faculty, students, and staff. This is a case where the students’ forwarding the proposal benefited everyone in the community, not just students.

Last semester, the provost office presented to the student advisory committee the need for student input into designing the social environment for students on the Capitol Campus. The students reached out to their peers, and we were able to mount multiple focus groups that yielded a large set of good ideas, many of which will be implemented as the Capitol Campus builds out.

A final example was a problem undetected by the administrative oversight. During the semesters heavily affected by COVID-19, the grading of courses was liberalized, allowing students to take more course using a Pass-Fail designation. The empirical result of this policy was that the grade point averages (GPAs) of students tended to rise. This affected Latin Honors at graduation (i.e., cum laude, magna cum Laude, summa cum laude), which are based on the prior year’s GPA distribution of graduates. As we moved away from this period, average GPAs will decline, producing some disadvantage to those classes. We were able to alter the policy so that all classes are treated fairly, using the current year’s GPA distribution as the base.

The committee works. Students on the committee serve the entire university by their membership. The committee is a hub to link student concerns with various offices around the university. Information is shared, concerns are aired, and new initiatives are launched. The dialogue has taught the provost things he did not know, and students have learned how a complicated organization like a university operates — all work toward the common good.